From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe’s iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have an enormous, dedicated following, as do his deeply researched answers to his fans’ strangest questions. The queries he receives range from merely odd to downright diabolical: • What if I took a swim in a spent-nuclear-fuel pool? • Could you build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns? • What if a Richter 15 earthquake hit New York City? • Are fire tornadoes possible? His responses are masterpieces of clarity and wit, gleefully and accurately explaining everything from the relativistic effects of a baseball pitched at near the speed of light to the many horrible ways you could die while building a periodic table out of all the actual elements. The book features new and never-before-answered questions, along with the most popular answers from the xkcd website. What If? is an informative feast for xkcd fans and anyone who loves to ponder the hypothetical.
My review
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Reviews
4.4
5,836 total
A Google User
Review: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations ...
Chris R
If you love xkcd comics and are a science nerd, you will love this book! Guaranteed! Just read the free sample and you'll see what I mean. I read the sample while on the pooper and couldn't put it down.
Justin Colavita
Fun read I found myself getting a little worn out towards the end of the book. But there are some really fun questions answered. In the end you become afraid of gravity, plasma, radiation, and things humans think about. It was a good conversation starter book though. It was fun bringing up these concepts with friends just to chat about. All in all, it did a good job keeping me company on my commute to and from work.
B Feltz
Great book This was a very entertaining read! Would recommend to any who like funny science
Mao Wtm
Really interesting and relaxing! Easy to understand, good for English beginners.
Fritz Martelly
Great Random weird questions that you just have to read the answer to.
Critic reviews
A Google User
Bookreporter.com
Review: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations ...
User reviews
If you love xkcd comics and are a science nerd, you will love this book! Guaranteed! Just read the free sample and you'll see what I mean. I read the sample while on the pooper and couldn't put it down.
Fun read I found myself getting a little worn out towards the end of the book. But there are some really fun questions answered. In the end you become afraid of gravity, plasma, radiation, and things humans think about. It was a good conversation starter book though. It was fun bringing up these concepts with friends just to chat about. All in all, it did a good job keeping me company on my commute to and from work.
Great book This was a very entertaining read! Would recommend to any who like funny science
Really interesting and relaxing! Easy to understand, good for English beginners.
Great Random weird questions that you just have to read the answer to.
My step-grandmother came over last month and gave us a couple books. This one I started reading and fell in love with. I loved this book so much. It was an awesome concoction of questions I would think of throughout the day. You would probably like this book if you are one of the following: A science lover A sports lover Anyone else. If you really like this book, I would recommend Geek Physics. The book also had a sarcastic humor to it. The drawings were hilarious and the questions were crazy. This is a definite 5 star for me.
Great read! This book was just the right amount of humor, fact, insane hypothetical question. And the author taking things a bit to far once or twice lol. Highly recommend!!!
Fascinating Scientific answers to humorously irrelevant questions.
Awesome Best book I ever read I have printed copy and his other book is tyed with Harry Potter just more sciencey and funnier
Exactly what you think Honestly I was expecting more fluff but he kept his answers interesting and accurate. If you love science, have a curiosity for the strange, and like geeky humor you'll like this too.
Best book ever I can't put to words how amazing this book is.
Very interesting I took a break for reading fiction and I couldn't have found a better choice!
A real pleasure There's not many books that allows one to laugh while learning tough physics principles. A must read for any science minded people.
What if? Serious answers to insane questions. Pure awesome.
Good book Was fun to read, took a while, but still good
Hilarious The entire book was so cool, I loved every bit of it, except when it ended
Make your brain happy Every chapter spins your head in a happy way, and when you bring up the facts later at the party, you maaay impress, or at least entertain, long enough to fool then into inviting you to the next one!
My review This book was great! It explains answers to somewhat outlandish questions using physics and science. The book is an easy read, and a very entertaining one at that. The author clearly knows what he's talking about, and he explains things in a fun and very engaging way.
Absolutely the Best If you like math and science and weird and worrying questions, please then this is the book for you!
Funny and Educational This book was hilarious and a great read.
Brilliant piece of art The answers and comics, although scientific, are hilarious!! Really well thought out answers and detailed. The questions, though not practical in reality, are really interesting! I couldn't put down the book after reading a few questions!!
Love this book. Love going super deep into strange questions. Wonder if/when he'll write another.
Very good read Very fascinating. Expands the mind. Makes science very interesting.
Amazing I'm still halfway but I find this fascinating and amusing!
Funny and hypothetically delicious I want this book. I WANT IT SERIOUSLY!
Science + Dumb Questions = This It's amazing and it's doodles are great as well. 10/10
Awesome book for Engineers and Scientists ... and anyone who has every asked What if?
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Additional information
Features
Flowing text, Original pages Best for
Web, Tablet, Phone, eReader Pages
320 Language
English
ISBN
9780544272644
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