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How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems

Randall Munroe (Goodreads Author)

4.21 · Rating details · 4,593 ratings · 636 reviews

The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the million-selling What If? and Thing Explainer

For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally bad that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of

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Paperback, 320 pages

Published September 5th 2019 by John Murray (first published September 3rd 2019)

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Feb 07, 2019 Miranda Reads rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

3.75 stars

If you’re worried that the house will blow away, or that some prankster will attach jet engines and send it blasting off into the distance...

Then this is the book for you!

If you have ever been curious about how to dig a hole, how to cross a river or how to jump really high - then look no further!

If you want to beat a high jumper, you have two options:
1. Dedicate your life to athletic training, from an early age, until you become the world's best high jumper.
2. Cheat.

Much like ...more

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Dec 21, 2019 Science (Fiction) Nerd Mario rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-natural-sciences, munroe-randall

Nonfiction books that are based on answering questions in unconventional ways, giving different answers to one question like in John Brockmans series, extrapolating ideas and general taking the boooooring out of science, are a great way to get everyone fascinated.

This book has some crazy, but well explained and profound ideas for more or less daily problems and gets one interested in the technology and physics of many ignored details of life. Mind games, creativity techniques, free associations Nonfiction books that are based on answering questions in unconventional ways, giving different answers to one question like in John Brockman´s series, extrapolating ideas and general taking the boooooring out of science, are a great way to get everyone fascinated.

This book has some crazy, but well explained and profound ideas for more or less daily problems and gets one interested in the technology and physics of many ignored details of life. Mind games, creativity techniques, free associations and simple experimentation are keystones of both science education and real, practiced science.

Outgoing from the ideas of this book, one could go outside inside a complex building, nature, a social machinery, virtual (worlds)ly everywhere and simply try some unconventional approach to functioning systems. Once with a focus on maximal productivity, another time on the highest grade of silliness. Both is great for getting fresh ideas, solving problems, improving functioning systems and so on.

It´s a pity that the audience hasn´t been included to choose the questions as in Munroe´s first book, which would have given the whole thing even more quality. Probably I am a bit biased regarding this deep connection to the audience, but especially when this collective intelligence is connected with a voting system to enable all users to filter out the trash and find the best, most creative, probably even unique questions, the whole potential is unleashed. Hopefully, his next book will go back to the roots.

Another problem is that "What if" was a unique masterpiece and the author has the insolvable problem of fulfilling those expectations. Because especially deep wit and weirdality take much time to produce it, as it can´t be just written down like an average article but has to be uniquely created. Also, some of the technical and theoretical aspects could have been more broken down to a better understandable level.

All in all, as I tend to say far too often, another good example of modern science education and probably the reason for why I will try to forget my concerns about building a lava pool when I visit a volcano the next time, because I am well prepared now.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science...
...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Tucker rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: most-anticipated, reviewed, arc-physical, owned-physical, disappointing

Many thanks to Brooke at Penguin Random House for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

So… How To. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. I painfully choose to give this 3.5 stars. I am honestly as shocked as the rest of you. There were quite a few things I loved and quite a few things I didn’t. I’d like to get the negative out of the way so here we go.

For starters, this book is not What If. I know you’re probably thinking Yeah, no sh*t I (foolishly) expected this to be like What ...more

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Nov 02, 2019 Jenna rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, science, humour

Did you ever wonder how to build a lava moat around your house or how to send a package from space? Well, you're in luck! Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems explains how to do these and several other weird things you might have wondered about. I'm not saying you're weird if you've pondered these things; I'm saying they're weird questions. Don't blame me: The author himself claims they're absurd. Other absurd questions asked (and answered) in this ...more

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Dec 17, 2019 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-shelf, science, humor

As always, when I read a funny book, BUT I'm also listening to a narration by Wil Wheaton, I'm suddenly nearly incapable of figuring out whether I love the book for its content or presentation.

Gaaaah!

Fortunately, I had a great time with both, seamlessly upping my chuckle factor by a few magnitudes as I learn how wrong it would be to make a really, really huge teakettle. *hint* (the rivers of lava might make your homeowner's association a bit upset.)

The most fascinating feature, other than just ...more

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Dec 17, 2019 Alex Givant rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2019, science

Excellent set of real life problems with unreal solutions, but all of them based on pure science. Each of them are to enjoy and think about.

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Sep 10, 2019 Lindsay rated it really liked it

Shelves: humor, science

So much about author Randall Munroe can be explained by a quote from this book:

I really love that we can ask physics ridiculous questions like, “What kind of gas mileage would my house get on the highway?” and physics has to answer us.

