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. Why is the UK version about twice as expensive as the US one? Are the 16 extra pages it contains printed on gold leaf?

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  2. Preordered from Spain through Amazon.es 🙂 A little rough $->€ conversion, though.

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  3. I’m in India. I’d buy an eBook version directly if it were:
    1. DRM free
    2. Available for a price lower than the physical book (that should be obvious, no?)
    3. In ePub format (although PDF is also ok)

    A printed book from the U.S. is a pain to deal with in more ways than one.

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  4. I’m just going to comment here that both the US and UK editions are available on The Book Depository, an online book retailer that ships free to more than 100 countries. Their prices are usually fairly competitive and the two books I’ve preordered from them actually arrived a couple days before their release dates.

    I don’t have any affiliation with the site and I don’t do all of my book shopping with them but they can be amazing if the book you want is being released in the US or UK but not where you are.

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  5. When you say “nonfatal” manner, you mean non fatal for the book or the delivery man/woman? Both?

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  8. Oh, sure. Announce it just as the IRS takes all my hard earned cash. Makes me wish my mom had named me Little Bobby Tables every April.

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  9. I preordered over a week ago when I first saw your comment about your new book. Can’t wait!

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  10. @dec you can attempt to change your name any time you like. i am not sure that the Social Security computers would accept you. you can also register a business with that name.
    As long as you do not use the new name on Healthcare.gov… wait …

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  12. I just want to say thanks for that little celebration of my birthday. I assume anything fun you do on that day will be in honor of me, and not the publication of your book.

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  19. I am a Chinese student, and I like your post every much .I translate your passage into Chinese during my spare time,let more Chinese share the fun of Tech.

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  20. Another person from India. Cut-pasting the last one

    “I’m in India. I’d buy an eBook version directly if it were:
    1. DRM free
    2. Available for a price lower than the physical book (that should be obvious, no?)
    3. In ePub format (although PDF is also ok)

    A printed book from the U.S. is a pain to deal with in more ways than one”

    So please?

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  23. 😦 I was really hoping for high velocity velociraptor on a river of lava delivery…. That should at least be an option with amazon prime, why else would I pay $80-$100 a year for it?

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  24. Can’t it be streamed on netflix? I want it streamed on netflix.

    (I am so getting the book)

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  25. Isn’t it going to be streamed on netflix?
    I want it streamed on netflix, pay per view.

    (I am getting the book no matter how it’s published)

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  27. I’ve read many of your What-if articles and haven’t understood a single one of them. Almost all involve such large numbers that I run right out of fingers. And toes! I’m fine with single digit sums, but come on, is long division really necessary?

    It would be a refreshing change if you could answer a question using less mathematics and more poetic imagery. Replace galloping exponentials with a gentle linguistic cantor. Let rhythmic prose replace rampant zeros. Let soft words wrap the harsh edges of physical reality. Please.

    What If … I were smarter than my smart phone?

    Love and kisses,
    Julie Janet of Bedlam

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  28. when you say non fatal, just exactly how non fatal are you talking about? Could you classify non fatalism using a scale of 1-5, with 1 being moderately non fatal and 5 being extremely non fatal?

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  29. I am intrigued that “UK and Commonwealth” is a “foreign” edition – how does it differ from the US edition? It intriguingly has 16 extra pages. They have to be good to justify the 67% higher price! 😉

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  30. I greatly enjoyed reading the What If section on your site. I’m planning on pre-ordering the book so I can get it at a cheaper price and then donating it to the High School I attend.

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  31. I know it’s been said, but if there was any way to get an autographed copy that would make a world of difference for me.

    I’m hesitant to pre-order the book now for fear that an autographed edition will suddenly be a thing, and I’ll be stuck with my silly non-autographed copy.

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  32. @clifford: [I am intrigued that “UK and Commonwealth” is a “foreign” edition – how does it differ from the US edition? It intriguingly has 16 extra pages.]

    I think the extra pages are the result of having to spell colour and rigour and similar words with the extra “u.” One can see how small differences can yield enormous effects.

    The higher price would be partial reparations for what it cost us to wrest the colonies from the grasp of your ancestors. It’s only fair. 😉

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  34. I want an autographed copy deivered at High volocity by a lava-flow surfing velociraptor riding a meteroite into my buildings lobby!

    (If NASA get’s it’s way with the Asteroid it wants to capture, delivery by space-rock could, in theory, become a Thing.. )

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  35. OK, you finally got me to pre-order the book, after looking at your post for a month now. I was looking forward to it being delivered by a Velociraptor, however I understand current Velociraptor cloning may not be complete by September. Anything you could do to help expedite that process in time for delivery would be much appreciated.

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  36. The British and Commonwealth version is 16 pages longer because they use extra letters in some words.

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  37. @eBook:

    If you buy the Kindle edition, it’s a short bit of work to strip out the DRM.

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  38. If you were to deliver the books by a huge array of cannons each precisely calibrated so that the book lands within 5m of each recipient, how many cats are required to run a treadmill to generate enough power to make such a delivery?

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  42. I support the use of a non fatalism scale so that we can predict more accurately how the book will arrive. On a non fatalism scale of 1-5, 1 could be just barely non fatal, such as the recipient being completely paralyzed except that you can still move your eyes to read the book. This might be the result of the lava surfing velociraptor method. 5 would be extremely non fatal, like the headache my wife gets when I want to have sex. That would be a good time to read your book.

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  43. I confidently await your innovations around physical mouse-on messages in the print version

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  44. For all the people in the comments wondering how mouse-over comments can be handled in a book format, there is this remarkable invention called footnotes. Hard to believe, I know.

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  45. Hmmm, the closest bookstore to me on indie bookstore is located in O’hare International Airport. Adding the cost of plane tickets is really gonna jack up the price for me.

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  47. Why does the preorder price on Amazon keep creeping up? When I first looked, it was $14.99. Then a few days later, it was $15.14. Then a few more days later it was $15.44. Will the preorder price just keep creeping up until it reaches the full retail or something the closer it gets to release?

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  48. Apropro of nothing … “Time” has apparently been nominated for a Hugo! (The XKCD strip, not the Stephen Baxter doorstop).

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  49. Cliff wrote, a few msgs up, “For all the people in the comments wondering how mouse-over comments can be handled in a book format, there is this remarkable invention called footnotes. Hard to believe, I know.”

    C’mon, Cliff – footnotes are not exactly fun! I love finding the inner comments.

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