zero_shot: Explain like I'm five: is there a scientific reason not to shower during a thunderstorm? ----- few-shot: Q: Explain like I'm five: Why does the amount of protons in an element wildly change its properties? For example: why is two protons a gas, but suddenly three protons is a metallic solid? A: In atoms, the proton is charged. This attracts electrons to come and surround the atom. The electrons hang around the outside of the atom, and will therefore be the first to interact with other atoms, and greatly effecting how elements effect each other at the microscopic level. Electricity is very different to magnetism, but as a quick analogy, but the protons and electrions are a little bit like tiny magnets are in&around each atom, pushing and pulling in specific ways. Electrons have some strange properties, one of which is how they absolutely insist on all being in a different situation, except that they don't mind existing in pairs* . They actually cannot be in the same situation as each other in anything more than pairs - it isn't just a mild preference, but it is physically impossible. We call it the Exclusion Principle (often with the name 'Pauli', after the scientist that worked this out in 1925.) Imagine if every room in a building could never have more than 2 people in them. If someone tries to enter a room with 2 people in it, they can't (as if an invisible wall is at the door), and so they'd need to order someone else to leave first, or if you want to move a lot of people in a line full of full rooms, you'd need to arrange for 1 person in every room to step one room across at the same time, or other highly specific behaviours like that. At a microscopic level, electrons have to follow patterns of movement sort of like that example [Not exactly, like that example, but kinda that weirdly specific.] This can force them to do some very specific interactions, as so many options are cut off from them when they meet other atoms. The moves that are possible thus greatly influences how electrons contribute to bonding atoms together to form molecules or crystals and so on. Q: Explain like I'm five: is there a scientific reason not to shower during a thunderstorm? ----- prompt example selection: retrieve a similar demonstration and use it in the prompt. comment: only feasible with large demonstration sets Q: Explain like I'm five: why aren't planes affected by lightning if they are made of conductive metals? A: The reason why planes are not usually affected by lightning strikes is because they are designed to be able to conduct electricity in a way that is safe for the people inside. This means that the electricity from the lightning strike is able to pass through the metal exterior of the plane and into the ground without harming the people inside. The metal exterior of the plane is also designed to be able to distribute the electrical charge of the lightning strike across the surface of the plane. This helps to prevent any one part of the plane from becoming too hot or too damaged. So, even though planes are made of conductive materials, they are designed in a way that allows them to handle lightning strikes safely. Q: Explain like I'm five: is there a scientific reason not to shower during a thunderstorm? comment: with small demonstration sets, retrieving similar examples may not be feasible, so you could also try to just maximize the diversity of the demonstrations in the prompt. ---- instruction prompting: Answer the below question in four paragraphs. Please be as detailed as possible while also ensuring that the answer is easily understandable by a layperson. Make use of illustrative examples and/or analogies in your answer. Q: Explain like I'm five: is there a scientific reason not to shower during a thunderstorm? A: --- retrieval-augmented prompting: comment: retrieve evidence (e.g., via google search, or some external database lookup) and put it into the prompt Read the below question and evidence document. Then, answer the below question in four paragraphs. Please be as detailed as possible while also ensuring that the answer is easily understandable by a layperson. Make use of illustrative examples and/or analogies in your answer. Make sure that your answer includes verbatim snippets or summaries of salient content from the evidence document, and that it cites the evidence at least twice. Question: Explain like I'm five: is there a scientific reason not to shower during a thunderstorm? Evidence: "Why it’s not safe to shower during a thunderstorm", Simon Balson, August 17, 2022. https://theconversation.com/why-its-not-safe-to-shower-during-a-thunderstorm-188862 The Met Office has issued several “yellow thunderstorm warnings” for the UK, highlighting the potential for frequent lightning. While your chance of getting struck by lightning is low, it’s important to know how to stay safe during a thunderstorm. Globally, about 24,000 people each year are killed by lightning and another 240,000 are injured. Most people are familiar with basic thunderstorm safety, such as avoiding standing under trees or near a window, and not speaking on a corded phone (mobile phones are safe). But did you know you should avoid taking a shower, a bath or washing the dishes during a thunderstorm? To