What If?2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

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If you are interested to know any of the answers to those questions, this book is for you! What made this so much fun, aside from the ridiculous questions, is Munroe's sense of humor. Several times I laughed out loud at his drawings and his answers, which is not something that usually happens when I'm reading about science. Oh, and be sure to read his footnotes, which have even more jokes. Small chunks of ice falling from space disintegrate and boil away before they reach the ground, warming the upper atmosphere. Large comets can reach the ground intact and be vaporized on impact as their kinetic energy is converted to heat all at once. This heat energy would be about 100 times greater than the energy needed to bring even a very cold comet up to room temperature, so a comet falling from space would heat the Earth 100 times more than it cooled it. I took the book into work with me to show it around - you know - hipster-esque and what not. I'm reading this trendy, new book first. Q. What is the total nutritional value (calories, fat, vitamins, minerals, etc.) of the average human body? – Justin Risner

Anyway, this book. This book is filled with drawings and explanations by Randall Munroe on topics as diverse as:

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I'll add that one guy in my group really hate hypothetical questions... This is mostly because kids in arguments try to prove points by using them stupidly. You know: "But what if Hitler hadn't killed the Jews? Would you like him then?" or "What if Martin Luther King Jr. had used violence? You have to admit, it's pretty crazy that we've given this guy a holiday, right?" He has a point.

No. In fact, it's honestly sort of impressive to find a solution that would actively make the problem worse in so many different ways. It's clever, but if you know anything about Randall Munroe, that won't come as a surprise to you. And it's funny, and witty (which are two different things, by the way.) But again to readers of XKCD this won't come as any sort of surprise. Most of the fully answered questions fall into two categories, either "What would happen if...?" (obviously the sort of questions envisaged by the title "What If?"), and questions that ask for a number, "How much...?", "How many...", "How long...?" The "What If?" type questions are the most fun, because they allow Munroe to tell stories. However, the number questions are surprisingly fun, too -- they demonstrate a lot of ingenuity, which one has to admire. Of course, I doubted him on other footnotes: pg 134 "Although it'sa little different, if you drip superglue on cotton thread, it will catch fire." That can't be right can it? That's another of his jokes? Right? Through all of this, I carried my precious ARC around, waiting for the time when I'd be able to spare the brainpower to read it. I even took it on tour with me. (Honestly, this book has more frequent flier miles than any three of you put together.)a b "What if? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions". xkcd.com . Retrieved 2022-09-26. The book is a collection of questions he has answered as well as questions he did not answer for the good of society as a whole. Answered questions include "If every human somehow simply disappeared from the face of the Earth, how long would it be before the last artificial light source would go out?" and "How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live?". These are the questions that I always ask while out in the world but I tend to forget as soon as I'm home. Or out of the shower. Definitely shower thoughts. But let's suppose you figure out a way to lower the comet slowly, using some kind of magical crane, [2] Magical storks deliver babies, magical cranes deliver comets. and gently set the comet in the ocean.

a b " 'What If' There Were An Entire Book Devoted To Absurd Hypotheticals?". National Public Radio. NPR staff. 2014-09-07. Archived from the original on 2016-04-06. a b c Ballard, Ed (2014-03-20). "Seven Lessons From the XKCD 'What If' Comic Strip". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2016-04-06. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a 2014 non-fiction book by Randall Munroe in which the author answers hypothetical science questions sent to him by readers of his webcomic, xkcd. The book contains a selection [Note 1] of questions and answers originally published on his blog What If?, along with several new ones. [1] The book is divided into several dozen chapters, most of which are devoted to answering a unique question. [Note 2] What If? was released on September 2, 2014 and was received positively by critics. A sequel to the book, titled What If? 2, was released on September 13, 2022. [6] Conception of the blog [ edit ] And it worked. I got an early copy. And I treasured it. I petted it. It was precious to me. Precious. I find his book about one standard deviation better than similar attempts at similar things. I'm thinking of Leyner's books: Why Do Men Have Nipples?: Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini and Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? More Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whiskey Sour. Both are using humor and science and the strategy of funky questions. There are a couple differences, that matter. Mark Leyner isn't a scientist. He's a soft postmodernist author that is playing doctor explaining awkward questons. Monroe is a scientist that is using the scientific method and humor to explain absurd, and sometimes practically nonsense questions. While both of these books can be considered humor books, I tend to favor the one written by a scientist who can draw (kinda) dinosaurs and a pyramid of giraffes. Personal preference I guess.It’s an absolute delight! It’s the coolest way to learn how the world actually works.”—Hank Green (on the Dear Hank & John podcast) But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.” a b Desat, Marla (2014-09-09). "Review: What If? Answers All Your (Literally) Burning Questions". The Escapist. Archived from the original on 2016-06-06. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone's freezer doors at the same time? Maybe it's time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Randall does not provide a response to that one but I would have said Kenneth, if only life were like that. Wouldn’t it be fabulous?

But what's really crazy, is how Munroe takes bland questions and hypes them into incredible zingers. For example, " If every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at the same time, would it change color?" The answer, of course, is "no". But Munroe never stops with an answer like that. He ups the ante, increasing the power of the laser pointers, to the point where he becomes really dangerous! Shankland, Stephen (2015-12-01). " 'Thing Explainer': Fun if you enjoy puzzles, annoying if you just want to learn". CNET. Archived from the original on 2016-06-06.What if every day, every human had a 1 per cent chance of being turned into a turkey, and every turkey had a one percent chance of being turned into a human? The CO 2 released from the comet would raise the temperature of the Earth for centuries. It wouldn't just cancel out the cooling effect of the ice—over time, the comet's greenhouse effect would deliver as much heat as if you'd just let it slam into the planet and vaporize. [5] Although letting a comet slowly decay on the surface would definitely be preferable to a high-speed impact, as any dinosaur from the end of the Cretaceous can tell you. Ergänzt werden diese Antworten durch Comics im typischen Stil von Munroe. In diesen Comics wird auch Munroes Humor sichtbar, der mir persönlich sehr zusagt. Trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.Randall Munroe, ex-NASA employee and author of the wildly popular webcomic XKCD, decides to look at several, undoubtedly, absurd questions and find scientific answers to them.