The What and Why (In relation to physics)

Discerning the difference between the What and the Why is a notion brought forth by "The Fear of Physics" by Lawrence M. Krauss. In his book he calls it the difference between the How and the Why, however, as a few people have noted, it is more difficult to extrapolate the difference. The idea is set forth in the realm of physics. It is what has helped great scientists (most notably Galileo) drop the unimportant details of trying to determine why something works as it does (often upholding an emotional based idea) and get straight to the underlying details of what is actually scientifically happening. Once the rote details have been assessed, then the hypotheses of why something is happening can be determined. Another important attribute to this methodology is that a) what one perceives may often be very different to the outcome and b) the outcome can lead to additional unexpected discoveries because of a perspective that might not of otherwise not presented itself as a solution.