What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
E926542
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a popular science book by Randall Munroe that uses rigorous scientific reasoning and humor to explore bizarre and imaginative questions.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11449461 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Context triple: [Randall Munroe, notableWork, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions]
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A.
What If?
"What If?" is a song by the American rock band Creed, known for its heavy guitar riffs and introspective lyrics.
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B.
Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics
Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics is a popular science book by Jim Al-Khalili that explores some of the most puzzling and counterintuitive problems in modern physics for a general audience.
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C.
What If
"What If" is a song by the South Korean hip hop duo X&Y.
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D.
What If
What If is a romantic comedy film best known for its witty exploration of friendship and love, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Mackenzie Davis.
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E.
The Big Questions
The Big Questions is a British television debate programme that explores moral, ethical, and religious issues through audience and expert discussion.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Target entity description: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a popular science book by Randall Munroe that uses rigorous scientific reasoning and humor to explore bizarre and imaginative questions.
-
A.
What If?
"What If?" is a song by the American rock band Creed, known for its heavy guitar riffs and introspective lyrics.
-
B.
Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics
Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics is a popular science book by Jim Al-Khalili that explores some of the most puzzling and counterintuitive problems in modern physics for a general audience.
-
C.
What If
"What If" is a song by the South Korean hip hop duo X&Y.
-
D.
What If
What If is a romantic comedy film best known for its witty exploration of friendship and love, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Mackenzie Davis.
-
E.
The Big Questions
The Big Questions is a British television debate programme that explores moral, ethical, and religious issues through audience and expert discussion.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
non-fiction book
ⓘ
popular science book ⓘ |
| author | Randall Munroe NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| award | Goodreads Choice Award for Science & Technology (2014) ⓘ |
| basedOn | What If? web series on xkcd.com ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| coverArtist | Randall Munroe NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| features |
back-of-the-envelope calculations
ⓘ
real-world scientific references ⓘ thought experiments ⓘ |
| followedBy | How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre |
popular science
ⓘ
science humor ⓘ |
| goodreadsRating | 4.3 ⓘ |
| hasFormat | audiobook ⓘ |
| hasSequel | What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasTopic |
catastrophic scenarios
ⓘ
extreme physics ⓘ space and astronomy ⓘ |
| hasWebsite | https://what-if.xkcd.com/ ⓘ |
| includes | illustrations by Randall Munroe ⓘ |
| isbn10 | 0544272994 ⓘ |
| isbn13 | 9780544272996 ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| libraryOfCongressClassification | Q173 .M85 2014 ⓘ |
| marketedAs | New York Times bestseller ⓘ |
| mediaType |
ebook
ⓘ
hardcover ⓘ print ⓘ |
| notableFor | using rigorous scientific analysis to answer absurd questions ⓘ |
| notableQuestionType | absurd hypothetical questions GENERATED ⓘ |
| oclcNumber | 870919064 ⓘ |
| originallyDerivedFrom | questions submitted by readers of xkcd GENERATED ⓘ |
| pageCount | 320 ⓘ |
| partOfSeries | What If? series NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 2014-09-02 ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2014 ⓘ |
| publisher | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subject |
engineering
ⓘ
hypothetical questions ⓘ mathematics ⓘ physics ⓘ scientific reasoning ⓘ |
| targetAudience | general audience ⓘ |
| usesStyle |
cartoon diagrams
ⓘ
humor ⓘ |
| writtenBy | Randall Munroe NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Description of subject: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a popular science book by Randall Munroe that uses rigorous scientific reasoning and humor to explore bizarre and imaginative questions.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
Randall Munroe
→
notableWork
→
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
ⓘ
Randall Munroe
→
publication
→
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
ⓘ