What If?
Books | Fiction / Satire
4.2
(948)
Randall Munroe
A special 10th anniversary edition of WHAT IF?, the classic million-copy best-seller from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, featuring new material that asks What If? x 10. This "brilliant" (Rolling Stone) book offers hilarious and informative answers to absurd questions you probably never thought to ask.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? What if everyone only had one soulmate? What would happen if the moon went away?In pursuit of answers, Munroe ran computer simulations, pored over stacks of declassified military research memos, solved differential equations, and consulted with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by signature xkcd comics. (They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.)In celebration of 10 years, Randall Munroe has revised his classic blockbuster to ask What If? x 10. What happens when you up the stakes by a factor of ten? The result is a 10X adventure of scientific insight and inquiry. Featuring brand new 2 color annotations and illustrations, this special anniversary edition is far more than a book for geeks, What If? explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much smarter for having read.
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More Details:
Author
Randall Munroe
Pages
303
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published Date
2014
ISBN
0544272994 9780544272996
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"So interesting! It was a great bedtime read with my kids. The illustrations are incredible as well. "
Siara_C
"It took me a while to finish this book, but I finally did it! It was a little out of my comfort zone and I didn't understand everything he was saying but I still enjoyed it. I loved how it was humorous at the same time it was being informative. Very entertaining ⭐️⭐️⭐️"
July
"who knew science could be so funny? no but seriously READ THIS. incredibly witty and informative (if you need information on really weird topics, such as machine gun jet packs.)"
squid
"Explores theoretical science in such an entertaining way that I didn’t think it was possible until I read it."
Chardis
"A good book to pass time and learn some fun facts"
J H
"Fantastic book to leave on a coffee table. Get answers to incredible scenarios you may have thought of!"
Peter B
"Wil Wheaton reads the audio book version. Get that!"
Patrick Berry
""I like it when things catch fire and explode, which means I do not have your best interests in mind."<br/><br/>Whether you like math, science, or whatever, I bet there is something in this book for you. I found some of the chapters were a bit slow, but those were the ones that deviated from the more math and science questions because I understand that better than the history of Manhattan. Some of the answers completely flew over my head, too, but even if then, I still enjoyed what I was reading. The author will go to such extremes to answer these questions that you never know what the final answer will be.<br/><br/>Like everyone else, the best questions were the Wacky and Weird Questions. <br/>My personal favorite being: <br/>"Would it be possible to get your teeth to such a cold temperature that they would shatter upon drinking a hot cup of coffee?" <br/><br/>The doodles enhance the experience tenfold, providing a great bit of humor. <br/>I will be reading more of these on his blog.<br/>"
Rue
"This review can be found at <a href="https://ebookreview.dreamwidth.org/80447.html">The Book Review</a>"
Susanna Bloom
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