/u/Berkamin's posts in /r/askscience

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I heard that detergents, soaps, and surfactants have a polar end and a non-polar end, and are thus able to dissolve grease. But so do fatty acids; the carboxyl end (the acid part) is polar, and the long hydrocarbon tail is non-polar. So why don't fatty acids behave like soap? What's the difference?

7179 upvotes

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How does water become super clear in the wild? What happens to suspended solids, algae, and plankton?

128 upvotes

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How are molecular structures determined with such precision? How were they determined in the past?

71 upvotes

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How is atomic number determined? If a sample of an unknown heavy element is obtained, how would chemists determine its atomic number?

11 upvotes

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When were electron orbital shapes/probability distributions calculated, and how were the shapes of the orbitals determined with such certainty before access to reasonably fast computation?

8 upvotes

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How can isobutane have a global warming potential of only 3.3 times that of CO2 when methane is roughly 80-90 times that of CO2 (within the first 20 years of emission)?

7 upvotes

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Are there instances of solidly herbivore species transitioning to being solidly carnivores, or vice versa? How would that even work? And how long has it taken for such transitions to occur? What causes such a transition?

5 upvotes

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Does lift depend on the distance from the ground ?

4 upvotes

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What exactly is sea foam? Is a lot of sea foam a symptom of a problem, or is it benign?

3 upvotes

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How does the diameter of a particle accelerator influence its function? Is bigger always better, and if so, why?

3 upvotes

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Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
I heard that detergents, soaps, and surfactants have a polar end and a non-polar end, and are thus able to dissolve grease. But so do fatty acids; the carboxyl end (the acid part) is polar, and the long hydrocarbon tail is non-polar. So why don't fatty acids behave like soap? What's the difference?	7179
How does water become super clear in the wild? What happens to suspended solids, algae, and plankton?	128
How are molecular structures determined with such precision? How were they determined in the past?	71
How is atomic number determined? If a sample of an unknown heavy element is obtained, how would chemists determine its atomic number?	11
When were electron orbital shapes/probability distributions calculated, and how were the shapes of the orbitals determined with such certainty before access to reasonably fast computation?	8
How can isobutane have a global warming potential of only 3.3 times that of CO2 when methane is roughly 80-90 times that of CO2 (within the first 20 years of emission)?	7
Are there instances of solidly herbivore species transitioning to being solidly carnivores, or vice versa? How would that even work? And how long has it taken for such transitions to occur? What causes such a transition?	5
Does lift depend on the distance from the ground ?	4
What exactly is sea foam? Is a lot of sea foam a symptom of a problem, or is it benign?	3
How does the diameter of a particle accelerator influence its function? Is bigger always better, and if so, why?	3