Most of the rest can be illuminated by his approach to most topics in this book. Tongue firmly planted in cheek and nerd flag raised proudly high. Frankly, I have no idea why it's taken this long for the creator of the brilliant xkcd comic to tell us the winning ...more

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Dec 21, 2019 Natalie Monroe rated it it was ok

Shelves: when-sparks-don-t-fly

A bit too sciencey for my tastes. I skimmed the math-filled parts and the rest of it just wasn't enough to tickle the funny bone.

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Feb 07, 2019 Abigail added it

IM SCREAMING I NEED THIS NOW

INJECT THE SPILLAGE OF YOUR NERD MIND DEEP INSIDE MY CRAVING BONES!!! FILL ME WITH POINTLESS KNOWLEDGE!!!

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Nov 28, 2019 Emily rated it it was ok

Meh

Really liked the author's first book, this one just was too ridiculous. I ended up skipping big sections of it.

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Sep 16, 2019 KC rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: math, non-fiction, humor, immigration, science, diy-how-to

Quirky, funny, and at times ridiculous. I love Munroe’s sense of humor and his approach to all matters but this was just okay for me.

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Dec 24, 2019 Amanja rated it it was amazing

This is an abridged review, to see the full one with all the pictures please visit https://amanjareads.com/2019/12/24/ho...

Randall Munroe is the engineer/cartoonist behind that science positive comic strip with the stick figures that you may have seen before.

I've been a fan of his for years now. He has an absurdist sense of humor and marvelous creativity, both of which are on full display in his latest book How To.

How to answers many every day and not so every day questions such as how to dig a This is an abridged review, to see the full one with all the pictures please visit https://amanjareads.com/2019/12/24/ho...

Randall Munroe is the engineer/cartoonist behind that science positive comic strip with the stick figures that you may have seen before.

I've been a fan of his for years now. He has an absurdist sense of humor and marvelous creativity, both of which are on full display in his latest book How To.

How to answers many every day and not so every day questions such as how to dig a hole or how to mail a package from space. The answers are all scientifically sound however impractical they may be. Although in the case of mailing a package from space it turns out you may just be able to drop it out the airlock.

In the chapter How to Build a Lava Moat he explains how wide your moat would need to be in order to deter intruders, how deep it would need to be to maintain its structure, and how expensive it would be to maintain the heat needed to keep it glowing. See, it's very important that your lava moat be glowing or it's simply not as intimidating. He also explains how much energy would be needed to cool your house to a livable temperature with it so near that much lava.

No matter how ridiculous the question, science has the answer. The main appeal of this book is just how insane the questions can get. His creativity in coming up with weirder and weirder problems for science to solve is impressive.

He consults with experts when something isn't in his particular niche. He contacted a former NASA astronaut and retired pilot about how to land a flying house under various extreme circumstances and convinced Serena Williams to hit tennis balls at her husbands drone, for science.

The book is laugh out loud funny but also educational. It's nice to see an entertaining way to apply mathematical formulas. Maybe, somewhere, a young person reads this book and sees their potential as an engineer or other great mind. The applications found in this book are far more intriguing than text book calculations about how many watermelons you'd have if your neighbor's horse ate six sevenths of your watermelons after you planted 57% more than last year's yield of a 16th the national average of Cuba's population per hectare for three quarters of your field and 68% more for the remaining quarter. Although those questions have always been equally bizarre.

Humorous nonfiction books are a favorite of mine if for no other reason than they get people thinking without them thinking about it. Curious minds will be roused by this book and we can always use more curious minds.

If you have read Randall Munroe's other books I can assure you this one is much more like his first, What if?, in that it is truly readable. His second book, Thing Explainer, is very interesting and informative but it's pages of blueprints with no narrative. How To, is entertaining enough to sit down and read for an hour without feeling bored. And of course it still has pictures.

I can fully recommend this book even to people who do not typically read nonfiction. It's entertaining but also has short easy to digest chapters that you can pick up and put down without missing a beat. Read it in between your more serious books for when you need a little laugh. ...more

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Sep 25, 2019 Elvina Zafril rated it really liked it

I enjoyed myself reading this book. This is the first book I read written by this author.

Since this is a non fiction book, there’s no plot or main characters to talk about.

How To is informative and easy to read. A lot of How tos in doing things. Even how to send a package. There are some useful informations that I think I can use. For example how to take a selfie with Venus in the background, how to blow out birthday candles with a jet engine and most interesting part is how to dispose of the ...more

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Dec 29, 2019 Deborah rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-when-new, library, nf-humor, gca-2019, 2019, npr

It is very funny, but there were some questions I wanted usable answers to.

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Nov 03, 2019 Rossdavidh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: blue

The principal problem with Randall Munroe books, is that they go by way too fast. I like to savor a good book, reading a little bit at a time, then thinking that part over for a day before going on to the next. With "how to", like its predecessor "what if", I gobbled it up in a day or two. Someone with money please fund a grant to get Mary Roach and Randall Munroe to write a series of science textbooks for junior high and high schoolers.

