Call number
Series
Publication
New York : Riverhead Books, 2022.
Description
Essays. Science. Nonfiction. Humor (Nonfiction.) HTML:The #1 New York Times bestselling author of What If? and How To answers more of the weirdest questions you never thought to ask The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the Moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone�??s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it�??s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, built a billion-story building, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on a geyser as it erupted? Okay, if you insist. Before you go on a cosmic road trip, feed the residents of New York City to a T. rex, or fill every church with bananas, be sure to consult this practical guide for impractical ideas. Unfazed by absurdity, Munroe consults the latest research on everything from swing-set physics to airliner catapult�??design to answer his readers�?? questions, clearly and concisely. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme ci… (more)
Awards
NPR: Books We Love (2022)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Non-Fiction — 2022)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2022-09-13
ISBN
9780525537120
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User reviews
LibraryThing member bragan
For those who have read the first What If? volume, you'll know exactly what to expect from this one, because it's more of the delightful same. For those who haven't, well, the subtitle says it all, really. People send Randall Munroe, of xkcd fame, absurd questions, and he gives real, yet funny,
It's all hugely entertaining and wonderfully silly, while simultaneously providing a really good demonstration of what it's like to think the way a scientist does about "what should happen in this situation?" kinds of questions. And it makes my geeky little heart very, very happy.
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scientific answers, complete with all the reasoning behind them. What would happen if you filled the solar system out to the orbit of Jupiter with soup? (Answer: bad things.) How much of the Earth's mass would you have to remove in order to lose 20 pounds thanks to the reduced gravity pulling on you? (The answer to that one is also "bad things," really. Honestly that's usually the answer regardless of what form the question takes.)It's all hugely entertaining and wonderfully silly, while simultaneously providing a really good demonstration of what it's like to think the way a scientist does about "what should happen in this situation?" kinds of questions. And it makes my geeky little heart very, very happy.
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LibraryThing member readinggeek451
Another exploration of bizarre questions. Munroe, known for the webcomic xkcd, takes all of the questions seriously and explains exactly how badly things would go if you tried to--
drive to the end of the known universe
catch a spent bullet in your bare hand
put a house-sized Jupiter down in your
drink a cloud
build a billion-story skyscraper
--to name just a few of the questions he tackles with humor and rigorously worked-out science. Line drawings add to the fun.
Not a book to read straight through, but loads of fun.
drive to the end of the known universe
catch a spent bullet in your bare hand
put a house-sized Jupiter down in your
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neighborhooddrink a cloud
build a billion-story skyscraper
--to name just a few of the questions he tackles with humor and rigorously worked-out science. Line drawings add to the fun.
Not a book to read straight through, but loads of fun.
Show Less
LibraryThing member AndreasJ
It's perhaps superfluous to review this; if you've read the first book,you should know if you want more of the kind, if not that one would be the logical place to start. But for what it's worth, i found it delightful.
LibraryThing member Guide2
Not quite as interesting as the first book, but still enjoyable.
LibraryThing member adzebill
More science absurdism from Randall Munroe. Entertaining, silly, and extremely educational. Careful citation of sources is always appreciated, and this volume has rather more [citation needed] tags for facts like "the sun is hot", which I think Wikipedia would probably let go.
LibraryThing member Narilka
This one is just as much fun as the first book. I like that the answers are generally shorter though Munroe does go to Mythbuster style absurd lengths at times. Some of my favorites are:
• How much meat a day would be needed to feed a T. Rex
• How long would it take to read every book
• Can you
• The billion-story building
• And the gag of "Things You Should Not Do" that runs throughout the book (Spoiler: Don't tell California that your farm is selling Pokemon eggs)
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton. You can tell Wheaton is enjoying himself immensely as you can hear the laughter in his voice at times as he reads, especially as he describes some of the cartoons.
I hope we get a 3rd What If? in the future.
