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Descriptions

Welcome to the staging ground for new communities! Each proposal has a description in the "Descriptions" category and a body of questions and answers in "Incubator Q&A". You can ask questions (and get answers, we hope!) right away, and start new proposals.

Are you here to participate in a specific proposal? Click on the proposal tag (with the dark outline) to see only posts about that proposal and not all of the others that are in progress. Tags are at the bottom of each post.

Comments on Everyday Science

Post

Everyday Science

Site Name

Everyday Science

Description

For interdisciplinary questions about the world around us, examining reality from an XKCD perspective.

Topics

Topics covered would include:

  • Lay science questions about common household objects (e.g. "Why is icing sugar less dense than granulated sugar?", or "why can cheese both harden and soften when left out?") or easily observed aspects of the natural world ("Why is the sky blue?"), especially if they are seemingly simple ideas that need an interdisciplinary examination to answer in detail

  • The inner workings of household appliances and gadgets and commonly-encountered objects like street lights (i.e., the sort of things examined on this Youtube channel)

  • Designs for simple DIY devices, furniture etc., and the engineering considerations involved (e.g. why diagonal bracing improves the strength of furniture and how to incorporate it in a design, or what materials/thicknesses are required to support a safe load)

  • Applied mathematics around the home, e.g. "home economics" questions like "how cheap does X have to be before I should consider substituting it for Y in my recipe?"

Exclusions

These topics or types of posts would be out of scope:

  • Questions with a legal or political aspect, even if they have a practical consequence (e.g. "what driving speeds are 'safe'?", "why is the tax code so complex?")

  • Questions related to the operation of a business

  • Questions about devices that are neither commonly used around a modern household, nor interacted with on a daily basis either by urbanites (city infrastructure) or rural dwellers (farm equipment)

  • Questions purely about budgeting, that don't relate to the specific nature of a specific good or service being budgeted for (such questions should go to Accounting, Finance or Mathematics)

  • Localized or regional questions that don't require calculation or scientific knowledge to answer (e.g. "Which grocery chain offers the best price on X?"; but e.g. calculating unit prices and factoring in transportation costs for a hypothetical situation would be on topic, and "should I have groceries delivered or pick them up myself?" should work as well)

  • Speculative or theoretical questions belong on Scientific Speculation instead; this site would be for understanding actually observed phenomena and solving practical problems related thereto.

Special Features

Probably none.

Overlaps

Overlap with Physics, Cooking, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering all seem possible. Cooking and food-oriented questions in the new site should be focused on the science behind cooking rather than on actually working out recipes and such; similarly, the technical questions should have an explicit layperson orientation. The idea is to sit at the existing intersection of these sites and have a place to marvel at the subtle complexity of the world around us.

Some overlap may also be possible with the new Home Improvement proposal.

History
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4 comment threads

Economics (1 comment)
"Domestic" is confusing (9 comments)
Overlaps (5 comments)
Active user (1 comment)
"Domestic" is confusing
Olin Lathrop‭ wrote about 1 year ago

"Domestic" can mean various things, and is confusing. What kind of STEM is limited to only my country or region?

"Everyday Science" or similar would be a better name for this site.

Karl Knechtel‭ wrote about 1 year ago

By "Domestic" I meant "around the house". I agree that "Everyday" is clearer.

Olin Lathrop‭ wrote about 1 year ago

Karl Knechtel‭ Unfortunately "domestic" also means various other things. If you agree with "Everyday", then you should edit the proposal accordingly.

Monica Cellio‭ wrote about 1 year ago

I, too, was confused by "domestic" in the name, until I read the proposal. (I was wondering what international STEM would mean in contrast.) I second (third?) the suggestion for "everyday science", even if that broadens the scope a little.

Lundin‭ wrote about 1 year ago · edited about 1 year ago

May I also add that "STEM" is not really a term used in non-English countries (if it is at all used in the English-speaking ones in the first place?). Whereas "Everyday Science" would be quite clear. And if we can get rid of yet another use of confusing abbreviations, we'd make the Internet/world a slightly better place. "Technology and engineering" is just fluff put there to make a catchy abbreviation - you can't have technology without engineering and vice versa.

Karl Knechtel‭ wrote about 1 year ago

There's some value to that, I suppose. Perhaps trying to fit pure "home economics" style math questions under the same umbrella is a bridge too far as well. (There isn't an obvious reason I can see why Math wouldn't take them all anyway, as it stands; although they might have a different idea about how to phrase them.)

Monica Cellio‭ wrote about 1 year ago

Isn't math included in science? Sometimes questions fit on more than one community, and that's ok -- let people ask the communities they're most interested in. You'd probably get a different type of answer on Math than on Everyday Science.

Olin Lathrop‭ wrote about 1 year ago

I think that math is included well enough in "science". I also would like to avoid the abbreviation STEM, since that can cause confusion over different geographic regions and time. "Everyday Science" seems to capture what you are proposing quite well. I can get behind this proposal if its name is changed.

Karl Knechtel‭ wrote about 1 year ago

I have no particular attachment to any of the details I started out with; the idea is mostly off-the-cuff (although I can definitely see myself asking a few questions!). The above comments seem like about as strong a consensus as can be expected at this meta-community size, so I went ahead and renamed it again.