General Knowledge
Exploring "Why" questions about General Knowledge
481 articles
Why are autopsies almost always definitive? How come they can give answers when biopsies and other medical procedures can’t?
Sometimes, trying to cure a living person is like working on a car while it's still running. There are a lot of limits to what can be done without being too invasive. When the car is turned off (or th
Why do the sounds of letters in the alphabet differ from the sounds of these letters in words?
English has a huge variety of sounds, but we are representing them with a fairly limited alphabet. So many letters end up representing multiple sounds. For instance, most accents have 24 consonant sou
Why are head-lice a ‘kids thing’ that seems to only exist amongst groups of younger aged children?
Because kids, when at school and play they get their heads close to others. Adults, consider it rude/weird/childish to do that. While the lice may spread from child to adult, it is less likely to happ
Why Does Conservation of Angular Momentum Happen?
Conservation laws are ultimately due to symmetries. Since physical situations do not depend on how a system is orientated, this *rotational invariance* gives rise to the conservation of angular moment
Why is creating a male contraceptive pill so challenging?
I literally heard about this on the radio yesterday so i may be able to help. A male one is in development currently in Australia (I think) and has had effective trials on mice in labs showing that it
Why are black people in USA called “Afro-American” if most of them are actually not from Africa ?
Well, pretty obviously the answer is because they were descended from people from Africa. And on the contrary, you do (or did) hear people describe themselves as Irish-American or Italian-American. Mo
Why is it that data is always unavailable for Greenland?
Greenland isn't an independent country, for starters. It's still part of Denmark. Considering that it has a population of 60,000 people, using the same data as for Denmark proper wouldn't be an accura
why does a coke machine sometimes give me 2 cans instead of one?
It's just a basic cost-risk trade-off. A more accurate machine costs more money than a less accurate machine. Soda is cheap, so giving one out for free every once in a while is less costly than buying
Why do some institutions know my new address, while others don’t?
Organizations can subscribe to the National Change of Address registry and be notified of address changes for people on their lists. There is a cost involved with this service. Some organizations are
Why do our feet have arches? Wouldn’t it be more advantageous to have your weight distributed over the entire surface of the foot?
The entire purpose of the arch is to act as a spring to help absorb the impact from walking. Walking puts a ton of stress on your bones and if you run, it's worse. Imagine driving a car without it's s