Top all-time · #5860
what if?
Personal blog · whatif.xkcd.comscience
what if? is a personal blog at whatif.xkcd.com about science. Since 2012, 14 different Hacker News readers have linked it 14 times, most often “XKCD book – What If?”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Commenters link xkcd's Randall Munroe 'what if?' series of analyses of hypothetical science questions, such as an Earth impact, how much pee would kill you in a pool, and a human test-subject story.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- XKCD book – What If?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-09-03
- What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-02
- XKCD What If Blog - Answering Your Hypothetical Questions with Physics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-07-24
What Hacker News says?
OTOH: "The momentum would be enough to knock the Earth into a different orbit—but the Earth is no more. The energy deposited is ten thousand times greater than the planet’s gravitational binding energy, and the planet is blown into an expanding cloud of plasma, with a particularly energetic streamer extending away from the far side of the impact site, out into space." -- http://whatif.xkcd.com/20/
Comment linking /20/
on “This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For”Submitted Relativistic Baseball as a story · 6 points
HN discussionInteresting. I think that Randal Munroe's "What If" posts ( http://what-if.xkcd.com/ ) and book ( http://whatif.xkcd.com/book/ ) encourage much the same thing by example.
Comment linking /book/
on “The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering”Submitted What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions as a story · 4 points
HN discussionwhat if? - Randall Munroe - https://whatif.xkcd.com/book/
Comment linking /book/
on “Ask HN: What is HN reading?”Submitted XKCD book – What If? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIf you enjoyed reading this article, xkcd's Randall Munroe publishes "what if" analyses on a sporadic basis at http://whatif.xkcd.com/ .
Comment linking /
on “How much pee in a pool would kill you?”Submitted What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionA fascinating insight into the fearlessness (recklessness?) of the human test subjects of yore. Source: http://whatif.xkcd.com/116/
Comment linking /116/
on “The Story of John Paul Stapp, “The Fastest Man on Earth” (2003)”Submitted Steak Drop as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttps://brr.fyi https://maggieappleton.com https://whatif.xkcd.com
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What blogs do you read?”Submitted Robot Apocalypse as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is just a system to bilk money out of people. Midway down https://whatif.xkcd.com/23/ will explain how terrible an idea this is: If everyone put little turbine generators on the downspouts of their houses and businesses, how much power would we generate? Would we ever generate enough power to offset the cost of the generators? —Damien [a house uses rain that falls on its lid to run a turbine] A house in a very…
Comment linking /23/
on “Rainergy – Electricity from Rainwater”Submitted XKCD What If Blog - Answering Your Hypothetical Questions with Physics as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
