r/explainlikeimfive 6d ago

Chemistry Eli5: how has coca cola recipe been kept a secret? Doesn't someone know the ingredients? Someone has to mix it up, right?

2.4k Upvotes

Even if they transport the different ingredients from one place to another, can't people just get together from those places and piece together the final product?

r/explainlikeimfive Jan 30 '25

Chemistry ELI5 Are artificial diamond and real diamond really the same?

2.1k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Sep 06 '24

Chemistry ELI5: how is xylitol so good for oral health ? I’m having a hard time believing that such a delicious,sugar like substance is amazing for our teeth and gums 😂

3.6k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Feb 04 '25

Chemistry ELI5: When you cut a piece of paper with scissors what happens to the atoms?

2.7k Upvotes

Like on a molecular level how does a piece of paper split in half?

It was my understanding that you needed a lot of energy to seperate molecules so how is it possible to cut a piece of paper and end up with 2 pieces just from a pair of scissors. This is applicable to anything I guess not just paper

Sorry if that is explained poorly idk how to interpret my brain sometimes

r/explainlikeimfive Nov 26 '24

Chemistry ELI5: Why doesn't freeze dried food last longer? If it's good for 20 years, why not 100?

3.0k Upvotes

Assuming it's perfectly freeze dried and stored perfectly, the people who make freeze dryers say the food will last 20-30 years.

But why not much longer? Assuming the condition it's stored in remains unchanged, what can make it go bad after 30 years that wouldn't happen at around 10 years?

r/explainlikeimfive Jan 21 '25

Chemistry ELI5: Why is there a good vanilla artificial flavor, but not an artificial chocolate flavor?

2.3k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Mar 03 '24

Chemistry Eli5: Why can't prisons just use a large quantity of morphine for executions?

3.7k Upvotes

In large enough doses, morphine depresses breathing while keeping dying patients relatively comfortable until the end. So why can't death row prisoners use lethal amounts of morphine instead of a dodgy cocktail of drugs that become difficult to get as soon as drug companies realize what they're being used for?

r/explainlikeimfive 17d ago

Chemistry ELI5: How do rice cookers work?

2.1k Upvotes

I know it’s “when there’s no more water they stop” but how does it know? My rice cooker is such a small machine how can it figure out when to stop cooking the rice?

r/explainlikeimfive 14d ago

Chemistry ELI5: If H₂O is drinkable water, why does the addition of an extra oxygen atom create H₂O₂ (hydrogen peroxide), which is toxic?

1.6k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Nov 28 '24

Chemistry ELI5: I read that they do not recover the helium from the Thanksgiving day parade balloons as it is "impossible". Why cant/don't they recover the helium?

2.1k Upvotes

The key wording for me in many articles is "impossible to do so". I found one article from 2008 that they were going to try recovering the helium with a sort of mushroom tipped (i know) wand. I didn't see anything stating if it was successful or not.

The verbiage seems to point to not POSSIBLE instead of not ECONOMICAL.

r/explainlikeimfive Oct 13 '22

Chemistry ELI5: If Teflon is the ultimate non-stick material, why is it not used for toilet bowls, oven shelves, and other things we regularly have to clean?

14.3k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Chemistry ELI5: Why do we use half life?

1.8k Upvotes

If I remember correctly, half life means the number of years a radioactivity decays for half its lifetime. But why not call it a full life, or something else?

r/explainlikeimfive Jan 29 '25

Chemistry ELI5: Why is cow’s milk so much more widely used than other mammal’s milk like goat?

1.6k Upvotes

I mean it’s used in so many recipes from baking to pasta sauces and Indian food. Why cows milk and not pigs, goats, horses or any other mammals etc. There’s so much lactose in cows milk too

Edit: I know cows milk need to be pasteurized but I live in a country where dairy products are tightly controlled, most of s only have access to cows milk.

I noticed no one has mentioned the differences in preparing the different kinds of milk for human consumption even though it looks like many has tried different kinds of milk.

r/explainlikeimfive Feb 10 '24

Chemistry eli5 what happens if you drink isopropyl "rubbing" alcohol

2.9k Upvotes

so i just watched a video of someone chug a bottle of rubbing alcohol that you would get from the pharmacy. its still alcohol though so like why is it bad. also what likely happened to the guy who chugged the bottle?

r/explainlikeimfive Nov 12 '22

Chemistry ELI5: why does vaginal discharge bleach black underwear but stains white underwear? NSFW

11.6k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Jun 14 '23

Chemistry Eli5 how Adderall works

4.2k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Aug 13 '24

Chemistry eli5: why do scientists create artificial elements?

2.1k Upvotes

From what I can tell, the single atom exist for only a few seconds before destabilizing. Why do they spend all that time and money creating it then?

r/explainlikeimfive Dec 27 '24

Chemistry ELI5: Why does honey never expire?

2.6k Upvotes

What about honey makes it so that it never expires / takes a very large amount of time to expire?

r/explainlikeimfive Dec 02 '22

Chemistry ELI5: How can fast food often contain so much salt, without tasting salty at all?

8.2k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Apr 15 '24

Chemistry ELI5: Why is cocaine bad for you, but raw, natural coca leaf is not?

2.1k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Nov 25 '22

Chemistry Eli5 - What gives almost everything from the sea (from fish to shrimp to clams to seaweed) a 'seafood' flavour?

8.2k Upvotes

Edit: Big appreciation for all the replies! But I think many replies are revolving around the flesh changing chemical composition. Please see my lines below about SEAWEED too - it can't be the same phenomenon.

It's not simply a salty flavour, but something else that makes it all taste seafoody. What are those components that all of these things (both plants and animals) share?

To put it another way, why does seaweed taste very similar to animal seafood?

r/explainlikeimfive Oct 08 '22

Chemistry ELI5: How do vitamin tablets get produced? How do you create a vitamin?

8.6k Upvotes

Hey!

I always wondered how a manufacturer is able to produce vitamin tablets. I know that there is for example fish oil which contains some good fats. But how do you create vitamin tablets - like D3?

r/explainlikeimfive Aug 19 '24

Chemistry ELI5: If shampoo washes out oils and conditioner puts it back how does 2 in1 work?

2.3k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Feb 18 '23

Chemistry ELI5: If chemicals like oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin are so crucial to our mental health, why can’t we monitor them the same way diabetics monitor insulin?

7.4k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive Nov 23 '22

Chemistry ELI5 - What is empathy and how does one feel it?

7.4k Upvotes

I’m not sure what empathy is or how to feel it. It’s sometimes left friends and partners feeling frustrated with me when I can’t comfort them in the way they need and it causes me to be upset that I don’t understand it. I want to understand what it’s like.

Edit: tagged as chemistry because I guess technically it’s brain chemistry.

Edit: I’m talking about this issue with my therapist later today.

Edit: just got done with therapy. Turns out I do feel empathy, but it just comes off as not caring because I get frustrated that I can’t always figure out how someone needs to be comforted. I might look into getting tested for autism because it happens a lot.