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What if you pitched a baseball at 90% the speed of light, instantly creating a mini star? Or imagine standing in Times Square surrounded by ancient forests instead of skyscrapers—how would our world change?
Support the Lit Snippets podcast by purchasing Randall Munroe’s “What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions” on Amazon, and let quick book summaries guide your literary journey!
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🚀 | Highlights We Loved
Randall Munroe's "What If?" examines the science behind absurd hypothetical questions, offering serious answers with a humorous twist. Munroe employs rigorous scientific methodology, breaking down complex scenarios into manageable parts and providing detailed calculations. His work combines curiosity with a playful exploration of science, invoking a childlike wonder in tackling unusual queries.
Through accessible language and entertaining illustrations, Munroe engages readers, demonstrating how scientific principles can be applied to seemingly impossible situations. The allure lies in the blending of humor and science, where pop culture references and witty language make intricate concepts enjoyable and easy to grasp.
|| "It's a fascinating exploration of science through the lens of absurd hypotheticals. It not only entertains but also educates and challenges the reader to think critically."
Munroe's exploration of extreme possibilities inspires readers to push the boundaries of imagination, contemplating the implications of scientific laws in unusual contexts. This exploration is both entertaining and thought-provoking, offering insights into the limits of what is feasible and the vastness of scientific curiosity.
"What If?" serves as a reminder of the power of questions and imagination, encouraging readers to appreciate the wonder of science in everyday life. Munroe's work appeals to anyone with a curious mind, making learning both fun and impactful.
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Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Ready for another deep dive? Always excited to dive in. Today we're tackling *What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions* by Randall Munroe. It's a book full of those what-if questions we all have, but with real science applied. Yeah, it's a really fun way to learn about science.
Exactly. And to help us unpack these mind-bending scenarios, we've got, well, you, our resident expert. Happy to lend my expertise. Okay, let's jump into it.
First scenario. What if the Earth just suddenly stopped spinning? Oh, wow. That's a big one. Well, first off, no more sunrise and sunset as we know it. So like, the sun would just stay in one place? Pretty much. It would take a whole year for the sun to make one full circle in the sky. So six months of daylight and then six months of night. Yikes.
Exactly. One side of the Earth would be in constant sunlight, baking an endless summer, while the other side would be plunged into a perpetual winter. So basically, goodbye spring and fall. And hello to some seriously crazy weather. On the sun-facing side, you'd have massive convection storms brewing from the constant heat, and wind patterns would be all over the place. We wouldn't have the Coriolis effect anymore.
The Coriolis effect. Refresh my memory on that one. So the Coriolis effect is basically this apparent force that acts on objects moving within a rotating frame of reference. It's why winds and ocean currents curve. Right, right. Okay, so no spinning Earth means no Coriolis effect, which means some wild and wacky weather. Got it.
But Monroe doesn't stop there, right? What about this? What if a baseball was pitched at 90% the speed of light? Okay, that's where things get really interesting. I bet. At that speed, we're not just talking about a fastball, we're talking about a relativistic fastball. The baseball wouldn't just cut through the air, it would collide with air molecules so forcefully that the atoms would fuse. Yay. Fusion. Like what happens inside stars?
Exactly. And it's a powerful reaction. It's what powers the sun and other stars. So this baseball would be like a mini star hurtling towards home plate. In a way, yeah. The impact would create a blinding flash of light dwarfing the sun, followed by a mushroom cloud and a massive blast wave. And oh yeah, the batter, the catcher, and probably a good chunk of the stadium would be instantly vaporized in an expanding bubble of incandescent plasma.
Incandescent plasma. That doesn't sound good. What about the fans? Would anyone be safe? Honestly, you'd be hard pressed to find a safe distance with that kind of energy release. Even miles away, you'd experience a blinding light and a shock wave that would shatter windows and cause widespread destruction. Yikes.
Okay, maybe let's stick to regular baseball games for now. So Monroe also asked this question. Could you survive a swim in a spent nuclear fuel pool? I'm guessing it's not a simple yes or no. You're right. It's trickier than you might think. Because believe it or not, water is actually a pretty good shield against radiation. So the radiation wouldn't be the biggest problem. Ironically, the bigger problem would be drowning.
Drowning. Really? Yeah. You'd get exhausted trying to swim through the dense water in the pool. So it's not the radiation that gets you. It's the fatigue. That's both surprising and kind of scary. But wait, don't divers do maintenance in those pools? They do. But they're highly trained and wear special suits to minimize radiation exposure.
Wow. It's amazing what we can do when we have to, huh? Let's change gears a bit. Imagine you're standing in the middle of Times Square. But instead of the city, you're surrounded by... What would it have been like a thousand years ago? A thousand years ago, you'd be standing in a forest, towering trees, streams, and animals we don't see in that area anymore. Wolves, bears, deer.