• How much meat a day would be needed to feed a T. Rex
• How long would it take to read every book
• Can you
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eat a cloud• The billion-story building
• And the gag of "Things You Should Not Do" that runs throughout the book (Spoiler: Don't tell California that your farm is selling Pokemon eggs)
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton. You can tell Wheaton is enjoying himself immensely as you can hear the laughter in his voice at times as he reads, especially as he describes some of the cartoons.
I hope we get a 3rd What If? in the future.
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LibraryThing member troymcc
This What If? book was more jam-packed with neat ideas than the first one!
LibraryThing member harryo19
Laugh out loud (LOL) funny. I'm not smart enough to totally follow all the math and physics involved, needless to say, most of the scenerios end up in death and the end of the world/sometimes universe.
LibraryThing member Familiar_Diversions
If you liked the first What If? volume, you'll probably enjoy this one. Randall Munroe once again tackles a variety of questions in as scientific a way as possible. This occasionally (often?) means he has to make some assumptions so that the questions are answerable, and his assumptions might not
Some of the questions were more math problems than "what if?" scientific thought experiments - for example, the one about how many pages a person would have to read in order to read all of the laws that apply to them, or the one asking at what point in history there were too many English-language books to read in one lifetime. My favorite questions were the true "what ifs," the ones that involved fundamental changes to the world, the universe, or time itself. The more horrifically destructive the results, the better. (Bring on the candy rain and neverending dogs!)
I started reading this while I was sick, assuming that the explanations would help me drift off to sleep. Instead, I found this book to be entertaining in a way that was absolutely perfect for my exhausted and congested self. Many of the chapters told little stories about worlds or universes in which something had gone horribly awry, which was great fun to read about. At the same time, Munroe wasn't asking me to keep track of characters or plots, everything came with amusing pictures, and each chapter was relatively short. I could easily read a chapter or two and then decide it was time to nap for a few hours. True, I couldn't always follow the science, but I can't guarantee that I'd have been able to follow it even if I'd been healthy.
If I remember right, I listened to the audio version of the first What If? book. I recall enjoying it, but, what with the illustrations, it'd probably have been better to read it than listen to it. My enjoyment of this volume is making me consider going back and reading a paper copy of the first book.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
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always gel with what the person who asked the question intended. But hey, it's entertaining.Some of the questions were more math problems than "what if?" scientific thought experiments - for example, the one about how many pages a person would have to read in order to read all of the laws that apply to them, or the one asking at what point in history there were too many English-language books to read in one lifetime. My favorite questions were the true "what ifs," the ones that involved fundamental changes to the world, the universe, or time itself. The more horrifically destructive the results, the better. (Bring on the candy rain and neverending dogs!)
I started reading this while I was sick, assuming that the explanations would help me drift off to sleep. Instead, I found this book to be entertaining in a way that was absolutely perfect for my exhausted and congested self. Many of the chapters told little stories about worlds or universes in which something had gone horribly awry, which was great fun to read about. At the same time, Munroe wasn't asking me to keep track of characters or plots, everything came with amusing pictures, and each chapter was relatively short. I could easily read a chapter or two and then decide it was time to nap for a few hours. True, I couldn't always follow the science, but I can't guarantee that I'd have been able to follow it even if I'd been healthy.
If I remember right, I listened to the audio version of the first What If? book. I recall enjoying it, but, what with the illustrations, it'd probably have been better to read it than listen to it. My enjoyment of this volume is making me consider going back and reading a paper copy of the first book.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
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LibraryThing member wdwilson3
I really enjoyed Wil Wheaton's narration of this great book. Whether I learned anything is questionable, but I got enough laughs that it really doesn't matter.
LibraryThing member fpagan
A follow-up volume of science humor coming out 8 years after the first one. Sixty-four ludicrous but reader-educating scenarios are analyzed using concrete numbers and innumerable little comic drawings. The recurrent Wikipedia-style "[citation needed]" annotations of blindingly obvious facts are
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considerably amusing in themselves. Don't we all need such generators of smiles? Show Less