The internet is super big—cat videos (awesome), fantasy football (a time-suck), gardening (my wife’s favorite)—you name it, you can find it. For me, there’s xkcd, which is sort of a big mixing pot of Lord of the Rings, science, and adults who want to turn their apartments into giant ball pits (minus the stale urine smell).
Randall Munroe worked for NASA before starting xkcd. Legend has it that he was going through his old math and sketching notebooks one day when he rediscovered some of his old comics. He put them online and grew it into a full-time job (if we could all be so lucky). Wanting to go more in-depth, he started the “What If?” column on xkcd, where he took more space to answer reader questions on everything from how much force could Yoda output (19.2kW) to what would happen if you had a mole of moles (things get bleak). Last year, Munroe collected the best of this column, plus some new content, in What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.
What If is a fantastic book, but I have to admit that I’m drawn (pun intended) to the short and sweet xkcd comics. Here are some of my favorites.
Compiling
Tech Support Cheat Sheet
Grownups
Correlation
Conditional Risk
Forgot Algebra
Duty Calls
Wikipedian Protester
Ballmer Peak
Love these comics? Be sure to check out the equally hilarious and informative What If?