“What If?”

Randall Munroe

A magnitude 15 earthquake would involve the release of almost 10³² joules of energy, which is roughly the gravitational binding energy of the Earth. To put it another way, the Death Star caused a magnitude 15 earthquake on Alderaan.

This is a fun book to recommend, because unlike most books, there’s a demo available online. Go read that, and if you like it, the book contains more. It also has a very literal subtitle: “serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions.”

Munroe has had a fascinating career to date, and I remain an avid fan of his webcomic. It was definitely a formative influence on the nerdier side of my sense of humor,¹ and continues to make me laugh an average of slightly more than three times a week.²

This is a fairly good book for reading in small chunks – each ‘chapter’ is only a few pages long, and there’s no need to read them in any specific order.

All in all, it’s a fun read, and I definitely recommend it.

1. And, in writing that, I’m having fun imagining his reaction to reading that. ↩
2. Three new comics a week, and the average is above that because sometimes I wind up hitting the ‘random’ button a few times and laughing again. ↩