What if I wrote a book?

Posted bydavean 1,117 Comments on What if I wrote a book?

For the last couple years, I’ve been answering your science questions on What If.

Today, I’m excited to announce that the What If? book is coming!

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions will be published September 2nd by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Starting today you can pre-order it from your favorite bookseller (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Indie Bound).  There are also foreign editions, including a UK and Commonwealth edition and a German edition.

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.)

Preorder today to get a copy as soon as it comes out!

1,117 replies on “What if I wrote a book?”

  1. I’ve got a question. I’m German, yet I want to order the American version (I like English, okay?). So my question is: Will I be able to preorder the English version? It would be nice to get a reply.

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  4. So, I want to ask you this question that an engineering buddy of mine said was VERY complicated and non-trivial.

    When you want tea to cool down quickly, should you add cold water immediately after steeping, or right before you start drinking?

    Okay, explanation. Tea needs really hot water to steep well. I like my tea much cooler. My solution? I fill up my cup to maybe 85% of its capacity with super-hot water, put the teabag in, and then a couple of minutes later ditch the tea bag. (At this point the water is at perhaps 80 degrees C?) Ten minutes later, I fill up the remaining 15% of my cup with drinking fountain water (5 C?). Then I drink and enjoy.

    But assuming I want my tea as cool as possible, should I fill up the 15% with cold water as soon as possible (so there’s more surface area to release heat) or should I wait till the end (because hotter water loses heat faster)?

    (Assuming a tapering Starbucks-style container with the lid off… so obviously I guess I don’t fill it up 100%!)

    If you would answer this I would be greatly honored and pleased. In any case, if you ever need a favor while traveling in the Louisville area I would gladly help you out!

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  6. Sold… Some of the most interesting and delightful reading has come out of this blog. Can’t wait to have it in a physical version… with measurable mass and everything!

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  7. @Matt, add the water right before you go to drink it. Since the energy emitted from the hot tea is proportional to the square of the difference of it with its surroundings [ie E= k T(tea)-T(air)] it will loose more energy in the same amount of time if you keep the tea at an elevated temperature as long as you can before cooling it down.

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  8. I think it only fair to tell you that if I acquire this book it would only be for the express purpose of scanning it and turning it into a torrent and uploading it so anyone who wants it can get it for free.

    That’s the world of today, man. Who needs money if everything of value is free?

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  9. So Bit Torrent, what about your “world of tomorrow” when no one produces things like “What If?” books because they have to spend all their time driving cabs for a living since no one would buy their books? Fun, eh?

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  11. I really really really really really hope that the book in some way include the hilarious alt-texts.

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  13. Thank you SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I can show my favorite what-ifs to my frends! WOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO

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  14. @Notbittorrent: But, like, data wants to be FREE, man, and we gotta smash the system or something. Jobs are totally for losers who don’t have a My Mom’s Basement to live in.

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  16. Pingback: Nerds and Words: Week 11 - But Not Simpler | DiscoverMagazine.com : But Not Simpler

  18. @NotBitTorrent

    You’ve got to use your imagination more. So-called piracy is *unstoppable*. So adapt.

    Regarding cabs: The world of the future does not require people to move around. They stay home and the information comes to them. Also cabs will be driven by robots.

    Regarding the issue of nobody producing anything: The world of the future involves distributed production, as in fab-labs in everyone’s garage. What passes around are the designs to be used in the fab-labs. Information. And again, it’s free, created by people who do it for the sheer pleasure of it. They get a kick out of their creation being appreciated and becoming popular. Like linux, google apps, xkcd itself…

    Money just doesn’t play any role in the world of tomorrow. Nor does war, violence, poverty, depression, boredom…

    Reality is changing. Don’t be so upset about it.

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  20. BitTorrent, sounds great.

    I gather you have a sizeable group of engineers and developers who are working full time developing this without pay at the moment? Does your corporation have a name and a projected date of worldwide implementation?

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  21. @NotBitTorrent

    *sigh*

    You seem the sort of person who will never, ever, ever, ever get it. Even when everything is handed to them on a silver platter. Are you a troll? Just like to argue? Just like to play the devil’s advocate? Do you even know what point you’re trying to make?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab

    “Wikipedia: Impossible in theory, possible in practice” — Kevin Kelly

    Applies to linux. Fan-based resurrection of old video games. Decentralized groups form spontaneously and create things of value.

    I’m done talking with you.

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  23. Hiya! Just felt the need to say that the light from stars, even the closest one, roils around for thousands of years inside the star before leaving it. In essence, those people OVERestimating astronomical numbers are accidentally correct. RE: http://xkcd.com/1342/

    Didn’t feel like taking the time to put this where it actually belongs, being more of a fan of What-If, anyway…I’ll be buying the book, I find your entire site really entertaining, especially .99C baseball pitches and using AK-47’s to do the job of the Up-Goer 5.

