The Internet should be a place where we can find good answers to basic scientific questions. Unfortunately, that’s not always easy.
Consider the question, “Why is it colder at higher elevations?” It seems like you should be able to Google this and find a straightforward and enlightening answer. However, most online explanations (e.g. on question-and-answer websites like Quora, StackExchange, Reddit, and even many educational sites like Scientific American) are wishy-washy, incomplete, visually bankrupt, needlessly arcane, and/or grammatically shameful.
On Quora, a thread addressing the question of “Why is it colder at high elevation” contains 50 different user-generated answers, ranging from unsatisfying to spectacularly wrong. One Quora user, “Tzvi Freeman,” notes that reading through those answers gave him a feeling of “utter confusion and exasperation.” He continues: