What If?

       Welcome back to the final edition of Blogging with Benji, where there’s no need to be shelf-concious! This month, I’ll be discussing What If?, a book written by Randall Munroe, a former NASA employee turned cartoonist. Munroe posts his comics at his website xkcd.com, which is described as “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

"Recurring Nightmare" from xkcd 

       Most of these comics are loosely related to STEM in some way, but they are definitely still entertaining even if you don’t like STEM. Published in 2014, What If, as its subtitle suggests, is about “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.” The book is divided into separate chapters that each attempt to answer a question, providing evidence and explanations with a firm scientific basis. These questions were submitted on the xkcd.com What If blog, and some of the most interesting questions were compiled into this book. However, these questions are not typical scientific questions like “Why is the sky blue” that one might expect, but are far more absurd questions like “Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns?” or “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?.”

       I was first introduced to xkcd and What If in middle school math class when our teacher would occasionally read a chapter or two to us if we finished early. The question from the first chapter that he read to us was “What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place?.” I was immediately hooked by the humorous scientific analysis of how 602,214,129,000,000,000,000,000 moles gathered together (in space because there’s not enough space on earth) would form a high-energy moon-sized sphere of moles complete with erupting geysers of hot mole meat (51). Each chapter has the basic repeating format of a few paragraphs followed by a simple, comedic, stick-figure illustration. However, the style remains interesting throughout the entire book and the stick-figures contribute to the almost sarcastic or ironic feel of the book.

An illustration from the “Glass Half Empty” chapter with the scenario being “What if a glass of water was all of a sudden, literally half empty?”

       What If masterfully combines fact and fiction in an entertaining manner by basing insane hypothetical claims (such as jumping over a mountain with a machine gun jetpack) with somewhat believable scientific reasoning (calculating the acceleration based on the recoil and thrust-to-weight ratio of the “Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30” Russian machine gun). Munroe masterfully manages to achieve the perfect ratio of science, humor, and plausibility, making What If an engaging and enjoyable read. The cartoons pair perfectly with the text, and they highlight the absurdity of the scenarios while adding an extra layer of humor. Even though the graphics are simple, they are still just as, and if not more entertaining than a complicated drawing might be. This book also has a convenient amount of flexibility since there is no overarching storyline, so you can pick up the book and just read one chapter if you’re short on time, or read ten in a row if you really want to dig in.

        I would highly recommend What If to anyone looking for a good, somewhat educational laugh. If you do choose to take a look at this book, here are the top 5 chapters that I would recommend reading first: “Machine Gun Jetpack: Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns?”, “Glass Half Empty: What if a glass of water was, all of a sudden, literally half empty?” (like a vacuum), “Steak Drop: From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?”, “Periodic Wall of the Elements”, and “Hair Dryer: What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube-shaped bricks, where each brike was made of the corresponding element?” in that order (and maybe “Common Cold: If everyone on the planet stayed away from each other for a couple of weeks, wouldn’t the common cold be wiped out?” since it’s very relevant to society today). If you aren’t able to access the book but still want to see some clever comics, I highly recommend checking out xkcd.com. Overall, I would give What If an unctuous 12/13 on the Bologna Blog Scale for its top-notch comics and amusing writing.