Let's Ask Google

Why is the sky blue?

Let's ask Google!

Google says (on this day in 2005) that there are millions of web pages with answers to the question, "Why is the sky blue?" Here are a couple from the first page of results, followed by a third one from a later page:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question39.htm
This is a pretty basic answer, but it does answer the question.
http://www.sciencemadesimple.net/sky_blue.html
This goes into a bit more detail but corroborates what the first one says about the Rayleigh effect.
http://recipes.blueskyfarm.com/.
This is result #640, which is relatively high up on the list (remember, there are millions of answers). It doesn't seem to answer the question about why the sky is blue. But it does tell us that the Blue Sky Farm has been sold, and now its web site is for sale. That's nice.

Google also says about the question "Why is the sky blue?":

"The following words are very common and were not included in your search: why is the."

But aren't these the words that make it a question? Why doesn't Google include them in the search?

Let's ask Google.

"Why aren't the words 'why is the' included in a search?"

Google says:

"The following words are very common and were not included in your search: Why the why is the in a."

We say, "Why aren't these words included?"

Let's ask Google.

"Why aren't the words 'Why the why is the in a' included in a search?"

Google says:

"The following words are very common and were not included in your search: Why the Why the why is the in a in a."

Hmmm, we don't seem to be getting anywhere with this sort of question.

Let's NOT ask Google.

Could it be that Google doesn't answer questions, that it just looks for words?
And not necessarily all the words, but just the ones that it thinks are important?

That would explain:

why words like "why," and "the" and "in" and "a"--little words that occur many times in most pages--are simply ignored
why--besides finding sites that answer the "question"--Google also finds other sites that simply contain the words "blue" and "sky," and not necessarily in that order

Let's Ask Google

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