Embarking on a 13 hour car trip I asked a friend for a suggestion for an audiobook. The words “xkcd” and “Wil Wheaton” were barely out of his mouth when I started to download it from my local libraries collection. And I was not disappointed. xkcd is “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language” so clearly probably a hit with this audience. There is a “What If” section where readers can ask questions and, as the title suggests, Randall Munroe will possibly choose one to […]
When Has Physics Made You Laugh?
I don’t think that I’ve laughed out loud at a book that wasn’t a straight up comedy memoir in a long time. Randall Munroe is the cartoonist behind xkcd. In this book, he takes on some pretty awesome questions that are utterly ridiculous (but still fun to think about) and sorts out the science. The tone kind of reminded me of my favorite fiction book this year, “The Martian.” There are a lot of calculations that I don’t fully understand, but he explains them well […]
Detailed answers to questions you’ve never thought to ask.
I’ll admit, I zipped through What if? by Randall Munroe pretty quickly. It’s an interesting idea for a book and some of the questions Munroe answers were strangely fascinating. Unfortunately, I don’t have much patience for lengthy sciency-wiency explanations, so sometimes I would sort of drift off, or skim the answers. I definitely felt smarter when I got to the end though and I’m just waiting to show off next time someone asks me an absurd hypothetical question. Munroe is an entertaining writer and I […]