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Serious Scientific Answers To Absurd Hypothetical Questions
''What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions'' is a 2014 non-fiction book by Randall Munroe in which the author answers hypothetical science questions sent to him by readers of his webcomic, ''xkcd''. The book contains a selection of questions and answers originally published on his blog ''What If?'', along with several new ones. The book is divided into several dozen chapters, most of which are devoted to answering a unique question. ''What If?'' was released on September 2, 2014 and was received positively by critics. A sequel to the book, titled ''What If? 2'', was released on September 13, 2022. Conception of the blog In the introduction section of the book, Randall Munroe recounts wondering as a child whether "there were more hard things or soft things in the world", concluding that "the world contained about three billion soft things and five billion hard things". The conversation that was produced by this question impressed Munroe's mother to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randall Munroe
Randall Patrick Munroe (born October 17, 1984) is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of the webcomic ''xkcd''. Munroe has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006. In addition to publishing a book of the webcomic's strips, he has written four books: '' What If?'', '' Thing Explainer'', '' How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems,'' and ''What If?2''. Early life Munroe was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and his father has worked as an engineer and marketer. He has two younger siblings, and was raised as a Quaker. He was a fan of comic strips in newspapers from an early age, starting off with ''Calvin and Hobbes''. After graduating from the Chesterfield County Mathematics and Science High School at Clover Hill, a Renaissance Program in Midlothian, Virginia, he graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2006 with a degree in physics. Career NASA Munroe worked as a contract programmer and roboticist for NASA a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Paper
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scientific literature is often referred to as the literature. Academic publishing is the process of contributing the results of one's research into the literature, which often requires a peer-review process. Original scientific research published for the first time in scientific journals is called the primary literature. Patents and technical reports, for minor research results and engineering and design work (including computer software), can also be considered primary literature. Secondary sources include review articles (which summarize the findings of published studies to highlight advances and new lines of research) and books (for large projects or broad arguments, including compilations of articles). Tertiary sources might include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speed Of Light
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter or energy (and thus any signal carrying information) can travel through space. All forms of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, travel at the speed of light. For many practical purposes, light and other electromagnetic waves will appear to propagate instantaneously, but for long distances and very sensitive measurements, their finite speed has noticeable effects. Starlight viewed on Earth left the stars many years ago, allowing humans to study the history of the universe by viewing distant objects. When communicating with distant space probes, it can take minutes to hours for signals to travel from Earth to the spacecraft and vice versa. In computing, the speed of light fixes th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xkcd Philosophy
''xkcd'', sometimes styled ''XKCD'', is a webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the name of the comic is not an initialism but "just a word with no phonetic pronunciation". The subject matter of the comic varies from statements on life and love to mathematical, programming, and scientific in-jokes. Some strips feature simple humor or pop-culture references. It has a cast of stick figures, and the comic occasionally features landscapes, graphs, charts, and intricate mathematical patterns such as fractals. New cartoons are added three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Munroe has released five spinoff books from the comic. The first book, published in 2010 and entitled ''xkcd: volume 0'', was a series of select comics from his website. His 2014 book '' What If?'' is based on his blog of the same name that ans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CNET
''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and television in addition to its website and now uses new media distribution methods through its Internet television network, CNET Video, and its podcast and blog networks. Founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through that unit's acquisition of CNET Networks in 2008. It has been owned by Red Ventures since October 30, 2020. Other than English, ''CNETs region- and language-specific editions include Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. History Origins After leaving PepsiCo, Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie launched ''CNET'' in 1994, after website Yahoo! was launched. With help from Fox Network co-founder Kevin Wendle and fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Absurd Scientific Advice For Common Real-World Problems '', a type of logical argument
{{Disambiguation ...
