Randall Munroe · 303 pages
Rating: (84.5K votes)
“But I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“There’s no material safety data sheet for astatine. If there were, it would just be the word “NO” scrawled over and over in charred blood.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to someone who tried to swim in their radiation containment pool. “In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“They say there are no stupid questions. That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Your plane would fly pretty well, except it would be on fire the whole time, and then it would stop flying, and then stop being a plane.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Do not try any of this at home. The author of this book is an Internet cartoonist, not a health or safety expert. He likes it when things catch fire or explode, which means he does not have your best interests in mind. The publisher and the author disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects resulting, directly or indirectly, from information contained in this book.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Remember: I am a cartoonist. If you follow my advice on safety around nuclear materials, you probably deserve whatever happens to you.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“The scholarly authorities on freezing to death seem to be, unsurprisingly, Canadians.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Maybe civilization will collapse, we’ll all succumb to disease and famine, and the last of us will be eaten by cats. Maybe we’ll all be killed by nanobots hours after you read this sentence. There’s no way to know.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Space is about 100 kilometers away. That’s far away—I wouldn’t want to climb a ladder to get there—but it isn’t that far away. If you’re in Sacramento, Seattle, Canberra, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Phnom Penh, Cairo, Beijing, central Japan, central Sri Lanka, or Portland, space is closer than the sea.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“A world of random soul mates would be a lonely one. Let’s hope that’s not what we live in.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“If humans escape the solar system and outlive the Sun, our descendants may someday live on one of these planets. Atoms from Times Square, cycled through the heart of the Sun, will form our new bodies. One day, either we will all be dead, or we will all be New Yorkers.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“So Yoda sounds like our best bet as an energy source. But with world electricity consumption pushing 2 terawatts, it would take a hundred million Yodas to meet our demands. All things considered, switching to Yoda power probably isn't worth the trouble — though it would definitely be green.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“But what kind of person makes tea in a blender?”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“We don’t know what astatine looks like, because, as Lowe put it, “that stuff just doesn’t want to exist.” It’s so radioactive (with a half-life measured in hours) that any large piece of it would be quickly vaporized by its own heat. Chemists suspect that it has a black surface, but no one really knows. There’s no material safety data sheet for astatine. If there were, it would just be the word “NO” scrawled over and over in charred blood.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“I like it when things catch fire and explode, which means I do not have your best interests in mind.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“The explosion would be just the right size to maximize the amount of paperwork your lab would face. If the explosion were smaller, you could potentially cover it up. If it were larger, there would be no one left in the city to submit paperwork to.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“A 1-watt laser is an extremely dangerous thing. It’s not just powerful enough to blind you—it’s capable of burning skin and setting things on fire. Obviously, they’re not legal for consumer purchase in the US. Just kidding! You can pick one up for $300. Just do a search for “1-watt handheld laser.” So, suppose we spend the $2 trillion to buy 1-watt green lasers for everyone. (Memo to presidential candidates: This policy would win my vote.)”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“The US isn’t a perfect model of the world,”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Lastly, we need to know the strength of gravity on Dagobah. Here, I figure I’m stuck, because while sci-fi fans are obsessive, it’s not like there’s gonna be a catalog of minor geophysical characteristics for every planet visited in Star Wars. Right? Nope. I’ve underestimated the fandom. Wookieepeedia has just such a catalog,”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Sure, we seem like we’ve taken over the planet, but if I had to bet on which one of us would still be around in a million years—primates, computers, or ants—I know who I’d pick.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“A. Nearly everyone would die. Then things would get interesting.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“In the Clarendon Library at Oxford University sits a battery-powered bell that has been ringing since the year 1840. The bell “rings” so quietly it’s almost inaudible, using only a tiny amount of charge with every motion of the clapper. Nobody knows exactly what kind of batteries it uses because nobody wants to take it apart to figure it out.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Think of the elements as dangerous, radioactive, short-lived Pokémon.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“For starters, would your soul mate even still be alive? A hundred billion or so humans have ever lived, but only seven billion are alive now (which gives the human condition a 93 percent mortality rate). If we were all paired up at random, 90 percent of our soul mates would be long dead.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“If you set out a cup of warm water on Mars, it’ll try to boil, freeze, and sublimate, practically all at once. Water on Mars seems to want to be in any state except liquid.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Every night, around midnight GMT, the Sun sets on the Cayman Islands, and doesn’t rise over the British Indian Ocean Territory until after 1:00 a.m. For that hour, the little Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific are the only British territory in the Sun. The Pitcairn Islands have a population of a few dozen people, the descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty. The islands became notorious in 2004 when a third of the adult male population, including the mayor, were convicted of child sexual abuse. As awful as the islands may be, they remain part of the British Empire, and unless they’re kicked out, the two-century-long British daylight will continue.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“While researching this answer, I managed to lock up my copy of Mathematica several times on balloon-related differential equations, and subsequently got my IP address banned from Wolfram|Alpha for making too many requests. The ban-appeal form asked me to explain what task I was performing that necessitated so many queries. I wrote, “Calculating how many rental helium tanks you’d have to carry with you in order to inflate a balloon large enough to act as a parachute and slow your fall from a jet aircraft.” Sorry, Wolfram.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
“Without us, Earth’s geology will grind on. Winds and rain and blowing sand will dissolve and bury the artifacts of our civilization. Human-caused climate change will probably delay the start of the next glaciation, but we haven’t ended the cycle of ice ages. Eventually, the glaciers will advance again. A million years from now, few human artifacts will remain.”
― Randall Munroe, quote from What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Randall Munroe
Born place: in Easton, Pennsylvania, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“-Excuse me,- I said, but my voice seemed to disappear into the dark.
It was my body. In this gloomy, cramped box, I had eaten poison plants and died, hidden away from prying eyes.
Crouching down at the door, I wept. For my dead self.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“Fuck you. You think this is a scene in some indie drama you take my wife to in the Village, some pack of lies the guy at the Times said was so naturalistically performed. But in real life? We’re bad actors. We’re slobs who actually hurt. You don’t feel it, you couldn’t, but the pain you’re causing us—causing my family—it’s destroying our lives, what we have together. What we had.”
― Andrew Pyper, quote from The Demonologist
“The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy. ~ Jim Rohn”
― Mara Jacobs, quote from Worth the Effort
“Ophelia moaned as I patted her cheeks in the approved "vague assistance to woman who has fainted" manner.
"Perdy?" she mumbled, her eyelashes fluttering.
"No, it's just me," I said, looking up when the door opened. "And Drake and Fiat, and Pal and Istvan, and I think that's Renaldo and another one of Fiat's bullies in the hall, although it's a little hard to see with everyone in the way.”
― Katie MacAlister, quote from You Slay Me
“You know what I'm thinking?' Maggie said.
I had no idea.
'Nope,' David replied. Apparently David didn't know either.
Maggie turned to me with pleading eyes.'Our babysitter has the flu.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,' I replied.
Dead silence.
I honestly had no idea what Maggie was getting at, so I misread the silence.
'It's not serious, I hope,' I said sympathetically.”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Trail of the Spellmans
MaddAddam
Unchained
Secret
May Bird Among the S...
Layla and Majnun
Neanderthal Seeks Hu...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
