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in 2005, and following its success took up cartooning full-time soon after. With many of his drawings revolving around the topics of science and mathematics, Munroe soon began receiving questions from readers about those subject areas. As a result, he created a spinoff blog titled
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Munroe includes 64 questions covered in depth in this installment, each separated into its own chapter, and dozens more are answered briefly. The book's prose is humorous, and the chapters are also frequently accompanied by the author's illustrations, done in the same minimalist,
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style as his webcomic. Many of the book's questions were submitted by children, and these are generally preferred by Munroe, who considers them more straightforward than the elaborate scenarios often envisioned by adults.
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continues in the same vein as its predecessor in attempting to provide logical, science- and mathematics-based answers to extreme hypothetical questions and situations. The author uses techniques made famous by physicist
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praised Munroe's amusing prose and attention to detail, and said his answers to the questions are "thorough, deeply researched, and great fun."
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370:"XKCD's Randall Munroe announces What If? 2, with more scientific answers to life's most absurd hypothetical questions"
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would need to eat half of one human per day in order to survive, and that it would take over 8,300 years to fill an
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wrote that "the author's playful prose style and inventive illustrations make this book eminently browsable", and
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where he compiled these questions and his subsequent responses. The blog formed the basis for his 2014 book
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called it " delight for science geeks with a penchant for oddball thought experiments."
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saying, "Science isn't easy, but in Munroe's capable hands, it surely can be fun."
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What If? 2: Additional
Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
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What If? 2: Additional
Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.