- Munroe, Randall.
What If?
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2014.
ISBN 978-0-544-27299-6.
-
As a child, the author would constantly ask his parents odd
questions. They indulged and encouraged him, setting him on
a lifetime path of curiosity, using the mathematics and physics
he learned in the course of obtaining a degree in physics
and working in robotics at NASA to answer whatever popped into
his head. After creating the tremendously successful Web comic
xkcd.com, readers began to ask him
the kinds of questions he'd mused about himself. He began a
feature on xkcd.com: “What
If?” to explore answers to these questions. This book is
a collection of these questions, some previously published on-line
(where you can continue to read them at the previous link), and
some only published here. The answers to questions are interspersed
with “Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox”,
some of which are reminiscent of my own
Titanium
Cranium mailbox. The book abounds with the author's
delightful illustrations. Here is a sample of the questions
dealt with. I've linked the first to the online article to give
you a taste of what's in store for you in the book.
- Is it possible to build a
jetpack using downward firing machine guns?
- What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at
90% the speed of light?
- In the movie 300 they shoot arrows up into the
sky and they seemingly blot out the sun. Is this possible, and
how many arrows would it take?
- How high can a human throw something?
- If every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at
the same time, would it change color?
- How much Force power can Yoda output?
- How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live?
Main belt asteroid
4942 Munroe
is named after the author.
While the hardcover edition is expensive for material most of which
can be read on the Web for free, the
Kindle edition is free to
Kindle Unlimited
subscribers.
November 2015 