The Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Asking Why

There was once a girl named Maya. Maya had one problem — she asked too many questions.

“Why is the sky blue?” “Why do cats purr?” “Why does my ice cream melt faster than my brother’s?”

Her teachers would sigh. Her parents would smile. But Maya didn’t stop, because deep down she knew a secret that most grown-ups forget:

Every big discovery in history started with one small, annoying question.

The person who discovered gravity was just someone wondering why an apple fell down instead of up. The people who made your phone possible were just curious about electricity. Every doctor, every scientist, every inventor — they were all once a kid like Maya, asking why.

A research paper is nothing more than what happens when you take one of those why questions seriously — seriously enough to go and find the answer, and then tell everyone what you found.

That’s it. That’s the whole scary thing. It is just curiosity, organized.

So if anyone ever made you feel that research is only for geniuses in white coats — forget them. If you have ever wondered why about anything, you already have the one thing that cannot be taught. This series will teach you all the rest.

One rainy afternoon, Maya asked a question that would change everything. It was about a plant on her windowsill…