When I reviewed Randall Munroe's hilarious book What If? back in 2022, I started my review by relating the story of Frictionless Scott, a mythical being that my friends and I concocted in high school physics class, and subjected to all manner of mathematical experiments. One experiment involved calculating how far Frictionless Scott could hit a golf ball, with his head, while tethered to a one-kilometre-long rope (also frictionless, of course) being spun around on the end of a rotating helicopter rotor.
So, imagine my surprise, when I opened Munroe's sequel, What If? 2, and found that the second question that he answered involved spinning around on a helicopter rotor. Specifically, the question Munroe answers is "What if you were hanging on a helicopter blade by your hands and then someone turned it on?". That gives you a flavour of the kinds of absurd questions that Munroe answers in the book.
This is a worthy sequel to the original book. It is handy to know facts, like the fact that you couldn't get drunk from drinking a drunk person's blood, or that children are already optimising in the way they use swing sets. Munroe is alternately hilarious, irreverent, and thoughtful. Although the questions are ridiculous, the answers are well-researched and well-reasoned, and downright funny. Munroe also pokes fun at the stupidest of questions he has been asked, like "What would we see if we attached a lightweight camera to a balloon and let it fly away", which prompts an answer in the form of a cartoon showing a balloon disappearing into the distance.
I chuckled. I giggled. I laughed so hard a one point that I started to choke. And I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, as much as I did the original. I had been looking forward to reading it for a while, and it clearly did not disappoint. Although not all of the answers are equally funny (as was the case with the original book), I recommend it for those looking for something a little lighter than the usual fare that I review here.
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