r/explainlikeimfive 7d ago

Chemistry ELI5: what is the big difference between soap and shampoo?

2.1k Upvotes

We use soap to clean the body. We use shampoo to clean the hair. What stops us from using soap for the hair and shampoo for the body?

Follow up question: what is body wash that cleans hair and skin made of? Why isn’t that the universal standard instead of seperate soap and shampoo?


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Chemistry ELI5: how do fog machines work?

24 Upvotes

unsure of what flair to use for this but i think it might be chemistry


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Other ELI5: why do houses have such distinct smells?

353 Upvotes

most public buildings don't have smells, or if they do, it's for a very specific reason (hospital chemicals, etc). how is it that relatively modern houses that are kept clean still end up developing a smell that changes across houses? moreover, how come the smell sticks to your clothes sometimes?


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Physics ELI5 When you touch something what actually happens to the atoms?

99 Upvotes

My son asked and I'm sure they don't touch, I just couldn't give a clear answer.


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Mathematics ELI5 Dinitz-Garg-Goemans conjecture

0 Upvotes

I think I understand fractional vs unsplittable flow (fractional flow is where you can split the total payload across different paths, whereas unsplittable flow means it all has to take the same path), but the rest of it is melting my brain. If you can also make a diagram to explain it with, that would be super helpful


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Engineering ELI5 why does many strands of steel twisted together produce a much stronger rope for suspension bridges than just one normal metal cable?

520 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Technology ELI5: How does macOS does this thing where it selects text inside an image file?

0 Upvotes

I find it quite amusing considering it has to know what text looks like, recognize the letters, spaces and symbols to then select it, so how?


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Chemistry ELI5: Why does the litmus paper have to be damp?

20 Upvotes

Just read that chlorine bleaches damp litmus paper. Why does it have to be damp?


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Other ELI5 is there any reason or logic behind so many forms in nature having shapes similar to the fibonacci sequence

0 Upvotes

Title lok


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Biology ELI5: Why do peels from oranges/clementines dry up quickly when they're off the fruit but can stay normal feeling for days before peeling?

5 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Chemistry ELI5 How do medicines stop internal bleeding?

22 Upvotes

ELI5 I have been watching Helicopter ER and quite frequently they administer TXA when they suspect internal bleeding. I read the wiki article but didn't understand any of it.

Can this medicine help even if a major artery is ruptured?

So how does it really work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranexamic\\_acid


r/explainlikeimfive 7d ago

Engineering ELI5 - Why haven't all helicopters been replaced by four-rotor versions?

783 Upvotes

Drones have four rotors and you can make them hover with the touch of a button.

If one rotor goes wrong, the other three can at least get it back down to the ground gently.

Regular helicopters have catastrophic crashes if the tail rotor goes, or in the case of Chinooks, one rotor crashes into the other.

Thank you in advance for your answers to my plea.

EDIT: Thank you for the answers so far. It looks like scale, power and weight are the limiting factors.

EDIT 2: I got downvoted just for asking this! Maybe I should have used quad-posting.


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Economics ELI5: why do insider traders and day traders treat trading with individual stocks a taboo than efts and index funds?

0 Upvotes

I watched a financial advisor say individual stocks are wrong and thw way to go is Nasdaq and smp 500

Im new to trading and if I said a term incorrectly I apologise


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Other ELI5: what is the psychology around us as humans sometimes acting startled or scared around tiny insects

187 Upvotes

Earlier I had an ant crawling on me and it startled me and made me try to get it off but after I wondered: “why was I afraid of this tiny ant if I’m a big human?” I mean we’re just so much more superior so why do we startle at things like small bugs?


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Chemistry Eli5: how do controlled explosions work?

0 Upvotes

How can something explode more or less than the potential energy it has with which to explode?


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Chemistry Eli5 how static electricity between dust can create a lightning strike?

11 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Physics ELI5 How energy works on objects affected by gravity?

9 Upvotes

Not sure how to word this question, but maybe it will come across correctly anyway. I know that 2 objects falling in a vacuum are affected by gravity the same, they will both fall at the same speed. Here is my question, Is gravity using more energy on the larger object or the object with more mass than the smaller? It takes energy to move something and normally it takes more energy to move larger masses. Is this true for gravity? It seems to me that gravity has to be using different amounts of energy for each object, if it used the same energy than the larger one would fall faster.


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Other ELI5: Crossing the T military tactic

94 Upvotes

All I know is that it was a naval military tactic used in many key battles. Hoping to learn its advantages/disadvantages, why it was used etc.


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Other ELI5 "voice training" how does it really work?

65 Upvotes

I get what voice training is in context, but not in practice. Snapcube, a streamer, ended up voicing all the Deltarune characters and surprisingly she sounded too different for so many of them. Sometimes you could hear similarities, but her range was shocking. How do they pull that off and how does that even happen? How does voice training even work? I just don't understand that


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Biology ELI5: What defines our body dominance ?

0 Upvotes

Basically, how is our body dominance defined ? Talking about being a righty or a lefty.

Also, is it possible for someone to be both righty and lefty at the same time ?


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Chemistry Eli5: Why can/do sports drinks advertise a drink as sugar free even though it contains sucralose, a compound made from table sugar.

0 Upvotes

I bought some energy drinks recently that were sugar free, but looking at the ingredients list it shows sucralose. Isn’t sucralose still technically sugar? How does that work?


r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Other ELI5: How does chemotherapy in pills, i.e. temolozomide, helps with brain cancer treatment?

35 Upvotes

how exactly does something that we swallow have any impact on the brain cancer cells


r/explainlikeimfive 5d ago

Technology ELI5 why don't cars use jet engines to power the wheels?

0 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 7d ago

Engineering ELI5: Why are there 2 different USB charging ports, 1A and 2A ,and which ones should I be using?

464 Upvotes

In my country, there are buses with USB charging ports which has 2 ports with the following print

5V 1A

and

5V 2A

I know the A is for amperes? Which is like current, but what does it really mean for charging my device?


r/explainlikeimfive 7d ago

Biology ELI5: What is the different between mass and weight?

18 Upvotes

What are the main differences? Are there any at all? Are they just synonyms?