What are some of the best answers on Quora?

Tanya Shrivastava, Curiosity never satisfied

209k Views • Upvoted by Shreyes Seshasai, Director of Engineering at Quora and Jonathan Brill, Writer Relations @ Quora

Finally!

I've been working on this post for a few months now, so it's a long list. It was very time consuming, but I learnt a lot in the process, and I'm hoping it'd help some other Quorans learn more from Quora in less time.

See the content title and use Ctrl+F to find it and then navigate- that'd be easier.

PS: I've learnt a lot from here; this is just my way of trying to return the favour.

Content:

1. Previously made lists
2. Layman's terms - Part 1
3. Layman's terms - Part 2
4. What should everyone know about X?
5. What does it feel like to X? - Part 1
6. What does it feel like to X? - Part 2
7. Is it informative in here, or is it just them?
8. Marcus Geduld on life, psychology and learning
9. Introducing- The Engel Series
10. The Engel Series Part 2
11. The Engel Series Part 3
12. The Engel Series Part 4
13. The Engel Series Part 5
14. Universe in a glass of wine
15. Cosmology
16. Evolution
17. What is the evolutionary purpose/advantage of X? And related questions.
18. Ethics, science, theism, atheism and psychology
19. Q&A about Life
20. Literature and Art
21. Anders Kaserog on Mathematics
22. Children and Parenting
23. Fruits, Food and Nutrition
24. Restaurants, cooking, recipes and cuisines
25. Travelling and Tourist Destinations
26. General Sports, Football, Cricket and Chess
27. Education and learning
28. Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship
29. Neuroscience, Aging, Death and Dying
30. Humour, Jokes, Memes and Joke Answers
31. Statistics by Stormy Shippy- Real name, really!

Previously made lists

1. Oliver Emberton's answer to What are the most upvoted answers on Quora?
2. Anonymous' answer to What are the most upvoted answers on Quora?
3. Mohit Arora's answer to What blog posts on Quora have 500+ upvotes?
4. Anonymous' answer to What are some of the best answers on Quora?
5. What question on Quora has the most 1,000+ upvoted answers?
6. Murali Krishnan's answer to What were Quora's best answers of 2013?
7. Best of quora 2010-2012 A. e-book and B. Link to answers
Link to e-book:
Page on quoracdn.net
Link to answers:
What answers are in the "Best of Quora 2010-2012" book?

Layman's terms - Part 1

1. Arjun Subramaniam's answer to If you could give one interesting example to grab someone's interest in game theory (ex: how useful it can be) what would that example/problem it be?

2. Barry Shein's answer to How should I explain recursion to a 4-year-old?

3. Jonathan Paulson's answer to How should I explain dynamic programming to a 4-year-old?

4. Evan Pu's answer to In layman's terms, what is amortized time complexity?

5. Edwin Chen's answer to What's the easiest way to understand Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems?

6. Kevin Lin's answer to How do you explain dimensions greater than 3, to a 5 year old?

7. Andrei Kolodovski's answer to How do you explain quantitative easing in layman's terms?

8. Joshua Engel's answer to How can the Halting Problem be explained to a layman?

9. Isaac Lewis' answer to In layman's terms, what are the major programming languages, and what are they used for?

10. Andy Cheung's answer to What is an API?

11. Robert Frost's answer to How can you explain black holes to a kid?

Layman's Terms - Part 2

12. Robert H. Heath's answer to How would you explain the collapse of Lehman Brothers to a ten year old?

13. Matt Dotson's answer to How would you explain to a five-year-old that higher taxes on the rich don't fix everything?

14. Breno Sakaguti's answer to How would you explain the Gaussian distribution in layman's terms?

15. Chris Bland's answer to How do you explain evolution to a 10-year-old?

16. Gayle Laakmann McDowell's answer to What's the best way to explain big-O notation in laymen's terms?

17. Pararth Shah's answer to In layman's terms, how does Naive Bayes work?

18. Balaji Viswanathan's answer to What exactly happened to the Indian economy in 1991 in layman's terms?

19. How does BitTorrent work in layman's terms?

20. Edwin Chen's answer to How does randomization in a random forest work?

21. Game Theory: What is the prisoner's dilemma in layman's terms?

22. What is chaos theory, in layman's terms?

What should everyone know about X?

What does it feel like to X? - Part 1

There's so much we can learn from this topic- it is one of my favourites.

1. What does it feel like to be a smart person?

2. What does it feel like to be stupid?

3. What is it like to be the smartest person in the room?

4. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: What does it feel like to have ADHD?

