BOOK: What If? (Crazy Science)

[Ryan Goble]

This looks like a fun one (with toons) to use in class. An excerpt from an interview with the author.

Randall Munroe, the guy behind Internet sensation xkcd, is out with a new book expanding on his recurring “What If?” series. Each week, Munroe tackles an absurd question with as much scientific rigor as possible.

“What If?” by Randall Munroe. © 2014 by xkcd Inc. All rights reserved.

The book comprises more than 50 questions, ranging from the somewhat mundane (“Which U.S. state is actually flown over most?”) to the gruesome (“If someone’s DNA suddenly vanished, how long would that person last?”) to the intriguing (“When if ever did the sun finally set on the British Empire?”) to the utterly fantastical (“How long could a nuclear submarine last in orbit?”).

(Full disclosure: I’ve been a fan of the site for a while, as you can tell from the third picture on this page.)

In the book, Munroe relies on estimation techniques, in-depth and esoteric research, and basic physics to tackle questions most folks would never think to ask, and even fewer folks could even think about answering. Munroe took time off from answering absurd questions to answer some of mine.

Full interview is HERE - http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/xkcd-randall-munroe-qanda-what-if