Absurd or The Absurd may refer to: Entertainment * Absurd (band), German metal band from the 1990s * "Absurd", a 1997 song by Fluke, from the album Risotto * "Absurd" (song), a 2021 song by Guns N' Roses * Theatre of the Absurd, art form utilizing the philosophy of Absurdism * ''Absurd'' (film), 1981 Italian film * Absurd or surreal humour ** Absurdist fiction Philosophy * Absurdity, general and technical usage—associated with extremely poor reasoning, the ridiculous, or nonsense * Absurdism, a philosophy based on the belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless * Absurd, a term used in logic to describe a contradiction ** ''Reductio ad absurdum In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical arguments'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thing Explainer
''Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words'' is a 2015 illustrated non-fiction book created by Randall Munroe, in which the author attempts to explain various complex subjects using only the 1,000 most common English words. Munroe conceptualized the book in 2012, when drawing a schematic of the Saturn V rocket for his webcomic ''xkcd''. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, material from ''Thing Explainer'' has been incorporated in United States high school textbooks. Synopsis In ''Thing Explainer'', Randall Munroe explains the function and mechanics of 54 subjects using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language. The book covers a wide range of topics, including pencils ("writing sticks"), cameras ("picture takers"), microwave ovens ("food-heating radio boxes"), airplane engines ("sky boat pushers"), and atom bombs ("machines for burning cities"). Besides technology, Munroe also explains human organs and conceptual subjects such as the periodic t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varsity (Cambridge)
''Varsity'' is the oldest of Cambridge University's main student newspapers. It has been published continuously since 1947 and is one of only three fully independent student newspapers in the UK. It moved back to being a weekly publication in Michaelmas 2015, and is published every Friday during term time. ''Varsity'' has received numerous awards, including repeated recognition at the now defunct ''Guardian'' Student Media Awards. History ''Varsity'' is one of Britain's oldest student newspapers. Its first edition was published on 17 January 1931, as ''Varsity: the Cambridge University Illustrated'' (later ''The Varsity Weekly'', and then the ''Cambridge Varsity Post''. However, the first few years saw ''Varsity'' get off to a shaky start. In 1932, a controversy about some of its stories resulted in the editor being challenged to a duel, and the following year the paper went bankrupt (having lost £100). Revival A variety of attempts to revive ''Varsity'' led to the paper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarlacc
The sarlacc (plural sarlacci) is a fictional creature in George Lucas's sci-fi action saga ''Star Wars''. It first appeared in the film ''Return of the Jedi'' (1983) as a multi-tentacled alien beast whose immense, gaping maw is lined with several rows of sharp teeth, inhabiting the Great Pit of Carkoon, a hollow in the sand of the desert planet Tatooine. After bounty hunter Boba Fett escapes from its maw in " Chapter 1: Stranger in a Strange Land" of ''The Book of Boba Fett'' (2022) and eventually returns to retrieve his armour, the sarlacc is killed by his partner Fennec Shand in " Chapter 4: The Gathering Storm". In the original ''Return of the Jedi'', the sarlacc is depicted as a barbed gaping mouth in the desert sand with tentacles. The 1997 Special Edition of the film added computer-generated tentacles and a beak to the mouth, which has remained its canonical depiction since. Besides ''Return of the Jedi'', the creature and others like it are featured in ''Star Wars'' lit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrannosauridae
Tyrannosauridae (or tyrannosaurids, meaning "tyrant lizards") is a family of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that comprises two subfamilies containing up to thirteen genera, including the eponymous ''Tyrannosaurus''. The exact number of genera is controversial, with some experts recognizing as few as three. All of these animals lived near the end of the Cretaceous Period and their fossils have been found only in North America and Asia. Although descended from smaller ancestors, tyrannosaurids were almost always the largest predators in their respective ecosystems, putting them at the apex of the food chain. The largest species was ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', one of the largest and most massive known land predators, which measured over in length and according to most modern estimates to in weight. Tyrannosaurids were bipedal carnivores with massive skulls filled with large teeth. Despite their large size, their legs were long and proportioned for fast movement. In contrast, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Escapist (magazine)
''The Escapist'' (formerly known as ''Escapist Magazine'') is an American video game website and online magazine. First published as a weekly online magazine by Themis Media on July 12, 2005, ''The Escapist'' eventually pivoted to a traditional web journalism format. In 2018, ''Escapist Magazine'' launched Volume Two, a rehauled website in conjunction with its purchase by Enthusiast Gaming. The site name reverted to ''The Escapist'' in April 2020. Gamurs Group acquired the site in September 2022. History 2005–2011: Founding and popularity ''The Escapist'' was conceived as a PDF-format magazine by Themis Media, whose president Alexander Macris had previously found success with its sister site WarCry Network. Editor-in-chief Julianne Greer had not been involved in the gaming industry before ''The Escapist'', and had a background in marketing and new media. The premier issue featured pieces from well-known gaming-community authors including Jerry Holkins, Kieron Gillen, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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