The "This Might Be A Stupid Question, But...." Thread

[demarco]

My eyes are brown but when I have been crying, they look green, almost bright green, to me in the mirror.  I have never verified this with anyone else so I don't know if they really turn green or if tears do something to my vision, making it appear to me that they are green. 

[MrsJWine]

My eyes are brown but when I have been crying, they look green, almost bright green, to me in the mirror.  I have never verified this with anyone else so I don't know if they really turn green or if tears do something to my vision, making it appear to me that they are green.

The redness that crying causes probably brings out the green, since red and green are complementary colors.

[lady_disdain]

My eyes are brown but when I have been crying, they look green, almost bright green, to me in the mirror.  I have never verified this with anyone else so I don't know if they really turn green or if tears do something to my vision, making it appear to me that they are green.

The redness that crying causes probably brings out the green, since red and green are complementary colors.

Yup - my eyes never look quite as good as when I break down and cry. Pink eye shadow is also very effective for eye colour but it tends to make the lids seem puffy. Someday, I will find a solution!

[MrsJWine]

My eyes are brown but when I have been crying, they look green, almost bright green, to me in the mirror.  I have never verified this with anyone else so I don't know if they really turn green or if tears do something to my vision, making it appear to me that they are green.

The redness that crying causes probably brings out the green, since red and green are complementary colors.

Yup - my eyes never look quite as good as when I break down and cry. Pink eye shadow is also very effective for eye colour but it tends to make the lids seem puffy. Someday, I will find a solution!

Purple eyeliner with more red than blue tones works pretty well for me. I have to be careful with it--just a little bit or I look like I'm going clubbing--, but it subtly brings out the green. Not as effectively as a good cry, but that's not really practical.

[RingTailedLemur]

Is today a public holiday in the US/Canada or Australia?

[guihong]

Is today a public holiday in the US/Canada or Australia?

Easter is not a federal holiday, as it is primarily religious.  It's up to each state whether to have Friday or Easter Monday off, and often up to each school district and company.  The only "religious" federal holiday is Christmas Day, but that has become very secular and so skirts the issue.

[KenveeB]

Is today a public holiday in the US/Canada or Australia?

Easter is not a federal holiday, as it is primarily religious.  It's up to each state whether to have Friday or Easter Monday off, and often up to each school district and company.  The only "religious" federal holiday is Christmas Day, but that has become very secular and so skirts the issue.

I'm in Texas and work for county government, and we got Good Friday off. Not many places tend to have that off, though, that I've seen.

[Redsoil]

Technically, today (Monday) was a public holiday for Easter Monday, though a number of shops were open.  However, it's just become Tuesday (12.01am here), so Tuesday is back-to-work/school day for most.  Due to an extended break, I actually have Tuesday off this week.

[CakeBeret]

My husband's company doesn't recognize Easter as a holiday so he worked his usual shift.


A new questions for this thread:

I got new stainless steel cookware that has a copper and aluminum core. Reading the manual, it said that, in rare cases, if a pan is allowed to boil dry, the copper might melt. Why would that happen in a boiling-dry situation if it wouldn't happen in any other situation? In other words, what about boiling dry would cause the pan to become much hotter than it would in any other situation?

[Ms_Cellany]

I got new stainless steel cookware that has a copper and aluminum core. Reading the manual, it said that, in rare cases, if a pan is allowed to boil dry, the copper might melt. Why would that happen in a boiling-dry situation if it wouldn't happen in any other situation? In other words, what about boiling dry would cause the pan to become much hotter than it would in any other situation?

When water (or any liquid) boils, it stays at that temperature until it's done boiling. Once it's dry, it'll go to the temperature of the heat source.

So it you put a pan of water on a 400F burner, it'll stay at 212F until that water boils off. Then the pan will suddenly shoot up to 400F, and the core will melt.

[Twik]

Not quite true. As the concentration of a dilute solute increases, the boiling point will raise, just as the freezing point will decrease. Here's the wikipedia article, if you like talking about stuff like "colligative properties", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling-point_elevation.

So, the boiling point would slowly rise from 212 F as the sugar increased in concentration and the water boiled off. However, the gist of the answer is correct - the person cooking will believe that the boiling water is keeping the pan at below melting point, but when the water boils away the temperature will shoot up. Copper has a much lower melting point than, say, stainless steel, and might reach that temperature with the heat provided from a normal stove burner if not watched properly.

[Luci]

We did an experiment in physics of boiling water in a paper cup over a Bunsen burner.

[Virg]

As to the color of eyes changing, it's not unheard of for eye color to change, and sometimes it can happen more than once in a person's lifetime.  Also, exposure to some chemicals can change the color of your eyes.  For example, the prescription drug Latisse reports a permanent change in eye color as a possible side effect.

Virg

[ladyknight1]

My eye color has changed over the last 15 years as well.

[WillyNilly]

The thing with eyes is: they aren't a color. No one's eyes are actually blue or green. Everyone has a brown base (some lighter, some darker, but the pigmentation of all eyes is brown). The blue and green and gold and other colors are the result of light reflections due to the structure of your eye, like the way the sky looks blue even though there is no actual blue color pigmentation anywhere in the upper atmosphere. If your eyes change shape slightly as you age, the color will change as light reflects differently. Many babies for example are born with blue eyes that later change. Its less common but not rare for adults to have eye color changes as they age for the same reasons.