Why does it give an error when redirecting to .htaccess?

Question

htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /public/$1
The requested URL was not found on this server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again.
the public folder is in the same directory as .htaccess, and it contains index.php

Answer 1

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule  ^$ public/ [L]
RewriteRule  (.*) public/$1 [L]