There are chapters on how to take out a drone with a tennis The principal problem with Randall Munroe books, is that they go by way too fast. I like to savor a good book, reading a little bit at a time, then thinking that part over for a day before going on to the next. With "how to", like its predecessor "what if", I gobbled it up in a day or two. Someone with money please fund a grant to get Mary Roach and Randall Munroe to write a series of science textbooks for junior high and high schoolers.

There are chapters on how to take out a drone with a tennis ball, if you happen to be Serena Williams. A pilot who has flown on both Space Shuttle and Soyuz missions gives us his estimate of Dorothy's options for flying her house so as to miss the witch. We see some ideas about how to build a real lava moat around your house (and also some of the downsides). There is a discussion of how long people can throw things, which led apparently to the web comic at xkcd.com/throw, where you can find out that Carly Rae Jepsen can throw a squirrel a distance of 15 smoots.

There is a chapter on "How To Play Football", wherein the first few pages are devoted to figuring out, without actually asking anybody or knowing beforehand or otherwise cheating like that, which kind of football you are playing, whether it is soccer or rugby or Canadian football or what. From there, we have a discussion of how to take the ball to the goal, including whether or not you should use a horse. This takes us to an analysis of how many orcs a good sized galloping horse could actually knock out of the way, wherein the physics analysis of air resistance is used with the air molecules replaced by orcs.

The basic point of the book (yes, there is one) is expressed in the following quote:

"I really love that we can ask physics ridiculous questions like, 'What kind of gas mileage would my house get on the highway?', and physics has to answer us."

This, is missing from most science education. Once you have learned how to do the math to find the answers to questions that somebody else already knows the answer to, you can then use the same skills to ask (and answer) questions that no one knows the answer to. This, is one of the great things about science, and it was found almost nowhere in my education. The reason being, of course, that science is extraordinarily useful, and anything which is useful, can also be dangerous.

In other words, our education (science and otherwise) wasn't boring by accident, it was boring on purpose. They don't teach you enough chemistry to make explosives, or enough physics and engineering to make good trebuchets, or enough history to catch the flaws in your teachers' political beliefs, or enough of anything to get yourself into trouble, because...you would get yourself into trouble. Our education, is boring because it has had all the danger removed. In prehistoric times, you learned by doing alongside the adults in your tribe of hunter/gatherers on the African savannah. Everything you learned, had a purpose and a use, otherwise why would you learn it? But, nowadays, our education is all the trappings of learning without anything learned that can result in a child hurting themselves or misbehaving, which is more or less all the interesting bits.

What Randall Munroe has done with this book, consciously or not, is imagine what physics education could be like, if we weren't worried about giving the students crazy dangerous ideas, like how to make a wheel that rolls smoothly on an escalator, so that you can use the energy provided by the escalator to charge your phone when there are no available outlets.

"Pro tip: You should probably make the wheel narrow, rather than having it take up the whole width of the escalator. It's going to be unsafe either way, but if it takes up the whole escalator, and someone gets on without noticing, it will inadvertedly turn your contraption into a nightmarish human grinder, which will likely harm its efficiency."

The book has Munroe's generic-yet-somehow-distinctive style of illustration throughout, as for example the diagram on p.71 of how one could use a giant field of kettles to boil a river, so that you can cross it without having to touch the water. It has humor, science, and occasional offbeat historical details like the near-nonexistence of buried pirate treasure and George Washington's ability to throw things. It was great. I want another. ...more

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Nov 22, 2019 Jamie rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Absurdly fun just like Randall Monroe always is.

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Aug 13, 2019 Paperclippe rated it really liked it

I don't know how Randall does it but every single book he writes is as good as every single XKCD he puts out.

Want to know how to have a pool party? It's not as easier as it sounds. First you have to build a pool, and to build a pool, you're gonna need a lot of math, and math is fun!

No, seriously. Math is fun.

This book revolves around the literal how-tos when it comes to doing things. Let's take our pool for example. Do you know the compression strength of the material you're about to build your ...more

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Nov 12, 2019 Anna rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

4.5 I did not like this format quite as well as that of What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, but the humor and fascinating scientific detail were just as amusing to read.

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Sep 22, 2019 Alex Richey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, audio2019, audiofile, humor

Audiofile Review!

I laughed out loud a LOT while listening to this one. It takes extremely ordinary scenarios and applies ridiculous amounts of science and physics (and humor!) to answer questions. I learned a lot of really fascinating and digestible tidbits of info, and I am much more equipped to take over the world and destroy everything than I was before finishing. Highly recommend!

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Sep 19, 2019 PvOberstein rated it it was ok · review of another edition

An unfortunately severe case of ‘I wanted to like it more than I did’. Randall Munroe’s latest book is How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, following in the vein of his previous work, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions . And, fairly or unfairly, I keep comparing the two books in my head, and How To just keeps coming up short.

