After all, he’s the guy who draws xkcd, one of the most popular web comics of all time. Or maybe you’ve read his previous books like Thing Explainer, how to, and what if? — those last two were New York Times bestsellers, topping the chart, so odds are decent you have.

They are delightful, funny, smart, even brilliant, and if you haven’t read them there’s a link right there you can click to fix that.

On September 13, 2022, his newest book, what if 2, will be released worldwide! The surtitle gives a decent synopsis: “Additional serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions”. Like in the first book, what if, he takes fairly silly questions asked by readers and answers them as best as possible using actual science.

[The book in question. Credit: Phil Plait]

I’ve read what if 2 and it’s exactly as you’d expect from Randall: I didn’t even get through the first page without laughing out loud, and the whole book is really, really funny. He answers queries like:

What would happen if the Solar System was filled with soup out to Jupiter (from Amelia, age 5)?
What would happen if the Earth’s rotation were sped up until a day only lasted one second?
What if you were to hang on a helicopter blade by your hands and someone turned it on?
If there were a kind of fireman’s pole from the Moon down to the Earth, how long would it take to slide all the way from the Moon to the Earth?

I can guarantee that you will not only smile and laugh while reading his answers but you’ll also learn something. I did. Sometimes his answers use science and math familiar to me, but even then I still learn something important: how to think about a problem and how to solve it.

[Randall’s author photo on the inside jacket. Credit: Phil Plait]

I answer a lot of questions from folks. I tend to think in a straightforward manner, answering the question in front of me in the way it’s presented. Randall’s brain handles things differently. He is able to grok the whole situation and see it from all angles. It takes a lot of understanding of physics and math to get the right answer, but even more, sometimes the right answer isn’t the most fun answer. Randall always manages to find both. It’s a superpower of his.

I’ve known Randall for many years (full disclosure there) and my conversations with him are best described as stochastic: He always gets to where the point needs to go but the path there is never a predictable one. I never fail to learn something when I talk to him, every time, and it’s always fun, too.

So yeah, you want this book. And now you have three ways to get it.

One is you can just preorder it, which is great if you do. Preorders really help a book’s sales.

A second way is more fun: The publisher, Penguin Random House, has set up a contest where you can a) preorder a book and 2) ask Randall a question. If your question gets selected he’ll answer it and draw you a one-of-a-kind comic inspired by your question! Just go here and click the “Click me to enter” button with the T-Rex on it. The contest ends on September 12.

The third way is likely the easiest, though with the lowest odds of actually getting one (given the first two methods are 100% guaranteed to get you a book):

Do nothing.

That’s because I’m doing a giveaway right here in this newsletter! I’ve partnered with Penguin Random House to give away six copies of what if 2, three each to free and paid subscribers to the Bad Astronomer Newsletter. Bonus for paid subbies: Your copy will be signed by Randall, plus you’ll get a copy of how to and an enamel pin made specially for the book release!

[I hope one day to write a book that will for some reason feature a T-Rex eating an airplane in flight. Credit: Penguin Random House]

So you literally don’t have to do anything (well, except not unsubscribe from the newsletter for the next week at least)*. I’ll do this very much like I did the recent meteorite giveaway: On Tuesday (Sep. 6) noon Mountain Time I will grab the lists of free and paid subscribers and pick three folks from each using a random number generator; to be fair I will exclude, at my discretion, people I know personally or who have comped subscriptions.

This part’s important: I will then promptly email all six people. They will have TWO DAYS to reply to me (by noon MT Thursday Sep. 8). If I don’t hear back from some or all of them by that time I will then choose more random subscribers from the original lists to replace the ones who did not reply. They then will have two days, until Saturday at noon MT, to reply. If I don’t hear from them, then the process will be repeated until I have three folks from each list**.

The six winners will have to tell me their physical addresses to send the books; I will forward those to the publisher who will fulfill the orders.

So what are you waiting for? Hurry up and don’t do anything to be eligible to win!

* Unless you’re not a subscriber and you came directly to the BAN site, in which case sign up! All you need is an email address to get the free Monday issues; to get Thursdays as well and be eligible for the bonus stuff you’ll need to be a paid subscriber. Either way please click that link.

** Just so’s you know the odds, there are currently about 7,800 free and 450 paid subscribers to BAN.

Et alia

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!

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