understand why, you first need to know a bit about how thunderstorms and lightning work. Two basic elements cause a thunderstorm to thrive: moisture and rising warm air, which of course go hand in hand with summertime. The high temperatures and humidity create large amounts of moist air that rises into the atmosphere, where it can form into a thunderstorm. Clouds contain millions of water and ice droplets and the interaction of these is what leads to lightning generation. The rising water drops collide with the falling ice drops, passing them a negative charge and leaving themselves with a positive charge. In a thunderstorm, clouds act as enormous Van de Graaff generators, separating the positive and negative charges to create massive charge separations inside the clouds. How a Van de Graaff generator works. As thunderclouds move over the Earth, they generate an opposite charge in the ground, and this is what attracts a lighting strike towards the ground. The thunderstorm wants to balance its charges, and it does this by discharging between positive and negative regions. The path of this discharge is usually the one of least resistance, so things that are more conductive (like metal) are more likely to be struck during a storm. The most useful advice for a thunderstorm is: when thunder roars, go indoors. However, this does not mean you are completely safe from the storm. There are some activities inside that can be almost as risky as staying outside in the storm. Path of least resistance Unless you’re sitting in a bath outside or showering in the rain, you’re incredibly unlikely to be struck by lightning. But if lightning strikes your house, the electricity would follow the path of least resistance to the ground. Things such as metal wires or water in your pipes provide a convenient conductive path for the electricity to follow to the ground. The shower provides both of those things (water and metal), making it an ideal path for the electricity to take. It could turn that nice relaxing shower into something much less relaxing. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly encourage people to avoid all water-based activities during a thunderstorm – even the washing up – to reduce your risk of a strike. There are other risks to look out for during a thunderstorm. One that may not seem obvious is leaning on a concrete wall. While concrete itself isn’t that conductive, if it has been reinforced with metal beams (called “rebar”), these can provide a conductive path for the lightning. Also avoid using anything plugged into an electrical outlet (computers, TVs, washing machines, dishwashers) as all of these can provide pathways for the lightning strike to take. As a rule of thumb, if you can hear thunder in the distance, then you’re close enough to the storm to have lightning reach you, even if there is no rain. Lightning strikes can happen as far as ten miles away from the parent storm. Typically, half an hour after hearing that final thunderclap is a safe time to venture back into the shower. Thunderstorms usually like to save a big one for the end, and you don’t want to end up part of the fireworks! Answer: comment: including multiple retrievals or different types of data (e.g., tables, structured data) may require you to show the model few-shot demonstrations for it to understand how to handle such inputs. ---- zeroshot chain of thought: Question: Marty has 100 centimeters of ribbon that he must cut into 4 equal parts. Each of the cut parts must be divided into 5 equal parts. How long will each final cut be? Answer: Let's think step by step. --- chain of thought prompting: Question: Tom and Elizabeth have a competition to climb a hill. Elizabeth takes 30 minutes to climb the hill. Tom takes four times as long as Elizabeth does to climb the hill. How many hours does it take Tom to climb up the hill? Answer: It takes Tom 30*4 = <<30*4=120>>120 minutes to climb the hill. It takes Tom 120/60 = <<120/60=2>>2 hours to climb the hill. So the answer is 2. === Question: Jack is a soccer player. He needs to buy two pairs of socks and a pair of soccer shoes. Each pair of socks cost $9.50, and the shoes cost $92. Jack has $40. How much more money does Jack need? Answer: The total cost of two pairs of socks is $9.50 x 2 = $<<9.5*2=19>>19. The total cost of the socks and the shoes is $19 + $92 = $<<19+92=111>>111. Jack need $111 - $40 = $<<111-40=71>>71 more. So the answer is 71. === Question: Marty has 100 centimeters of ribbon that he must cut into 4 equal parts. Each of the cut parts must be divided into 5 equal parts. How long will each final cut be? ---- self-consistency prompting: Answer the below question as concisely as possible. Q: Alice and Bob play a game on a board consisting of one row of 2022 consecutive squares. They take turns placing tiles that cover two adjacent squares, with Alice going first. By rule, a tile must not cover a square that is already covered by another tile. The game ends when no tile can be placed according to this rule. Alice’s goal is to maximize the number of uncovered squares when the game ends; Bob’s goal is to minimize it. What is the greatest number of uncovered squares that Alice can ensure at the end of the game, no matter how Bob plays?