What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
by Randall Munroe
I promised myself I would write a review for every five-star book I read, so here I go.
I am a huge fan of XKCD, which should mean I wouldn’t like this book, since I read most of its content on the XKCD website. I’m also not a huge fan of Will Wheaton as a reader. Plus, with the audiobook, I missed all the pictures. And yet, somehow, I loved it.
Hearing Munroe’s insane physics (and biology, and sociology) scenarios rather than reading them proved to be addictive. The funny, disturbing thought experiments built up, and I found myself imagining force lines surrounding the people and objects around me. In my work as a science fiction author, I started looking up things like the Reynold’s number equation, so I could make sure my flying crinoids could actually fly (don’t worry, they can). That’s what science fiction is supposed to do, after all. Keep us dreaming.
Published on August 15, 2015 04:53