meaning - "Why the Sky is Blue"


"Why is the sky blue?" vs "Why the sky is blue?"


It seems both sentences are correct, is there any difference in meaning?



Addendum


My question is inspired by this book's title:


enter image description here


Edit:


I added question mark to the "Why the sky is blue" based on the wrong assumption that if a sentence begins with "why" it's a question".



Answer



"Why is the sky blue?" has the grammatical structure of a question, and cannot be interpreted in any other way.


"Why the sky is blue" has the grammatical structure of a phrase standing in for a noun; it could be replaced by "the reason for the sky's blueness" or "the reason the sky is blue". E.g. one can say "Why the sky is blue is a fascinating question". It can also be interpreted as a question, but technically this is not grammatically correct.


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