5. What does it feel like to be poor?

6. What does it feel like to be a self-made millionaire under the age of 25?

7. How does Dustin Moskovitz feel about being a billionaire?

8. What does it feel like to suddenly lose all your wealth?

9. James Altucher's answer to What does it feel like to lose a lot of money quickly?

10. What does it feel like to be an introvert?

What does it feel like to X? - Part 2

Is it informative in here, or is it just them?

1. What do all the controls in an airplane's cockpit do?

2. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

3. If you were to fling a scoop of cookie dough in space directly toward the sun, how long would it take the dough to turn into a fully baked cookie?

4. Homework Question: Joe walked 4 miles north 9 miles east then 8 miles north and 7 miles east, if Joe decides to walk straight back to where he started how far must he walk?

5. Dan Piponi's answer to How does one determine whether a number is evenly divisible by 7?

6. Xu Beixi's answer to Can all insects close their eyes?

7. Jae Won Joh's answer to What is the best way to reset one's sleep cycle?

8. Do GPS devices work just with one satellite? Why or why not?

9. How realistic is the physics in the movie "Gravity"?

10. Is there a way to never lose at Tic-Tac-Toe?

Marcus Geduld on life, psychology and learning

1. What should I do about my early life crisis?

2. What should a person do when everything appears to be going wrong in their life?

3. How can I know what my life purpose(s) is/are?

4. How can I be the best at something?

5. Let's imagine that I'm 26 and I've already finished my degree. I'm employed and I live in my flat by myself. I'm single. Then what? What's life after that?

6. I really want to live before I die. What should I do?

7. What are important things and advice to know that people generally aren't told about?

8. Why do we get frustrated when learning something?

9. What do you do when you are good at something but not good enough?

10. How do atheists find meaning in life?

11. What have you learned from debating religion on Quora?

12. What is the difference between a pseudo-intellectual and an intellectual?

13. I'm interested in too many things, how can I choose a major/career?

14. What do you do when you realise that you are an utter loser?

15. How do you come to terms with the fact that you're just ordinary?

16. What are examples of assumptions that people passionately believe in when they are young, that turn out to be false?

Introducing- The Engel Series

Now that we're done with these topics, it's time for one of my favourite Quorans.

Joshua Engel, polymath

The basics:

1. Who is Joshua Engel?

2. Why is Joshua Engel such a polymath?

3. What degrees does Joshua Engel have?

4. What does Joshua Engel do for a living?

Too much info from Murtaza:

Murtaza Aliakbar's answer to: What are some Joshua Engel Facts?

Let's begin!

1. Why did not other animals develop intellect like apes did 100,000 years ago? (Evolutionary Biology)

2. Yoda said, "Do or do not, there is no try." How do you do something without trying to do it first? (Philosophy)

3. I have heard some people claim Einstein was a fraud. Is there any truth to that claim? (Einstein)

4. Which substances help development and evolution of human brain and the neurological system to surpass their own limits? (Neuroscience)

5. How can I become better politically educated?(Politics)

6. What if the Big Bang Theory is wrong? (Cosmology)

7. If an atheist doesn't believe in gods of any kind, doesn't that imply that he is following an ideology and thus a religion?(Atheism)

8. Which Shakespeare plays should I watch and why? (Plays)

9. How and why did you become an actor? (Actors and actresses)

10. Why haven't humans evolved to grow wings yet? (Human evolution)

11. Why do people care about using English properly? (Language)

12. Is it easier to learn a programming language than a foreign language? (Programming)

13. Relative to the smallest and largest objects in the universe, is there a categorically middle-sized object in the universe? (The Universe)

14. Are the features we see in indigenous Africans proof of evolution since apes and homo sapiens originated from the continent? (Human Evoution)

15. Would Hamlet have been an effective ruler and a good king? (Literature)

16. What are some odd and unusual canned foods?(Canned Foods)

17. How do agnostics feel about the religious debate on Quora? (Agnosticism)

18. The question of what an atheist should do at dinner with people offering a prayer has been thoroughly answered. What should religious people do when dining with atheists, and it is clear that there will be no prayer? (Atheism)

19. What are some good ways to respond to a kid who asks "Why does all the stuff that is bad for you taste so good?" (How to respond to a child that says or asks X)

20. What can we learn from Joshua Engel? (specific quora users)

Also, in case you're wondering if he actually looks like the statue of David, he does.
·

The Engel Series - Part 2

21. What is true education? (Education)

22. Which industries and jobs will self-driving cars and trucks disrupt or destroy?(Autonomous Driving)

23. Is the end of Java near? (Programming)

24. Who is more ignorant: the man who can't define lightning, or the one who does not admire its awesome power? (Science and religion)

25. What are some interesting things that are true in theory but not in practice? (Armchair Philosophy)

26. What makes corn kernels turn into the shape of popcorn?(Food)

27. What books have influenced Joshua Engel's thinking the most? (Books)

28. Is a panini considered a sandwich? (Food and nutrition)

29. Is there a relationship between the arch of a rainbow and the circumference of the Earth? (Mathematics)

30. Can people see atoms with their naked eye?(Physics)

31. Is it possible that one day we will discover a new color?(Electromagnetic spectrum)

32. What is the purpose of life to an atheist? (Meaning of life)

33. How close are we to teleportation? (Teleportation)

34. What are some amazing things made by animals?(Animals)

35. Are there today any reasonably respectable physicists arguing that we will one day be able to exceed the speed of light, and where can I access their arguments? (Relativity)

36. Are general requirements in college a waste of time?(College and education)

37. Given that it's just a theory, why can't the theory of evolution be wrong? (Science and religion)

38. Is there any gold in the sun? (Physics)

39. You've got 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents etc. Where does the exponential growth stop? (Evolutionary biology)

And lastly, Joshua uses his magnificent brain to solve an important problem of the day-

40. Should I buy 48 Pop-Tarts ($8) or 17 Hot Pockets ($12)?(Food and nutrition)

The Engel Series - Part 3

41. What are the best ways to overcome the need for sleep while doing intense studying? (The Science Of Sleep)

42. If the wheel is an extremely efficient method of transportation then why is there no evolutionary equivalent in nature? (Evolutionary Biology)

43. Is it meaningless to talk about the purpose of life of human beings? (Philosophy)

44. Why is there sickness in the world? (Health and Wellness)

45. If God does not exist, where does love come from?(Atheism)

46. Why do "new age" people relate Quantum Physics to so many things? (Quantum Mechanics)

47. What are some cool programming tricks or tasks that make a clever use of random numbers? (Computer Programming)

48. This sentence is false. Is the previous sentence true or is it false? (Paradoxes)

49. In the many worlds interpretation of QM, if I toss a fair coin, will exactly half of the branching universes have heads and other half tails? (Quantum Mechanics)

50. How did wings evolve, given that they're not useful unless they're evolved enough to enable flight? (Evoution)

51. What is the worst-case scenario in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? (Food)

52. What makes a car explode and burn up when it crashes?(Cars and Automobiles)

53. Why do pizzas have a plastic table in their center? (Pizzas)

54. Why is our periodic table taught in rectangular instead of circular form? (Chemistry)

55. What would be the best place to live if the polar ice caps melt?
(The Environment)

56. Does quantum physics end the free will debate? (Free Will)

57. How physically intense is ballet? (Ballet)

58. What is the process called where people take two different words and make a new one? (Language)

59. As any system/event can be considered as a wave function, can we postulate it never existed before it gets measured/collapsed with respect to a given observer?(Quantum Mechanics)

60. If execution is everything, what terrible ideas have been successful due to great execution? (Ideas) :P

The Engel Series - Part 4

61. Why do honey bees have a defense mechanism that kills them? (Evolutionary Biology)

62. How do I keep my temper when arguing/talking to less intelligent, less informed people? (Interpersonal interaction)

63. How can I master Java in one month? (Programming Language)

64. What would the world look like if the air was truly transparent? (Hypothetical questions)

65. From an evolutionary standpoint, why are human beings not equipped to naturally deal with cold weather? (Evolution)

66. Why does salt taste so good if it's bad for you? (Food and nutrition)

67. Why do people get a better sleep when they use pillows under their head? (Sleep)

68.To what does the word "it" refer in this sentence: "It is dark outside"? (Language)

69. What makes the world go 'round, money or science? (Big philosophical questions)

70. What are the best physics thought experiments? (Physics)

71. Are synonyms an example of a language's inefficiency?(Language)

72. Does a mosquito inside a train travelling at 90 mph also fly at 90 mph, if not how come it doesn't get smashed on the walls of the compartment? (Physics)

73. What is so special about "leg piece" in chicken? (Food)

74. Could a person survive falling from space to earth? (Physics)

75. Why isn't it possible to imagine a new color? (Neuroscience)

76. If God does not exist, how were the Laws of Physics established? (Science and religion)

77. Why does a usual fork have 3 tines? (Table manners)

78. Has evolution been proved or should we consider evolution a hypothesis? (Evolution)

79. How do we know that anything has a cause?(Philosophy)

80. How many pints of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream would it take to achieve the energy equivalent of a typical supernova? (Ice cream and science)

The Engel Series - Part 5

Hello,

This is the last part of "The Engel Series". Joshua has written 6103 answers till now, so I must've missed quite a few good ones since I've chosen only 100 of them. I learnt a lot while making this series and the process was worth the effort. There are enough people doing awesome stuff and writing amazing answers in here- we just need to find them. And I've realized this job is not very cumbersome despite what our feeds make us believe.