Times Square. A wilderness. I never would have pictured that. What about if we went back even further? Say, a hundred thousand years ago? No, you're talking about a completely different world. The last glacial period would have just ended. You'd see a landscape carved by ice, with kettlehole ponds, glacial erratics, and eskers.
Kettlehole ponds, glacial erratics, and eskers. Break those down for me. Sure. Kettlehole ponds are depressions formed by melting glaciers. Glacial erratics are boulders left behind by glaciers. And eskers are those long, winding ridges of sediment deposited by meltwater under glaciers.
Wow. So even in a modern city, we can still see traces of that ancient ice age. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Hey, the book mentions something about earthworms not being around when Europeans arrived. It's a reminder of how long ecological recovery takes. Those common earthworms we see everywhere. They were wiped out by the glaciers and were only slowly coming back when Europeans arrived.
Wow. That puts things into perspective. Makes you think about our impact on the environment. Speaking of impact, let's talk soulmates. If they exist, what are the odds of actually finding yours? That's gotta be a tough one. It really is. Especially if you think about soulmates existing across time, in the past, present, or future. The pool of candidates gets vast.
Vast is an understatement. Monroe actually says in the book, that sounds horrible, but wait, it gets worse? Not very encouraging. Even if we limit the pool to people alive at the same time as you, the odds are still pretty slim. Think about finding one specific grain of sand from all the beaches in the world. Okay. Maybe I need to rethink my dating strategy. But hey, a chance is a chance.
Speaking of slim chances and things we probably shouldn't try, what about hairdryers? What would happen if you had a hairdryer with a dial that went way past high? This is where Monroe gets really methodical. He starts with a simple, overpowered hairdryer and walks through the consequences. What happens first? Meltdown. House fire. The hairdryer itself would definitely melt first.
But as you crank up the wattage, things escalate quickly. You'd go from melting the hairdryer to igniting the surrounding environment, creating firestorms that could engulf cities. And eventually, planetary destruction. Kind of like that scene in H.G. Wells' *The World Set Free*, where a nuclear weapon reshapes the world. Exactly. It's a terrifying but fascinating look at pushing the limits of energy.
But then Monroe throws in a funny solution. I'm all ears. How do we stop a planet-destroying hairdryer? Turn the dial back to zero and drop it in a lake. A lake. Seriously. I can only imagine what that would look like. It's definitely a visual. I can just imagine the steam coming off that hairdryer in the lake. Definitely a sight to see.
Okay, ready for more what-ifs? Bring them on. Let's talk about moles, but not the garden variety. What if you gathered a mole like the scientific unit of moles in one place? Ah, yes. A mole of moles. That's 602 sextillion moles. Which is, well, slightly more massive than our moon.
A moon-sized ball of moles. I'm not sure if that's cute or terrifying. Probably a bit of both. First of all, where would you even put them? Yeah, good point. Rhode Island wouldn't even be big enough. Not even close. Plus, the pressure at the center of that mole sphere would be immense. And the heat from all that decomposing? Well, you get the picture.
Okay, moving on. Let's talk about something a little less squishy. What about building a periodic table out of the actual elements? Oh, now that's a project I could get behind. Though, there would be some safety concerns, to say the least. Yeah, I was just thinking that. Some elements would be fine, like gold or carbon.
But others, like sodium or potassium, would react violently with water. Then you've got the halogens fluorine and chlorine, which are super toxic, and of course the radioactive elements. So it would be a beautiful but dangerous periodic table. Maybe best admired from a distance.
Okay, what if we took something designed for the ocean and launched it into space? Like a nuclear submarine in orbit? That's one of my favorite scenarios in the book. A nuclear sub is actually pretty well-suited for space. Really? How so? The hull, you know, the part designed to withstand pressure underwater, it would probably hold up just fine in the vacuum of space.
So the submarine would be okay, but what about the crew inside? That's where things get tricky. No oxygen, extreme temperatures, and no way to steer or get back to Earth. It would be a one-way trip. A lonely and probably not very fun one-way trip.
Okay, let's switch gears again. What if we tried to illuminate the moon with a laser pointer? How bright could we make it? That's a classic. And Monroe actually goes through a whole range of lasers, starting with a simple handheld pointer. And could we see that on the moon? Not really.
But as he scales up to more powerful lasers, like the megawatt lasers used in research, things start to get interesting. So with a megawatt laser, we could light up the moon. Yeah, we could actually make it visible from Earth. It would be faint, but noticeable. That's pretty cool, but I'm guessing there's a catch.
There is. As you crank up the power, you start to do more than just illuminate. You'd be scorching, melting, and potentially even vaporizing parts of the moon's surface. Maybe best to leave the moonlighting to the sun.
