Sciencenet http://www.sciencenet.org.uk
Are you confused and bewildered by the world around you? Do you sit for hours puzzling at the sheer unanswerableness of some of the questions that life throws at you? Do you yearn to somehow find some answers? Well, don’t worry - the solution to your predicament can be at your fingertips with just the click of a mousebutton. Sciencenet is an organisation providing a free question-answering service to the world.
Firstly, to see if your query has been tackled already, their site gives you the chance to browse their database of subjects - ranging from mathematics to psychology (I resisted saying ‘Archaeology to Zoology’ - but they’re all in there.) There are some real gems to be uncovered - questions that you’ll probably remember asking yourself at some point, but which you gave up asking because you thought you’d never find an answer. Just browsing through could change your life for the better by putting your mind at rest over niggling questions like ‘why is yawning catching?’ and tougher ones like ‘why do people lie?’
If, however, you can’t find the answer you’re after, you can ask one - or ten - of your own. A straightforward email form lets you plug in your name, what level of education you have in the subject, and the problem you’re stumped on, send it off and and they’ll get back to you. Questions are either tackled by their own team of experts, or passed on to a network of scientists around the world - your question will go to the people who know. And it’s a really efficient service - I asked them a question two days ago, and I just got a nice email back, with their answer. Later on in the month, they’ll post the question on their site. The explanations are clear and concise - and answers to popular questions are provided at varying levels of difficulty, for readers from primary school level to PhD.
The whole thing is just a great idea - if the ratings box below could fit more than five stars into the kids section, then it would definitely have more than five stars in it. The only question remaining is how can you get through your day without visiting Sciencenet?
Richard Northover