Education
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What the Romans Found Funny
An essay on the comedies of Plautus and Terence, explaining the jokes, farce and wordplay that made Roman audiences laug…
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What's a fire, and why does it burn?
A mathematician stares at a beach bonfire, realizes he does not understand fire, and works out what flames really are, w…
What's Earth's dominant species by mass?
A curious, well-sourced look at whether ants outweigh humans and which living group really tops Earth's biomass, with te…
What's That Bug?
A long-running community blog where entomology enthusiasts help identify mystery insects submitted by readers from aroun…
What's the Difference Between -ectomy, -ostomy and -otomy?
A classic Straight Dope answer explaining the medical suffixes for cutting out, making an opening, and cutting into, wit…
When Buddhism Goes Bad
A personal account of how an intense mindfulness and meditation practice tipped into a breakdown, and what the author le…
When Future Historian Comes To 1910
David Friedman discovers a 1910 New York Times column featuring a time-traveling Future Historian who shares his name, a…
When Interfaces Kill: What Happened to John Denver
Bruce Tognazzini's classic case study of how confusing cockpit controls contributed to the crash that killed John Denver…
When Looking Became Seeing
An essay on John Berger's Ways of Seeing, the 1972 BBC series that changed how a generation looked at art, advertising a…
Where Am I?
Daniel Dennett's classic philosophical tale of a man whose brain is removed and kept in a vat while his body roams, aski…
Where does my computer get the time from?
A fascinating tour of how clocks reach your computer, from atomic clocks and GPS to NTP servers and leap seconds, writte…
Whimsies - Brilliantly Beaded
An online Hudson Museum exhibit on beaded whimsies, the glittering pincushions and souvenirs Mohawk and Tuscarora artist…
Why A4? The Mathematical Beauty of Paper Size
An accessible essay on why A4 paper has its odd dimensions, explaining the square root of two ratio that lets every A-se…
Why are there 5280 feet in a mile?
A short history of how the Roman mile of 1000 paces became 5280 feet, as Elizabethan England tried to reconcile the mile…
Why Be Moral?
Larry Sanger's essay presenting his basic approach to ethics, arguing that living well is the foundation of morality and…
Why Busy Beaver Hunters Fear the Antihydra
A science journalist explains the busy beaver game, the Antihydra program that resists proof, and why it ties back to th…
Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard
A well-known essay by David Moser on why learning Chinese is so difficult for English speakers, covering the characters,…
Why Didn't Gandalf Own a Colt .45?
A long, playful essay asking why Middle-earth never had an industrial revolution, using real economic history to examine…
Why Do Electronic Components Have Such Odd Values?
A clear explainer on why resistors and capacitors come in values like 4.7 and 22, the E-series preferred numbers and the…
Why do railway tracks have crushed stones alongside them?
A clear explainer on track ballast, the crushed stone beside railway tracks, covering how it spreads load, drains water,…
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Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa
The full text of Ernst Stuhlinger's 1970 reply to a nun in Zambia who asked why money goes to space while children starv…
Why I Am Not a Christian
A philosophy essay by Keith Parsons, a former professor of the philosophy of religion, laying out his reasoned case for…
Why I Am Not a Christian
The full text of Bertrand Russell's famous 1927 lecture laying out his reasons for rejecting Christianity, from the argu…
Why I Am Not a Communist
Bertrand Russell's short essay explaining his objections to Marxist philosophy and Soviet communism, written with his ch…
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