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And Then You're Dead

What Really Happens If You Get Swallowed by a Whale, Are Shot from a Cannon, or Go Barreling over Niagara

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
A gleefully gruesome look at the actual science behind the most outlandish, cartoonish, and impossible deaths you can imagine
 
What would happen if you took a swim outside a deep-sea submarine wearing only a swimsuit? How long could you last if you stood on the surface of the sun? How far could you actually get in digging a hole to China? Paul Doherty, senior staff scientist at San Francisco’s famed Exploratorium Museum, and writer Cody Cassidy explore the real science behind these and other fantastical scenarios, offering insights into physics, astronomy, anatomy, and more along the way.
Is slipping on a banana peel as hazardous to your health as the cartoons imply? Answer: Yes. Banana peels ooze a gel that turns out to be extremely slippery. Your foot and body weight provide the pressure. The gel provides the humor (and resulting head trauma).
Can you die by shaking someone’s hand? Answer: Yes. That’s because, due to atomic repulsion, you’ve never actually touched another person’s hand. If you could, the results would be as disastrous as a medium-sized hydrogen bomb.
If you were Cookie Monster, just how many cookies could you actually eat in one sitting? Answer: Most stomachs can hold up to sixty cookies, or around four liters. If you eat or drink more than that, you’re approaching the point at which the cookies would break through the lesser curvature of your stomach, and then you’d better call an ambulance to Sesame Street.
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    • Booklist

      Starred review from March 15, 2017
      Readers wondering what would really happen if someone were buried alive should look no further than this arch, brainy volume. Cassidy and Doherty present an exhaustive series of deadly scenarios ranging from the absurd ( What If You Toured the Pringle Factory and Fell off the Catwalk? ) to the unlikely ( What If You Were Holding This Book and It Instantly Collapsed into a Black Hole? ) to the worryingly possible ( What If You Lived in a Nuclear Winter? ), and in every chapter, they offer vivid, engaging, and utterly fascinating scientific explanations. This merrily macabre compendium playfully offers lessons in basic human physiology, nuclear fusion, quantum physics, and fluid dynamics, among other things, and at every turn, the authors explain the concepts cogently and with gleeful enthusiasm. At times, this is uproariously funny, as in the chapter about getting in a tub of liquid helium, at a balmy -452 degrees: not only would you die spectacularly, but your shrieks of pain would emerge as high-pitched squeaks. Elsewhere, it's poetic: skydiving from the International Space Station would turn you into a flaming streak of ionized plasma far brighter than any shooting star. With bite-size morsels of astonishing science and the perfect combination of smart-alecky writing and black humor, this page-turner will surely debunk any misapprehension that science is dull.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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  • English

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