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WillowOne's Positions

What If

Overview

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions collects answers from the "What If?" column on Munroe's xkcd site. What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at nine-tenths the speed of light? If everyone on Earth jumped at once? If you built a periodic table out of actual bricks of each element? Munroe, a former NASA roboticist, follows each question to its conclusion with back-of-the-envelope physics, stick-figure illustrations, and a sense of proportion about exactly how badly things would go.

Notes

The best book I know for showing that the point of physics is not the equations but the habit of asking "how big is that, roughly?" and following the answer honestly. It models the scientific method in miniature: state the assumptions, estimate, check the estimate against something known, and admit where the model breaks. It is also the only book on this list that is funnier on a second read, once you have stopped laughing long enough to notice how careful it is.

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