Randall Munroe: What If? (Book Review)

If two immortals were placed on opposite sides of an uninhabited Earth-like planet, how much would pass before they found each other?

This book answers this question and dozens of other questions.

Randall Patrick Munroe (born 1984) is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of the webcomic XKCD. Munroe has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006 and also worked as a contract programmer and roboticist for NASA at the Langley Research Center.

In addition to publishing a book of the webcomic's strips, he has written three books: What If?, Thing Explainer, and How-To.

The author of this book received thousands of strange questions from humans and scientifically answered them. It is difficult to tell about the strangeness of some of the questions and about Monroe's ability and professionalism to answer them. That's why I will write some of these questions that each answer is an interesting article in the fields of science, mathematics, physics, quantum mechanics, genetics, geology, evolution...etc.

With awesome humor and a simple and interesting explanation of the most complex phenomena of the universe using caricature, sometimes I close the book and browse what he published on his page (XKCD) and Laugh about his genius in caricature

From the book's questions:

What if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning?

What would happen if all humans jumped at the same time?

What would happen if you tried to make an ordinary plane from planet Earth fly over different bodies of the solar system. (Moon, Saturn, Jupiter...etc.)?

What happens if a person gives birth to a child of himself (self-fertilization) by converting stem cells into a sperm or an egg?

If we put a sink in the Pacific Ocean 10 meters in diameter that leads to space, how much time and speed would it take for the oceans to empty? How will the shape of the Earth change?

If this water suddenly fell on Mars, how would the planet change?

If you call a random number and suddenly say "God bless you", what are the chances that the person who answers has just sneezed?

What if the sun went off suddenly?

And dozens of strange questions that make you stunned by the ability of the human mind to ask questions, and the ability of science to answer... I would say this book is one of the most enjoyable books I have read.

Some nice caricature from XKCD