See where your curiosity takes you.

Ask anything. Get an answer written from Wikipedia, with every claim linked to its source.

Canaletto’s painting of the Bacino di San Marco in Venice: sailing ships and gondolas on the water before the Doge’s Palace. — Canaletto, *Il bacino di San Marco*, c. 1738 · Public domain

What WikiDrift is

WikiDrift answers questions using English Wikipedia and nothing else. You ask; it searches Wikipedia, reads the articles that cover your question, and writes a short explanation in plain language.

Every sentence is linked to the passage it comes from, copied word for word, so you can check a claim in one click instead of taking it on trust. Then it suggests three follow-up questions, and your route through them is drawn as you go.

It is free and needs no account. About WikiDrift explains what it can and can’t do.

An answer, with its source open

Why is the sky blue?

Because air molecules scatter blue light far more strongly than red. This is Rayleigh scattering: deflection of light by particles much smaller than its wavelength, with the amount of scattering inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength. [1]

Source 1 · Wikipedia · Rayleigh scattering

For light frequencies well below the resonance frequency of the scattering medium, the amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength (e.g., a blue color is scattered much more than a red color as light propagates through air).

Read the full answer

Start with a question

Geography

Why do cities grow around rivers?

History

How did Venice become so powerful?

Language →Why do languages change over time?

Science →How do trees communicate with their surroundings?

Browse by topic

Science Light and colour, animals and plants, oceans, volcanoes and the human body. 17 questions → Culture Music, food, timekeeping, books and the stories behind famous songs. 9 questions → Language How languages change, where alphabets came from and why words mean what they do. 9 questions →

Explained

One subject at a time, clearly and with sources.

Space explained What happened on Starship flight 14? Starship flight 14 was the first to reach orbit and deploy working Starlink satellites. What happened, why it was cut short, and what it means for SpaceX. 5 min read Science explained What is argon? Argon (Ar, element 18) is the noble gas that makes up 0.934% of the air. Where its name comes from, who found it, what it’s used for and whether it’s safe. 5 min read AI explained What is Google Gemini 4 Argon? Gemini 4 is Google’s new AI generation, led by a model called Argon. What it does, how it compares with GPT-6 and Claude, what it costs and when you can use it. 4 min read People in the news Who is Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri? Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, mayor of Marrakesh, was named Morocco’s first woman Head of Government on 29 September 2026. Her life, career and what comes next. 4 min read Explained What is Defenders Day in Ukraine? Defenders Day is Ukraine’s 1 October holiday for its soldiers, veterans and fallen. Why it replaced a Soviet holiday, why its date moved, what its name means. 4 min read

All explainers

Song Stories

Famous songs and the strange true stories behind them.

Eagles · 1976 What does Hotel California really mean? Not a real hotel, not Satanism: the Eagles say Hotel California is about the dark side of the American dream. Its lyrics, myths and court case, explained. 7 min read The Police · 1983 Is Every Breath You Take really about a stalker? Couples dance to it at weddings, but Sting calls Every Breath You Take “very, very sinister and ugly”. How it was written, who made the riff, and who got paid. 6 min read The Kingsmen · 1963 Louie Louie: the song the FBI spent two years trying to understand A three-chord party song about a sailor missing his girl became the subject of an FBI obscenity investigation, because nobody could make out the words. 2 min read

All song stories

On Wikipedia this week

Wikipedia’s most-read articles, September 20 to 26, 2026