How does CSS 'overflow:hidden' work to force an element (containing floated elements) to wrap around floated elements?

Question

Anyone know why overflow:hidden forces an element with floated elements to wrap the elements?

I really want to understand the inner workings rather than just using

Answer 1

Well, seems there is no 'actual' explanation for why this happens (not one that I can understand anyway - e.g. the CSS spec excerpt provided in one of the responses simply explained that a box with floated content should not expand to wrap the floated elements - which is fine and that is logical and I completely get that)

I was hoping this wasn't some random hack that forced the parent element to wrap it's floated child elements, but it seems every resource I look at just says to use it and not why it works.

Must just be a hack.

The most useful resource I came across (or the one that gave the most detail - albeit not as much details as I needed) was from Quirksmode: http://www.quirksmode.org/css/clearing.html

Thanks if anyone else can shed light as to whether this is a random browser rendering quirk or has a logical explanation for working the way it does.

M.