New book!
For the second time in a fairly short span, I’m going to push a book at you that is mostly unrelated to cooking, or eating, or politics. I don’t know if you are all aware of Randall Munroe, author of the geeky-chic, totally amazing, thoughtful, incisive, and hilarious XKCD web comic. But if you’re not, you should be. And you should know that he’s writing a book!
It’s not an XKCD book, exactly. It is based on his equally thoughtful blog, “What If?” in which he provides serious scientific answers — mostly based in physics — to all kinds of crazy questions that readers send him. My favorite from way back in the blog’s early days is called “Everybody Jump,” and it answers the pressing question: What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant?
At any rate, the book is called What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions