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Summary of What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions 

4.7 . 22256 reviews

Short summary

Randall Munroe started XKCD, a webcomic of sarcasm, romance, math, and language; it takes a humorous look at science and geek culture. Randall Munroe would occasionally get emails requesting him to mediate a scientific disagreement. He was so taken by these issues that he developed “What If.” “What If” discusses the laws of science in operation in a way that every reader will enjoy and feel smarter. Randall Munroe is an award-winning American cartoonist, novelist, and engineer widely famous for making the webcomic XKCD. Randal was a former NASA roboticist; he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full-time. He supported himself through the sale of XKCD T-shirts, prints, posters, and books. “Each year, about 60 people are murdered by lightning in the United States.” ~ Randall Munroe

Table of content

  • Summary of What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
  • About the author
  • What is What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions about?
  • Who should read What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
  • Topics in What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
first key point

Randall Munroe’s hobby: providing answers to ridiculous hypothetical questions

Listen the first key point
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Randall Munroe has a website called XKCD, where people tend to ask him weird questions. For example, one of his readers wondered what would happen if everyone only had one soul mate — a random individual somewhere in the world. Randall Munroe’s response was that assuming your soulmate is selected at birth, you don’t know anything about where or who they are, but — as in the romantic cliché — you recognize each other the moment your eyes meet. Paired up at random, 90% of our soul mates would be long dead. Also, assuming your soul mate lives at the same time as you. Let’s also assume they’re within a few years of your age. With the same–age restriction, we would have a pool of about half a billion potential matches.
There are many difficult and hard things going on globally, but there are many things to learn along the way.
Randall Munroe didn’t start out making comics. He went to school to study physics, and after graduating, worked on robotics at NASA. He eventually left NASA to draw comics full–time, but his interest in science and math didn’t fade. Finally, he found his forte: answering the internet’s weird — and sometimes worrying — questions. Randall has been using maths to try to answer strange questions from a tender age. His reason for doing maths is to answer questions.

This summary contains a selection of his favourite answers from his website, plus many new questions answered here for the first time.
Trying to comprehensively answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting place. ~ Randall Munroe
second key point

If the earth and all other earthly objects came to a halt but the atmosphere retains its velocity, almost everyone would die

The earth’s surface moves at about 470 meters per second at the equator — a little over 1,000 miles per hour — relative to its axis. A sudden thousand–mile–per–hour wind would result if the earth stopped but the air did not. At the equator, the wind would be strongest, but everything and everyone living between 42 degrees north and 42 degrees south — which comprises 85% of the world’s population — would suddenly experience supersonic winds.
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third key point

When you hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light, it changes so rapidly that everything becomes stationary

fourth key point

Below are some of the things that will happen if you travelled back in time, beginning in Times Square, New York

fifth key point

Nothing would happen if everyone stood close together and jumped, landing on the ground at the same time

sixth key point

If all humans vanished from the face of the Earth, it wouldn’t take long before the last artificial light source would go out

seventh key point

Suddenly rising steadily at one foot per second, you might suffocate to death

eighth key point

There is a probability that each time you call a random phone number and say, “God bless you,” the person who answers just sneezed

ninth key point

Conclusion

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Do you find yourself staring at your computer for long minutes, unaware of time slipping by? Do you enter a room and suddenly cannot remember why you stepped in the first place? Is it a herculean task for you to sit through ten pages of a book without reaching for your phone? If yes, your focus needs some work and fast.

Actually, yours is not a unique situation. Many adults like you have issues concentrating on a given task. However, in this fast-paced world of ours, you can’t afford to be not focused at all times. Thankfully, this article comes to your rescue! With the tips and tricks from Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, you will get in the top percent of folks who have mastered the art of concentration.