What If?
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Description
'Nerd royalty' BEN GOLDACRE
'Totally brilliant' TIM HARFORD
'Required reading across the world' NEW YORK TIMES
From the creator of the wildly popular xkcd.com, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.
Millions visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. Fans ask him a lot of strange questions: How fast can you hit a speed bump, driving, and live? When (if ever) did the sun go down on the British Empire? When will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than living? How many humans would a T Rex rampaging through New York need to eat a day?
In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations and consults nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.
Book Information
Posts
"What if?" answers hypothetical questions with scientific knowledge, humor, and comic illustrations. If you've spent any time on the internet, you've likely seen the author's illustrations before, and the book delivers on everything you imagine coming from xkcd in a book. An unintended side effect of reading this in 2023 and 2024, almost 10 years after it was initially published, is that it's an absurd experience to see the quarantine question answered as a hypothetical unrelated to the reality we live in now (see the chapter "Common Cold"). Incredibly enjoyable, funny, and you even learn a few things along the way.
Funny, witty, nerdy and informative. Some articles where difficult for me to understand, however it was well explained. I loves the references to Star Wars, lotr and firefly. Also I learned some things just from reading this book (eg how chemotherapy works) All in all a big recommendation to all my friends with curiosity and/or an interest in modern science (...and a weird sense of humor probably)
2/5 There are few books on my shelves that I have put down as many times as I did with this one. You would like this, if: you are skilled in science - whatsoever. Minus biology, probably, because I’m good with that and it didn’t help. See, my problem is, I did not gain a thing from this. It was too academic for me to grasp many answers (or the questions at times) and it seldom touched a topic I am privately interested in. For a long ass time this was the reason I thought I hated non-fiction (which I don’t) and I’m an idiot (definitely true). I hand out compliments for the illustrations and the general humour, outside of science-jokes, which was super nice and I’m sure the author is a delight to be around, this just really wasn’t the book for me, personally. It might totally be for you, though!
This book is awesome. Randall Munroe does a really good job with explaining science to everyone (everyone who knows xkcd already knows this). The topics are short but informative. You always get way more information than you thought, and with its on point humor it's just fun to read. I really learned some new stuff, and even though most of the topics are really crazy, I already could shine with some knowledge or facts around my friends. I really can recommend this to everyone. Fun!
Description
'Nerd royalty' BEN GOLDACRE
'Totally brilliant' TIM HARFORD
'Required reading across the world' NEW YORK TIMES
From the creator of the wildly popular xkcd.com, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.
Millions visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. Fans ask him a lot of strange questions: How fast can you hit a speed bump, driving, and live? When (if ever) did the sun go down on the British Empire? When will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than living? How many humans would a T Rex rampaging through New York need to eat a day?
In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations and consults nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.
Book Information
Posts
"What if?" answers hypothetical questions with scientific knowledge, humor, and comic illustrations. If you've spent any time on the internet, you've likely seen the author's illustrations before, and the book delivers on everything you imagine coming from xkcd in a book. An unintended side effect of reading this in 2023 and 2024, almost 10 years after it was initially published, is that it's an absurd experience to see the quarantine question answered as a hypothetical unrelated to the reality we live in now (see the chapter "Common Cold"). Incredibly enjoyable, funny, and you even learn a few things along the way.
Funny, witty, nerdy and informative. Some articles where difficult for me to understand, however it was well explained. I loves the references to Star Wars, lotr and firefly. Also I learned some things just from reading this book (eg how chemotherapy works) All in all a big recommendation to all my friends with curiosity and/or an interest in modern science (...and a weird sense of humor probably)
2/5 There are few books on my shelves that I have put down as many times as I did with this one. You would like this, if: you are skilled in science - whatsoever. Minus biology, probably, because I’m good with that and it didn’t help. See, my problem is, I did not gain a thing from this. It was too academic for me to grasp many answers (or the questions at times) and it seldom touched a topic I am privately interested in. For a long ass time this was the reason I thought I hated non-fiction (which I don’t) and I’m an idiot (definitely true). I hand out compliments for the illustrations and the general humour, outside of science-jokes, which was super nice and I’m sure the author is a delight to be around, this just really wasn’t the book for me, personally. It might totally be for you, though!
This book is awesome. Randall Munroe does a really good job with explaining science to everyone (everyone who knows xkcd already knows this). The topics are short but informative. You always get way more information than you thought, and with its on point humor it's just fun to read. I really learned some new stuff, and even though most of the topics are really crazy, I already could shine with some knowledge or facts around my friends. I really can recommend this to everyone. Fun!