How To works by taking straightforward questions (“How to Jump Really High”, “How to Ski”) and answering them ...more

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Aug 12, 2019 Katra rated it really liked it

Another smart and hilarious offering from Randall Munroe! The flip-side follow-up to What If? is every bit as brainy and had people wondering about me as I guffawed in the library's lunch room.

Sure, you could fill your swimming pool with a hose, but you might need to resort to bottled water; and if you need to empty them all quickly, you might consider using a nuclear bomb. This is how it would work . . .

There are also helpful (?) instructions for how to heat your home with lava, which sports ...more

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Dec 31, 2019 Geordie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Looking back over my year of reading, it really feels like I read more crappy books than good ones. Even the ones I enjoyed, I tended to fill my reviews with the things that were flawed and disappointing. Is it my cynicism? Is it the lurid state of book publishing these days?
Well, whatever it is, this book is a refreshing remedy, and a perfect high-note to end my 2019 reading with. I earnestly don't think I had a single problem with "How To: Absurd Science Advice for Common Real-World Problems". ...more

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Jan 01, 2020 Preeti Ramaraj rated it it was amazing

Absolutely loved this book. It is in a chapter form, where truly he attempts to answer absurd questions in the most scientific way possible. I got to attend his book talk at Michigan, and I received a copy then! Each chapter answers a different question, and inside, there are leading questions and subtopics too. Each chapter had me laughing at so many different points. I loved that it was soo easy to consume (Each chapter perfectly fit my night time reading schedule) and I also love how he ...more

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Oct 30, 2019 Katie rated it really liked it

An accurate description of everything I’ve worked on in my career

Not as funny as What If , but still pretty funny. I think having people write in ridiculous hypothetical scenarios just produced better content than taking ordinary things and coming up with absurd ways to do them. It’s just not practical!

That being said, there are some real gems in here (see how to land a Roc, yes the mythical bird), and also the constant references to studies you have to believe no one would have been dumb enough ...more

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Oct 25, 2019 Robert rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-20-season

Just as informative, entertaining , and thought provoking as in his previous columns and online work - Munroe is the brightest star to be added to the intelligent comic firmament since Scott Adams.

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Nov 07, 2019 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it really liked it

Shelves: problems-ideas, nonfiction, creativity, science, factoids

You know how boring scientific manuals are? Not this book. Randall Munroe takes on problems---how to walk a dog, how to win an election, how to dig a hole, and oodles more---and offers solutions that are convoluted, complex, unnecessary, odd, and exceedingly funny.

I loved What If and now I'm a fan of How To. I guess I need to find a copy of Thing Explainer. I'll have to write a letter to the author, earn money to pay for the book, drive to the author's home....

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Sep 15, 2019 Tim Jarrett rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

You know you’ve found a good book when literally every member of your family tries to grab it or read parts of it at the same time that you are.

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Sep 08, 2019 Maciej Kuczyński rated it it was amazing

Don't really expect any realistic answers from this book. Nonetheless, it's really entertaining to read about absurd solutions to various problems. Like how to move your house using airplane engines—or how to send someone the entire Internet using butterflies.

As with many pop-science books, I wish the author used more civilised units of measure instead of feet, gallons or—I don't know—empty milk bottles.

Note: I listened to the audiobook, which misses on the excellent drawings and jokes; ...more

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Sep 02, 2019 Yani rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Very funny and actually educational! Despite the silly premisses, each chapter does give fundamental answers how everyday life works.

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Aug 18, 2019 Trin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010s, american-lit, humor, science

Conceptually, not quite as interesting to me as What If?, but still brainy, oddball fun. The kind of book you think you're going to dip in and out of, but then end up reading for surprisingly sustained periods.

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About Randall Munroe

Randall Munroe

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Randall Munroe, a former NASA roboticist, is the creator of the webcomic xkcd and the author of xkcd: volume 0. The International Astronomical Union recently named an asteroid after him; asteroid 4942 Munroe is big enough to cause a mass extinction if it ever hits a planet like Earth. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Books by Randall Munroe

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

Randall Munroe 3 Books Collection Set (How To [Hardcover], What If?, Thing Explainer)

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“It turns out that if you accelerate at 1 G for several years, you can reach almost any destination in the universe. After a few years have passed [traveling at that rate], the effects of relativity really start to add up. When 3 years have passed for you ... you'll have traveled nearly 10 light-years - far enough to reach many nearby stars. If you continue accelerating, it would take you less than 20 years of your time to reach a neighboring galaxy. If you keep pressing the accelerator for a little over two decades, you'll find your vehicle traveling billions of light-years per subjective "year", carrying you across a substantial fraction of the observable universe.” — 1 likes

“Bats—which catch insects by emitting pulses of ultrasound and listening for the echoes—can hear up to around 150 KHz.” — 0 likes

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