rare questions
when did you last ask a question no one else was asking
The rare room is for the odd, the antique and the wonderfully specific — questions that have slipped out of fashion, or were only ever asked once. It is the room closest in spirit to the collection’s inspiration: Aristotle’s Book of Problems, a scroll the Peripatetic school filled with puzzlers to mull over before sleep.
This first set of rare questions come from Aristotle’s Problemata — the ancient work of around 900 questions that the Question Collection reinterprets for the modern day. They are over two thousand years old and still strangely good company.
Why is the sea salty
Why does cabbage prevent a headache after drinking
Why do we get more enjoyment from tunes that we already know
Why do you yawn if I yawn
Why, while we yawn, do we lose our hearing
Why do certain noises send a chill down the spine
Why do children get more nosebleeds than adults
Why do some people have deep voices and others high
Why do bruises change colour
Why do some plants grow better in shade
Why does fever produce thirst
Why do the extremities feel cold first
Why does cold make people pale
Why does rhythm produce pleasure
Why do some fruits ripen faster than others
Why do we shiver and tremble in the cold
Why do blows swell
Aristotle didn’t always have the right answers — but the questions have lasted far longer than the answers did.
rare and curious questions
Questions that are rare because they are so wonderfully specific, so old-fashioned, or so unexpected that you may never have heard them asked before. Some are antiques; some are simply one of a kind.
Why were chainsaws invented
Why is there a coin shortage
Where does vanilla flavouring come from
Why does the moon follow you when you drive
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin
Why do we say 'bless you' when someone sneezes
Why do clocks run clockwise
Why do we dream of people we have never met
Why is a raven like a writing desk (the Mad Hatter’s famous riddle in Alice in Wonderland - a question Lewis Carroll admitted he wrote with no answer in mind at all)
From my personal collection of the questions that friends and family have sent me over the years, and the Contributed Questions room — proof that the rarest questions are often hiding in plain sight.
rare questions from everyday life
Am I getting uglier
Is a giraffe bigger than an elephant
How long does a pack of cheese last
How does a poem mean
If a circle has one part missing, can a complete circle be the answer to it
Where do ideas come from
How big is our baby today