What If, (2B14)

Date: 23/01/2025

IS Book Sharing (23/1/2025 Thur)

 

Good morning, Principal, Teachers, and fellow schoolmates. I am Chan Tai Lok from class 2B. Today, I am going to share a book with you. The book is called 'What If,' and the author is Randall Munroe. He is a comic book artist and a scientist who once worked at NASA. He writes the book in really simple terms to ensure that everyone would understand. This book revolves around those scenarios you would imagine in your mind, and he explains in detail, scientifically, by conducting research and mathematical equations, about what would happen.

 

For instance, one article in the book described printing the entirety of Wikipedia on paper. This sounds impossible, as Wikipedia is massive and receives constant updates. Apparently, after calculating the cost of electricity and ink, it would cost $500,000 USD a month to do this. You might think you need hundreds or even thousands of printers to do this, but this is not the case. According to him, since the rate of Wikipedia updates is not that fast, just around 100 or so edits globally, and considering that modern printers are quite fast, you actually only need 6 of them. However, some people may find this ridiculous and not funny, but it is extremely hilarious to others at the same time.

 

Another example is what if every student in the US participating in the standard test, like the DSE, guessed all the multiple-choice questions. Then, how many people would get all the answers correct? Well, for each question, there are five choices, and there are 158 multiple-choice questions on the paper. Considering there are approximately 4 million students participating, the chances of getting full marks by guessing are 1 over 27 with 109 zeros, an incredibly tiny number. So, even with 4 million students, no one would get full marks by guessing.

 

The third example is building a bridge between London and New York made of Lego. First, since traveling from London to New York requires crossing the Atlantic Ocean, it would take 350 million Lego 2x4 pieces to span the distance. But that's just the number of Lego bricks. The ocean currents would push the bridge, potentially causing it to break. Even if we put that aside and secure it in place using steel, the cost of the bridge would be 500 billion US dollars if 1 kg of Lego was equal to one USD.

 

This book teaches us to think outside the box and promotes creative thinking and imagination. While these scenarios may seem unlikely to occur, they may actually help us deal with unfamiliar situations in the future. Furthermore, the book is written in straightforward language and includes humorous comments by the author. This book is undoubtedly fascinating and an excellent read for everyone. If you are a science enthusiast or enjoy imagining scenarios like this, this book is definitely for you. This book was the No.1 bestselling book on Amazon, and even Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, recommended this book. This concludes my sharing. Thank you for listening.