Science
Exploring "Why" questions about Science
483 articles
Why can’t an electric car charge itself while driving?
You can't generate more power than you put into the system. If you take power from the wheels to charge the battery, then you are increasing the resistance in the wheels, you can't simply "borrow powe
Why does 80 degree water feel so much colder than 80 degree air?
Water absorbs much more heat per volume. So water touching your skin aborbs more of your body's heat compared to air of the same temperature.
Why do scientists look for life on planets only similar to our own? Couldn’t there be life not based on carbon?
Well, you can't rule it out, but we've never seen non-carbon life before, so we wouldn't even know what to look for. Because we know what carbon-based life is, we know to look for things like Methane
Why is it so hard to make realistic water/liquids in video games?
Water is made of lots of tiny particles, and these particles are constantly moving, colliding, and changing velocity. Solids have lots of particles, but they don't move, and you don't have to calculat
Why does the colour black attract and store heat?
You've got it slightly wrong. The reason why an object is even black in the first place is because it absorbs all the light. In other words, the color of an object depends on how it absorbs, reflects
Why does sudden temperature change make us feel ill?
Your body needs to be at a fairly consistent temperature of 37C Your body has various mechanisms to control this temperature (such as restricting the size of blood vessels near the skin, increasing he
Why are some people “heavy” sleepers, and some “light” sleepers?
Everyone's brain is a little bit different. Sometimes it's the physical structures, sometimes it's the chemicals the brain makes, and how it uses or responds to them. There are at least 2 chemicals th
Why does metal react so violently when microwaved?
The way microwaves work is through jiggling charged/polar particles in your food (the water primarily). This jiggling increases their temperature and that heats up the rest of your food. That's why yo
Why doesn’t the ocean’s water leak out the bottom and into the earth’s crust/mantle? The ocean bottom can’t be completely free of fissures, can it?
* the water doesn't have anywhere to go. There aren't gaping holes for stuff to fall into. Any holes there are has stuff coming out (lava), not stuff going in.
Why are you ordered to register as sex offender if you are peeing in public? There is no sexual matter involved in peeing.
There is no sexual component in peeing, no. But there is a sexual component in purposely showing your genitals to other members of the public. The thing is, it can be very hard to gauge the motive som