What If?
by Randall Munroe · first published 1980
39% recommend61% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Humorous, science-based answers to absurd hypothetical questions, with fun digressions. Light, entertaining reading that teaches physics, biology and chemistry; suits curious adults and kids who like thought experiments.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and c
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zero to one - Peter thiel - good read old man and the sea - Hemingway - good read sapiens (currently reading) - Yuval Noah Harari - fantastic till now What if (still reading) - Randall Munroe - an interesting read
on “Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?” ↗Excellent read, I'd recommend anyone that likes this to check out 'What If' by Randall Munroe (XKCD)
on “What if I were 1% charged? (2013)” ↗What if by Randall Munroe Not rigorous but it changed my perspective that was instilled in me in middle school. Otherwise Feynman Notes changed me academically. Easier to pickup math through physics if you arent…
on “Ask HN: Math books that made you significantly better at math?” ↗…modern notation. Following the modern notation of course assumes some basic calculus. Highly recommended - it made me want to learn old fashioned celestial mechanics! Perhaps in 2019... Randall Munroe - What if. A fun light read about whimsical scenarios. Sigmund - Exact thinking in demented times. About the vienna circle, the philosophical group associated with logical positivism. Newman [ed] - The world…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Yay, What If is back! Munroe hasn't posted one in ages, it's one of my favourite science pages out there. Really looking forward the new book.
on “How many radioactive bananas would you need to power a house?” ↗Interesting. I think that Randal Munroe's "What If" posts (http://what-if.xkcd.com/) and book (http://whatif.xkcd.com/book/) encourage much the same thing by example.
on “The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering” ↗…"Clockwork Rocket" - Greg Egan - First in the Orthagonal trilogy; An alien story where physics is different. "Seveneves" - Neal Stephenson - Goes great with the recent hard sci-fi space movies. EDIT: "What-if" - Randall Munroe - Saw this on another list and need to make sure is shows up as often as possible. This is the thing to hand every kid as part of their back-to-school pack.
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗A few times each year I come back to Randal Munroe's "What If" [1]. By then I've forgotten where I left off last time and just kinda binge-read them over the course of a few days. If anyone here hasn't seen them yet (or, like me, hasn't checked in for some time),…
on “What are your rabbit holes on the internet? (For instance, HN one we all share)” ↗What if - by Randall Monroe. It's not a computer science book but has lots of great questions and answers to what if questions. He answers with pretty pictures and funny explanations. I learnt a lot about what…
on “Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?” ↗…liked the "A living cell is much more complicated.³" which includes a reference to a cell biology book. On reflection, the biggest reason that I liked it is the way it reminded me of Randall Munroe's What If series; if Randall wrote a What If about biology, I'm sure it would include a line like A cell is much more complicated than a clock [citation needed]. But this author went ahead and proactively gave…
on “On Reproducibility and Clocks (2016)” ↗Randall Munroe's done an edition of "What If" on a similar question: "Which has a greater gravitational pull on me: the Sun, or spiders?" https://what-if.xkcd.com/136/ The main conclusion is sadly not that exciting, but the digressions are fun…
on “Gravitational attraction of stars and cows” ↗…+ caffeine at the beginning of every day, but this isn't golden bullet. So when I am totally unmotivated, this means I have to entertain myself. To do so I read popscience book like Randall Munroe's "What if" or watch sci fi movie. Also meeting with people who you can exchange coding experience and ideas is also great motivator.
on “Ask HN: How do you all deal with lack of motivation?” ↗Not really sci-fy, but my 5 year old daughter enjoyed reading Thing Explainer and What if? from Randall Munroe of xkcd.com fame. What if? is more speculative of the two, and you can read a few of the stories/speculations on https://what-if.xkcd.com/ :-)
on “Ask HN: Sci-Fi book recommendations for kids?” ↗Randall Munroe (author of xkcd) addresses this question in his excellent book "What If?", covering what would actually happen (basically a nuclear explosion), what would happen if it was somehow kept magically at the same density without exploding (it will end up oscillating around then…
on “Most Massive Neutron Star Ever Detected” ↗Many jobs can't be done "remotely." What about food service, cooks and waiters? Delivery people? Doctors, surgeons? Randel Munroe of XKCD fame walks through this scenario in his "What If" book. Link to sample on books.google.com https://books.google.com/books?id=tgZIBAAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...
on “Coronavirus: First case confirmed in Santa Clara County” ↗