What If? 10th Anniversary Edition

From the creator of the wildly popular xkcd.com, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.

Millions visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. Fans ask him a lot of strange questions: How fast can you hit a speed bump, driving, and live? When (if ever) did the sun go down on the British Empire? When will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than living? How many humans would a T-Rex rampaging through New York need to eat a day?

In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations and consults nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.

Smart answers to silly questions: Randall Munroe reveals all GUARDIAN A masterclass and a great deal of fun... Like all the best lessons, you only realise how much you've learnt once you've finished it THE ECONOMIST I love XKCD's What If -- 'Dear Abby for mad scientists' NEIL GAIMAN With this book, you're a kid with a chemistry set all over again. . . required reading for all grown-ups and a fun reminder that science is really, really cool. REGISTER Essential NATURE Expert research and accessible wit... a favourite among both geeks and laymen TIME Brilliant ROLLING STONE Delightfully free-wheeling and whimsical... despite all the hard facts and gigantic numbers, you really don't have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy What If? ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Brilliant, funny and fascinating GRAEME LE SAUX, DAILY EXPRESS The best bathroom book you'll ever buy... Eminently approachable and full of beautiful expositions on the impossible that illuminate the furthest reaches, almost to the limits, of the modern sciences. The physics is real; and so is the emotional content NEWSWEEK It will satisfy the curious and arouse curiosity in anyone who's not - and it's got great jokes IRISH TIMES Totally brilliant TIM HARFORD XKCD is nerd royalty, the alpha dork, there's no geek more widely cited and loved BEN GOLDACRE What If? is brilliant, scientifically rigorous and utterly absurd... It. Is. A. Triumph BOINGBOING Fantastic... What If? has solved my gift dilemmas for a large group of people . . . . Here's a "What If?" question from me: What if everyone on the planet simultaneously bought a copy of this book, stopped what they were doing and read it cover to cover, would modern civilization and our global economy collapse? It's an experiment worth trying HUFFINGTON POST Wonderful and incredibly fun AMERICAN SCIENTIST Thoughtful, scientific, and highly entertaining PARADE If you're the kind of person whose brain whizzes with questions, What If? may calm the noise. Randall Munroe's done all the hard work for you SHORTLIST Dangerously absorbing . . . I could not think of a better book VARSITY The reader is left constantly subject to outbursts of laughter, lin­gering doubts concerning the sanity of the human race, and an ever-growing fascination with the way our world and the universe works . . . Though science geeks will be the first to acknowledge Munroe's greatness, even people suffering from a chronic hatred towards anything concerned with math will find the humour and absurdity of What If? hard to resist THE STUDENT

Randall Munroe is the creator of the webcomic xkcd and bestselling author of What If?, Thing Explainer and xkcd: Volume 0. Randall was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and grew up outside Richmond, Virginia. After studying physics at Christopher Newport University, he got a job building robots at NASA Langley Research Center. In 2006 he left NASA to draw comics on the internet full time, and has since been nominated for a Hugo Award three times. The International Astronomical Union recently named an asteroid after him: asteroid 4942 Munroe is big enough to cause mass extinction if it ever hits a planet like Earth.

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