I read this book because of the recommendation I found online. It was in one of the Bill Gate’s reading lists. Maybe this post will have same effect on you… and you will decide to pick it for your reading.

“They say there are no stupid questions,” the author writes. “That’s obviously wrong. . . . But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.”

Indeed, I remember we had a lot of hypothetical scientific discussions with my friends during my university days and these discussion would just go on and on ending sometime around 2AM. It was a lot of fun diving deep and exploring every possible twist. You get to have same fun when you read the book.

Well… it is actually more fun to read the book, since it is very nicely illustrated and thoroughly researched. Basically you don’t get to read rant – everything is cross checked with scientists by Munroe.

I guess this book also teaches to approach problems that require scaling, approximation, simplification, calculation, estimation. It also helps to understand physics better. And if you have some silly question that keeps you awake at nights you can always submit it on the xkcd web site.

This book is pure entertainment and joy. I can surely recommend this book to anyone generally interested in science.