Matthew Wilson

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Streams in the De...
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Book cover for What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
They say there are no stupid questions. That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty ...more
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Randall Munroe
“There’s no material safety data sheet for astatine. If there were, it would just be the word “NO” scrawled over and over in charred blood.”
Randall Munroe, What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Randall Munroe
“Here’s a question to give you a sense of scale. Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina: A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or the detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball? Can you hurry up and set it off? This is heavy. Applying Dr. Spector’s rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is . . . by nine orders of magnitude.”
Randall Munroe, What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Hank Green
“Being annoyed by carefully crafted internet personas was part of my carefully crafted internet persona.”
Hank Green

Brandon Sanderson
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”
Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

Randall Munroe
“In the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University sits a battery-powered bell that has been ringing since the year 1840. The bell “rings” so quietly it’s almost inaudible, using only a tiny amount of charge with every motion of the clapper. Nobody knows exactly what kind of batteries it uses because nobody wants to take it apart to figure it out.”
Randall Munroe, What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

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