Why is the sky blue?

An inquisitive child’s question to their parents, or the pondering college student who wonders ‘Why not red?’ Someone who has studied the mechanics of light or heard through the grapevine what others have studied, myself being one of the latter, could tell you that the atmosphere absorbs and scatters the blue wavelengths of light and as it bounces around the air molecules that make up the atmosphere and make the sky appear blue. But does this answer why the sky is blue? I propose that this only answers how the sky looks blue, when it comes down to the heart of the question.

Let’s examine the difference between the words “how” and “why” as they apply here. The word why means ‘for what reason, cause, or purpose’. The word how means ‘by what means’. (Trust me; I looked it up on dictionary.com) Now, seeing as one of the meanings to the word why is ‘the cause of the result’, it is not improper grammar to ask why the sky is blue and answer with the cause, which is very truthfully atmospheric absorption. But to take the fact that the word is properly used when talking of the cause of the resulting blue color and to extend that to mean the reason or purpose is cheating. It makes no sense to apply the word in all manners of its definition when one manner of definition applies. For example, the word “ran” in the English language has many usages. Two in particular are to move or roll and to melt or flow. Let us consider a car driven by a man who has recently committed a robbery, which did not go unnoticed or unreported to the authorities, and is now being chased by the cops. In an effort to cut a corner more sharply and hopefully make more distance between him and his pursuers, the driver runs the car over the curb. Now (at this point we will depart from the narrative of the fleeing robber, use your imagination to finish the story, for the point of telling it was simply to use the word run in context) let’s consider the statement “The wheel of the car ran over the curb.” It is appropriate to apply the definition of moved/rolled in this context, but to take the fact that the wheel rolled over the curb and to now say that it is melting makes no sense. I argue that it is the same illogical situation when the cause of the blue sky is extended, without any reason than another definition of the word why, to mean the reason or purpose.

Now, what exactly did I mean by the ‘heart of the question’? I meant what is really being asked, at times despite the words used. People make fun of women all the time for often asking a question where the words chosen and the heart of the question are entirely different. Personally, I am alright with this, and aspire to answer the words asked and as well tend to the heart of what was asked, as is appropriate to the situation. And so I try very hard to see the heart of every question that I am asked. But that is an aside. The question that is being answered when one starts talking about atmospheric absorption is in the sense that the word “why” is interchangeable with the word “how”. For example, the answer to ‘why the lamp is broken’ is that ‘a baseball went through it’, and the answer to ‘why a baseball went through it’ is that ‘there was an errant throw made while the kids were playing baseball in the house’, it follows that the answer to ‘why the lamp is broken’ is that ‘an errant throw made while the kids were playing baseball in the house’. Up to this point the words “why” and the definition of how ‘by what means’ are completely interchangeable. But if we go further to “why were the kids playing baseball in the house, even when they were told not to’ and the answer something like ‘it was raining outside and they would rather be dry than wet’ or ‘they are disobedient punks and did it just because they were told not to’ the word “why” stops meaning ‘by what means’ and enters the realm of reason or purpose; it starts pertaining to the motivation behind it. And so, to respond with the theory of atmospheric absorption to the question ‘why is the sky blue’ and to really mean the reason, purpose, or motivation behind it is completely illogical. This is why I think the question should be rephrased to “How is the sky blue?”, or “By what means do our eyes perceive the atmosphere as blue?” To phrase it this way says more accurately what you really meant, if an answer about atmospheric absorption satisfies your curiosity.

I think that the true answer to why the sky is blue comes down along these lines of reason, purpose, and motivation, and is very alike to the motivation for behavior. As another example, when the question is asked ‘why did the man wash the dishes?’, the answer is not ‘he filled the sink with hot water and applied soap and friction with a sponge’. The answer to why is something like ‘he likes a clean apartment’, or ‘because he is supposed to’, or even that ‘he is embittered at his roommates for not cleaning and wants a way to rationalize feeling superior to them by cleaning their mess’. And I think that this other sense of the word “why” that speaks of purpose and motivation really does apply to the question ‘why is the sky blue?’ If there is a person that made the earth, the answer to why is something like ‘he felt like it’, or ‘in setting up the mechanics of refraction and absorption of light the way that they have been would produce beauty in the sky’. But this requires there to be a person behind it all, for only a person has motivations.