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  24. @BitTorrent

    Can you give me a link to everything you’ve ever done? Digital only please. I just need to own everything you own to be happy. Yes, I’m going to need all your personal information along with that as well. While your at it, I’m going to need to borrow a few hundred bucks. Why? I’d like to use your fab lab, you know the one you have in your garage. I’m still waiting for my 3-D printer to arrive. I got crazy ideas, so I’m gonna need all this ASAP, mmmmkay.

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  25. This is the best present ever – you happen to be releasing it on my birthday.

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  26. Book sounds cool, and torrents will not affect sales. Although, it seems Bit Torrent just pulled a 1019, if you catch my drift.

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  27. @Bit Torrent: cool stuff, man. So where do all the raw materials come from? Who mines/cultivates them? Also, can a fab lab create food or will we have robot farms and robot delivery services? How will everyone reach a consensus on how / when to end the use of currency? What will we do with those who disagree with such a measure?

    There is a large number of forces (known and unknown) in play at every level of society that stand directly counter to your utopian vision of the future. Call it whatever the heck you want for whatever reason, but good luck convincing the vast majority of society that redistributing for free something you didn’t create (or is essential to life, i.e.water) is anything but theft.

    I’m curious; how do you provide for yourself?

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  28. Durrr, bad word choice on my part. Should have written “… (with the exception of anything essential to life, i.e.water)…”

    Anyways, have at it, Bit Torrent; I’m actually curious here.

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  29. I like how Bit Torrent decides when *other people’s* time and money are no longer worth anything, because *he* decides it isn’t.

    You want *your* time and money to not be worth anything? That’s great, go for it, happy for you. For those of us who have people depending on our time and money to live — and I realize the following simple yet true fact may just not be cool enough for you to ever accept — this ISN’T YOUR DECISION TO MAKE. Plain and simple. You want to produce something in your fab lab and share it to the world, that’s within your rights. You take something that isn’t yours and steal the creator’s time and money because you like to troll, that’s not within your rights.

    Making those decisions for other people is simply fascism, no matter what high-sounding language you use to try and dress it up. And now I’m done talking to you, spoiled child.

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  30. Pingback: Nerds and Words: Week 11 | Science-Based Life

  31. I used to be afraid that piracy would destroy the reason to produce art. It was then pointed out to me that if people create GREAT things, some people will steal them and distribute them… but even more people will want to OWN them physically. I don’t want to own an album with 1 out of 12 good songs on it… I want to own an album with 10 out of 12 good songs on it.

    IMO, piracy has acted as a catalyst for the elevation of great art. Because the distribution of art will be free and without ANY marketing via torrenting. Obviously there’s some breakage (in drug dealer parlance) but if the product is better, more people who steal it will actually want to own it. I’ve done this before. I’ve test run an album I was curious about and upon verdict I purchased or not purchased based on its merit.

    To conclude my unfocussed musing, I think torrenting affects the music industry, the movie industry, and the textbook manufacturing industry far more than XKCD. People will buy this book because fans of XKCD are diehard and awesome. They want to encourage the production of future books! If XKCD makes no money on this endeavour, it will close up shop. Who wants that? It just won’t happen… because that’s the nature of the internet. Loud troll=1 XKCD fanbase=99

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  32. Yay this book is very exciting! I’m always looking forward to Wednesdays to read ‘What If’ (I live in tomorrow).

    I just went onto Amazon.co.uk (I find it’s cheapest to get books to Australia via the UK) and at the moment ‘What If’ is the number 1 bestseller in popular science! Congratulations Randal!

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  33. The comments on this thread are fantastic. I imagine Bit Torrent has a compound somewhere with seed storage, an aquifer… anyway, keep up the internet arguments, it is noble work you all do. Thanks for putting out the book Randall.

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  34. I agree with BitTorrent. Probably, within the next century, all the “work” that us humans do now will be easily matches by autonomous machines… aka, robots. At that point, the only real reason for anyone to “create” anything will be for fun, as a hobby.

    Don’t hit your head on the way out. This is the Internet; we don’t pay for anything unless there is truly no choice.

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  35. What about a kindle version? (Especially for people abroad who have to pay a lot of money to ship physical books to their local).

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  37. Is there any difference between the “standard” edition and the commonwealth edition? Perhaps the units are in a sane format like metric?

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  40. What about title texts (I mean the hints above images)?
    Also, will it be purchaseable from all around the world?

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  42. What If….the pulp used to make these books is from trees that are the ones whose destruction tips the Earth over into uncontrollable greenhouse warming, and we end up like Venus?

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  43. It is now showing on Amazon France as N°1 best-selling in “Children’s Humorous Sports”

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  44. BitTorrent, NotBitTorrent:

    This book IS free, check http://what-if.xkcd.com/. There’s no need for a torrent. The book is for those who want a physical object to measure on and/or with.

    I will be measuring lengths in units of the diagonal of one standard What if-book from now on.

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  47. I will own this book. However, what I really want is a giant flip chart calender that I can put in my brothers advanced math class for the students to look at each day.

    They might not learn anything, but my brother would be the coolest math teacher ever.

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  48. I found the list of “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” on Amazon pretty interesting.

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  49. Wow. Dead trees to read. Publishers who take most of the money. I haven’t seen folks use those in a long, long time….

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