How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe - Non Fiction - Paperback

Details. Condition: BRAND NEW. Format: Paperback. ISBN: 9781473680340. Publisher: John Murray. Overview. How To is the gloriously impractical follow-up guide from Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic xkcd and bestselling author of What If? and Thing Explainer. Rather than offering sensible solutions, Munroe applies rigorous scientific method to the most absurd possible approach for everyday tasks, resulting in a book that's equal parts hilarious, informative, and gloriously nonsensical. It's a celebration of curiosity, over-engineering, and the joy of asking "what if we did it the hard way?". About the Book. For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally wrong that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. Drawing on the same blend of stick-figure illustration, careful research, and deadpan humour that made xkcd a global phenomenon, Munroe tackles questions nobody asked but everybody secretly wants answered: how to cross a river by boiling it, how to play the piano using lasers and fire, how to build a lava moat, and how to dig a hole using physics, chemistry, and questionable judgement. Real experts — including former astronauts, world-record athletes, and engineers — are enlisted to explain why these terrible ideas would technically work, and exactly why you should never attempt them. The result is a laugh-out-loud tour through real science: rocketry, thermodynamics, structural engineering,...