How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems

From the creative mind behind the hugely successful webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer comes the world's most hilarious and pointless self-help book.

There are correct ways, wrong ways, and ways so incredibly complicated, extravagant, and unwise that no one would ever attempt them for any endeavor you may wish to undertake. A how-to manual for the third type of technique is provided. It's jam-packed with ridiculous tips on how to do everything from dig a hole to land an aircraft.

Randall Munroe, a cartoonist and best-selling author, demonstrates how to forecast the weather by examining the pixels in your Facebook images. He shows you how to use your teeth's radioactivity to determine if you were born in the 1990s or the baby boomer generation. He gives advice on how to boil a river to cross it, take a selfie with a telescope, and break space-time to power your house. He also guides you through the right ways to dispose of the book when you're done reading it, which include subducting it into the Earth's mantle via tectonic plate subduction, launching it toward the Sun, or dissolving it in the water.

Munroe does more than merely complicate things for himself and his readers when he investigates the most intricate methods for completing straightforward chores. Munroe challenges us to investigate the most ridiculous boundaries of the possible, just as he so masterfully did in What If? How To is a deliciously mind-bending method to learn more about the science and technology that underpin the activities we perform on a daily basis. It is packed of creative infographics and humorous drawings.