What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

The title says it all. This books presents serious answers to plenty of absurd questions. What if the earth were a giant eyeball? What if it rained gumdrops and lemon drops? How about a lava lamp made of lava? These and many other questions are answered with science as well as humor, complete with illustrations. In the process, you slyly get a better understanding of Newtonian and relativistic physics as well as many other bits of science. Most of the questions are answered with a few pages of detail. There are many "quick sections" where questions are presented without detailed answers. It is tough to decide whether I should feel guilty for escapism or happy that I learned a lot.

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

What If? was created by the author if the xcd comic to explore answers to some absurd scientific questions. He tackles questions like "What would happen if there was a 15.0 Earthquake? (earth would probably have blown up.) He also goes off on to tangents with questions like "what would happen if everybody jumped at once?" In the answer he put everyone in Rhode Island. They all jumped at once, and had minimal sound. Then there was the big mess of everybody trying to get home at once. Some questions are not so extreme, but interesting. Virginia is the most common flyover state, in thanks due to flights from Toronto. Delaware has the greatest ratio of flyover to actual landings because of the lack of commercial air traffic. There are many complicated physics questions and lots of things that get blown up. I learned that you could not cook a steak by dropping it form heights. If it got hot enough to be cooked, it would likely sear off the cooked portion. Otherwise it would still be cold. The chapters with actual chapters with "answers" are interspersed with tongue in cheek rapid-fire answers to absurd questions. It all makes for an entertaining quick read.