Please note: I first published this book review on the “Goodreads”-website in 2023.
My rating: 3 (of 5) “stars”
I own a paperback edition of this book, published by John Murray Press, which I received as a Christmas gift.
This is hands-down the weirdest book I have ever read.
Randall Munroe, a former NASA physicist, answers some utterly weird questions posed to him by readers of his blog. Those questions explore basic concepts of chemistry and physics, and Munroe answers those questions with enthusiasm, wit, and scientific knowledge. (The man had an asteroid named after him by the International Astronomical Union, and probably has an IQ of a billion-quadrillion-giraffes; and yes, giraffes are a measuring unit, just read the book…)
Still, physics and chemistry were never my strong suit, and I’d be lying if I said that I understood all his explanations, even though he tries his best to explain hard-to-understand concepts of the “science of matter, motion, and energy” (quotation from Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Weird, but entertaining.