Do you enjoy the irreverent and thought provoking XKCD web comic but wish you didn’t have to get on a big scary computer to get more content from creator Randall Munroe? Well you’re in luck, luddites! Also, we appreciate you getting over your technophobia to read these words. It must be so hard for you.
Called What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Munroe’s book will be a collection of questions and answers from his “What If?” side-project, which can also be found on the XKCD website. It will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with a September 2nd release date, though you can now pre-order it on most online booksellers if you’re so inclined.
Munroe explains more about the project in his press release:
As I’ve sifted through the letters submitted to What If every week, I’ve occasionally set aside particularly neat questions that I wanted to spend a little more time on. This book features my answers to those questions, along with revised and updated versions of some of my favorite articles from the site. (I’m also including my personal list of the weirdest questions people have submitted.)
While this is Munroe’s first non-comic related book, no doubt he’ll still be implementing his trademark stick-figure style for scientific diagrams, just as he does on the What If? blog. Stephanie Kim, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s senior publicist, also calls it ” the perfect book for anyone who has ever wondered how fast you can hit a speed bump while driving and live, or what would happen if a Richter 15 earthquake hit New York City.” Yeah, that sounds like us to a T.
(via Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- Munroe’s magnum opus, “Time” is incredible
- This click-and-drag XKCD was turned into an MMO
- The future according to Google
