What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe.
The "Look Inside" excerpt at Amazon sold me on this one. The author gave up a career in physics to become a full-time stick figure cartoonist. This is the book to read unless you're comfortable with remaining ignorant of the answers to such timeless questions as, "How fast would a human have to run in order to be cut in half at the belly button by a cheese-cutting wire?" This one looks just plain fun. The book, that is, not getting cut in half by a cheese cutting wire, which I don't recommend.
Caveat: There are some ridiculous prices for this book, so if you buy I suggest you buy from Amazon.com or Google Play, where it's only $6.99. Barnes and Noble's price is $13.49, and Kobo wants an astounding $19.19 for it.
Amazon Ca
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Barnes and Noble
Google Play
Kobo US
Quote:
From Goodreads:
Randall Munroe left NASA in 2005 to start up his hugely popular site XKCD 'a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language' which offers a witty take on the world of science and geeks. It's had over a billion page hits to date. A year ago Munroe set up a new section - What If - where he tackles a series of impossible questions: If your cells suddenly lost the power to divide, how long would you survive? How dangerous is it, really, in a pool in a thunderstorm? If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce? What if everyone only had one soulmate? From what height would you need to drop a steak to ensure it was cooked by the time it reached the ground? What would happen if the moon went away? This book gathers together the best entries along with lots of new gems. From The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and the songs of Tim Minchin, through chemistry, geography and physics, Munroe leaves no stone unturned in his quest for knowledge. And his answers are witty and memorable and studded with hilarious cartoons and infographics. 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 the smarter for having read.
|