Great idea for a book (an ex-physicist tries to solve absurd hypothetical questions with back-of-the-envelope calculations). Lots of the answers were surprising, and you're introduced to a lot of concepts that you wouldn't have come across otherwise.

The tone of the writing conveys curiosity and play and it's charming 95% of the time. The other 5% lapses into "haha I'm such a nerd, I care about minutiae and I like lasers," which is really annoying, so one star off for that. ( )

It's starting to look like Randall Munroe is my go-to author when I'm sick. Many of the What If? scenarios scratch something like a humorous sci-fi itch for me, but without the expectation that I keep track of groups of characters and whatever's going on with them in particular.

My absolute favorite chapter in this volume is "Periodic Wall of Elements," in which Munroe lays out what would happen if someone, somehow, built a periodic table out of bricks, where each brick was made of its corresponding element. However, as with What If? 2, I generally enjoyed any chapter that involved lots of destruction.

I don't really have much to say beyond that. This was technically a reread, but my first time through was in audiobook form. While I recall Wil Wheaton being an enjoyable narrator, the illustrations alone make this better to read in print.

Oh, one thing I'll add: the chapter "Common Cold" ("If everyone on the planet stayed away from each other for a couple weeks, wouldn't the common cold be wiped out?") felt really weird to read after the past few pandemic years and the period of sorta kinda lockdowns (in the U.S., at least).

I have a copy of Munroe's How To waiting on my TBR for the next time I get sick. Hopefully it'll get to sit there until at least 2024.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

As a baseball fan, I turned immediately to the essay on the fastball being pitched at 90% of the speed of light. The punchline to that essay sold me on this book. All the rest is pure gravy, and tasty gravy it is, at that. ( )

The first of two popular Science books regarding absurd and hypothetical questions. Amusing and in turn, intellectually challenging, this is a fun and relatively short book that easy to either read from cover to cover or dip into and out of both of which I enjoyed. It covers a wide breath of science with many topics being discussed and examined. Anyone with an interest in science will get a lot out of this.

I look forward to the next one ( )

So great. I especially love the "troubling questions from the what if inbox" sections ( )