What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

Reposting this 2014 review because What if is today’s Audible Deal of the day (March 30) and on sale for $2.95 for the Audible.com Audiobook. This is one that might be better in print, but the narrator is Wil Wheaton and the audiobook is well reviewed.
Summary: Serious science, with humor and line drawings, what more could you want.

The best thing I randomly stumbled across in my searching through the Kindle Unlimited books is the recently released book What If? by the author of the xkcd comic.

This is formatted as a book to browse through (or a bathroom book if that is your thing.) Each question is 4 to 5 pages and Munroe takes the subtitle’s Absurd idea seriously.

Some of the questions are absurd, but most of the answers are taken to an absurd level that puts the original questions to shame.

One of the questions asks if you could turn the recoil of a machine gun into a jetpack. Then Munroe calculates the recoil of various machine guns and figures out how many of them together would need to lift you into the air.

This is a book that I meandered through over a month. But I did not finished it before my subscription to Kindle Unlimited ended. However if you want a hint about the book, then you can read the What If blog, which is where the book was adapted from.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

Kindle Edition is part of the Kindle Unlimited Collection

Leave a Comment