Cheers!

81. If the old assumed age of the Earth were disproved, would Darwinian evolution collapse?

82. Why can't healthcare be debated technically instead of politically?

83. How could we have once been apes, and yet we look so different right now? Is it change of climate?

84. What should I do next?

85. Are there any other reasonably valid theories about the start of the universe other than the Big Bang?

86. Is "cuteness" an evolutionarily advantageous trait?

87. What makes you so sure that you are alive?

88. How does honey not spoil for centuries, even at very high temperature?

89. Does Roger Penrose's observation that the probability of the occurrence of a universe in which life can form is 10 to the power of 123 to 1 support the case of those who believe in God?

90. If [math] \pi \ne \frac {22}{7} [/math], how do we know its value?

91. This list of notable IQs were shown during the women's final of Wimbledon 2013. I am wondering how they could have measured Leonardo da Vinci's IQ. Is it just an estimate or does it have some proof backing it?

92. Why haven't most animals (including humans) evolved infrared vision to see in the dark?

93. What are some of the best lines from a book?

94. Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

95. How do agents for organizations like the CIA learn so many languages so quickly?

96. Why don't we see quantum weirdness in everyday world?

97. Can we believe the solar system is like the atomic model and may be as small as an atom relatively?

98. Questions from theists about atheists or atheism on Quora don't always seem to be on a quest for actual information. What is their goal?

99. Why do humans behave irrationally?

100. Are you a generalist?

Universe in a glass of wine

Humans are a curious species. We wonder, seek answers. We worry about how nature is, and why is it the way it is. Most of us do not usually spend our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.

The result of this curious nature of human beings was that we started the quest for understanding the nature of nature. In the process, we divided nature into parts, and those parts into sub-parts. But as Feynman once said, "If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!"- in the next series of posts, we'll try to do exactly that. It's obviously not going to portray the complete picture, but let's see how far we can go if we proceed along that path, and try to connect those parts here, on Quora.

Most of the selected answers in any topic will be from Quorans who have established their credibility as a good source of information in that particular field.

The series will start with Cosmology - explaining the multiverse theory, why nature follows a particular set of laws, origin of the universe, space-time and the predicted fate of the universe. It will also include the reasons behind why so many scientists say that a creator isn't a necessity for the universe to be the way it is.

The next topic will be Evolution - it will include the basics of evolution and natural selection, common misconceptions, evolution and creationism - their incompatibility, facts, what we know about the origin of life, whether life could originate without any supernatural interference and the origins of selfless/altruistic behaviour..

Then we'll go to Theism and Ethics, addressing questions such as - do we really need to read a book to realize that murder is wrong? Will we accept slavery if a scripture says it is acceptable; or is it that moral behaviour has become a part of us over the course of human evolution? Why do humans behave ethically; what exactly is ethical? What kind of morality do we strive for? Does scripture represent absolute morality, or should we strive for a morality that is thought out, reasoned, argued, discussed, and based upon what you could almost call....an intelligent design?

After this comes Theism and Psychology, where we'll discuss the benefits of being a believer, why tolerance is a good thing that every atheist and theist should have for each other, the exceptions to the tolerance rule, and why it is usually best to do nothing and simply walk away when the rule is being violated in, say, an internet discussion forum.

Then there'll be Q&A about Life, that'll answer questions like -What is life? What is the purpose of living? Was I better off not knowing the answers? What should I do if I don't like the answers I've found? How can I maximize my happiness, make the best out of my life?

Lastly, we'll dip into the pool of Literature and Art -
A wise Quoran once told me that in the end, you have to remember that at your core, you're an emotional organism rather than a reasoning one. Most of what your brain does isn't all that much different from that of a cat, which is actually quite a lot. We have something very special on top, a reasoning skill, but it's not actually all that good: even simple arithmetic is a dicey proposition. The real win is in language, which crosses the boundary, using a purely symbolic mode to affect us at the deepest, intuitive levels. We can extricate all kinds of emotions from those symbols, but they are diminished by it: you've lost a key portion of what they mean. It's good for certain very specific kinds of decisions, but a lot of what makes life enjoyable is in what you lose. Including the very notion of "enjoyment".

We'll look at language as a powerful tool that has the potential to affect us at the deepest, intuitive levels. We'll learn the basics of appreciating art and learn that art and science are just two different ways of portraying nature - branches of the same tree, parts of the same glass of wine. We'll realize that neither is superior, neither is inferior. Both are necessary. And it is then, that we'll be able to mix it all together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!