What If? 2
Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Ratings90
Average rating4.3
I read the first one probably ten years ago or something so I can't say whether or not I liked this one more but it was definitely just as witty. Even when presented with universe shattering situations Monroe makes me laugh
Once upon a time, I believed it was possible to read every single book, never mind the fact that I'm not actually even interested in every single book. Someone else, in fact, thought of this, and asked, at what point in history would it still have been possible to do so? And What If? 2 answered: likely before sometime in the 1500s.
This actually makes me feel better, even if logically I know I don't want to read every book.
What If? 2 is fun and clever in general, but I realized a few days ago that I was skimming and skipping whole chapters when I didn't understand the science or wasn't interested in the subject matter, and that's okay. This is Matt's book, and he enjoyed it, and I enjoyed it while I enjoyed it and now I'm ready to move onto something else.
Stopped at page 285, in case I ever feel like revisiting.
A fun, if odd-ball, collection of questions with proposed solutions, with Munroe's quirky illustrations scattered throughout.
Probably a 3.5. Fun and entertaining just as the first book. Definitely a good audiobook to pass the time.
Trust me, I'm no scientist, and I understood just the tiniest bit of what I read in this book. But even if you are no scientist and you understand little of what you are reading, hey, it's fun. Really, really fun. People ask questions and Randall Munroe answers.
Sample question:
“If the universe stopped expanding right now, how long would it take for a human to drive a car all the way to the edge of the universe?”
Answer: “If you drive at a steady 65 miles per hour, it will take you 480,000,000,000,000,000 years—that's r.8 x 10 to the 17th power—to get there, or 35 million times the current age of the universe...” And that's just the start.
See? Super fun.
Readers familiar with xkcd, Randall Munroe, What If, How-To or anyone with a passing interest in physics will be well-served by this book. The TL;DR version of this book would be questions of the sort of ‘what if..' put forward on a site, where a former NASA robotics engineer with a penchant for dry humor answers these questions with more than a tinge of sarcasm.
Questions range from the genuinely curious (can we burn a piece of paper using moonlight?), to the slightly macabre (how much sunscreen would you need for landing on the surface of the Sun?). In case you're wondering, the answers are no, and not that much.
On a tangential note, many researchers and engineers I talk to on a daily basis are disenchanted by the field, either by the difference between their expectations and reality, or because they're disillusioned by the assumption that science and maths are tough, and it's not possible to understand them in detail, unless you put in disproportionate amounts of effort.
Randall is one of the only people I've encountered (who's not a researcher) that still displays an infectious, childlike wonder for STEM, and distills advanced concepts to their essence. This book is a great read for that alone, along with the fact that it's also a good source for collecting bucketloads of trivia.
I've been following Randall's work since xkcd #83 — damn, I'm getting old! —, and ‘What If? 2' reads more like some of his filler work in the comics. It's 25% less compelling than its predecessor, but you're still getting a very interesting read out of this one.
Some of the questions were funny but a very detailed, boring minutiae of answering the questions made me give up on the book about 50% of the way in
Manque clairement d'intérêt pour qui a lu le premier livre. Les situations se répètent entre les deux livres et même au sein de celui-ci.
L'humour reste agréable mais moins juste que dans le premier livre et le concept original.
Easily as good as the first. Oh, how I needed this right now! This is the kind of book that reminds me there is hope for the world.