Okay, next question. What would happen if we drained all the Earth's oceans? Now that would be a sight to see. Imagine all that water just disappearing. The continents would look so different. Right. You'd have all this new land exposed, connecting continents that were once separated. But it wouldn't be very hospitable.
What about all the fish and other marine life? Yeah, sadly, entire ecosystems would be wiped out. And the effects on land wouldn't be good either. The oceans play a huge role in regulating the Earth's climate. So we'd be looking at some extreme weather, droughts, and a very different planet. It's amazing how much we rely on the oceans.
Okay, switching gears again. Have you ever wondered if there's a limit to how much data we can move around? Like, what if we had a data-moving contest between the internet and, say, FedEx? That's a fun one. And you might be surprised to learn that FedEx actually has an advantage when it comes to moving large amounts of data.
Really? How is that possible? Well, you could fill a cargo plane with hard drives packed with data and fly it across the country much faster than you could transmit that same amount of data over the internet. So FedEx wins on sheer volume, but the internet is still faster for everyday stuff. It makes you wonder what the future of data transfer will look like.
Okay, last one for this segment. What's the longest possible freefall you could achieve by jumping off something on Earth? For maximum freefall time, you'd want to jump off Mount Thor in Canada. It has this amazing, sheer vertical face, and from that height, you'd get about 20 seconds of freefall.
20 seconds? That doesn't seem like very long. It's not. But if you wanted to extend that freefall, you could use a wingsuit. Wingsuits, yeah. Those are pretty cool. It's like the closest we can get to actually flying.
Okay, last one, and it's a bit of a mind-bender. What is the farthest one human has ever been from all other humans? That record goes to the Apollo astronauts who orbited the moon while their colleagues landed on the surface. Wow, that's incredible. They were millions of miles from Earth, with only the moon and space around them.
That must have been an incredible experience. It really puts things into perspective. It shows us both the vastness of the universe and the connection we all share here on Earth. That's a great way to put it. That feeling of connection is pretty powerful.
Okay, ready for a few more what-ifs before we wrap things up? Always up for more mind-bending scenarios. Perfect. So what if you could call a random phone number and there was a 50-50 chance of getting someone who had just sneezed? A sneeze hotline. That's a new one. Could you use it to catch a murderer?
Like, what are the odds of calling someone right after they committed a crime? Well, the odds of reaching someone who just sneezed are much higher than someone who just committed a murder. You'd be on the phone for a while waiting for that call. I guess my dreams of being a sneeze detective are over. But Monroe does suggest calling a random number and saying, "God bless you" anyway, just for fun.
I like that. A little bit of random kindness never hurts. Exactly. Okay, what would happen if the Earth started growing? Like a balloon being inflated? It would be like a slow-motion makeover of the planet. Think about it. To make the Earth just a little bit bigger, you'd need to add a lot of material. So even a small increase in size would have a huge impact on everything.
Oh yeah. Roads, bridges, buildings, all under stress as the ground stretches. And gravity would increase too. It would be a whole new world. The book even talks about walking becoming a struggle as gravity gets stronger. And the atmosphere would get denser, making it harder to breathe. It's a pretty wild scenario to imagine.
Okay, let's go in the opposite direction. What if the sun suddenly went out? Would it just get really cold? It would get way more than really cold. We're talking a deep freeze that would make the ice age look balmy. Plants would die. Ecosystems would collapse. Life as we know it would be over.
Not a very happy ending. But hey, at least we wouldn't have to worry about solar flares anymore, right? That's one way to look at it. But I think we can all agree that a few disrupted satellites are a small price to pay for a functioning sun. Definitely.
Okay, let's end on a lighter note. Have you ever wondered what it would take to print out the entire English version of Wikipedia? That's a lot of information. Someone did try to print all the featured articles, and it ended up being a huge book. But the whole thing. How much paper would that even be? Monroe says you'd need over 2.5 million reams of paper.
That's a lot of trees. It really shows you the sheer scale of information we have online. It's incredible. Okay, last one, and it's a bit morbid. What about Facebook? When will the number of dead users outnumber the living ones? Well, that's bound to happen eventually. As Facebook's users get older, more of them will, well, pass away.
It's kind of like a digital graveyard. In a way, yeah. It makes you think about our digital legacies and how they live on after we're gone. That's a profound thought to end on. But it's a fitting conclusion to our deep dive into what if. We've explored so many fascinating scenarios today.
From the bottom of the ocean to the edge of the universe, it's been a wild ride. A huge thank you to you, our expert, for guiding us through this incredible world of what ifs. It's been my pleasure. And to all of you listening, thanks for joining us on this deep dive. Keep those curious questions coming, because there's always more to explore. Until next time, keep wondering, keep questioning, and keep asking what if.