Review: What If? by Randall Munroe

If you like xkcd, you’ll probably like this book. There’s lots of physics, nerd humor, computer humor, stick figure drawings, math, and so on.

Some of the questions/answers are hilarious and memorable: I particularly liked the ones about throwing a baseball at relativistic speeds; swimming in a pool full of spent nuclear fuel; a wall that has all the elements from the periodic table; what would happen if you had 1 mole (6.022×10^23) of moles (the furry animals); what orbital speed really means; what would happen if we drained all the earth’s oceans through a giant hole; and what would happen if we shot a bullet that was the density of a neutron star. But some of the other questions/answers were weird, or forgettable, or a bit confusing.

Overall, I find it slightly educational, moderately funny, and largely entertaining.

Rating: 4 stars