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1-Page Summary of What If

Overview

What if we could use what-ifs to discover insights that were researched and analyzed?

This passage presents a series of questions and answers, which delve into the relevant theories that answer them. The author used his popular blog to present many of these answers, but most of the questions are new and answered for the first time.

The Little Prince would be able to run off his little planet if he could grow up. It would cost a lot of money for the English Wikipedia to be updated in paper form every day, and even if everyone on Earth calculated at the same time, it would still take a mobile phone longer than 70 times that amount of time.

Big Idea #1: If the Sun went out, we would see a variety of benefits in many areas of life.

What would happen to Earth if the Sun suddenly went dark? It’s a scary thought, but it might not be that bad. Let’s look at a few examples of what could happen.

If scientists were able to observe the Sun more closely, they would be better able to predict solar flares and geomagnetic storms. These kinds of storms can disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, which could lead to power outages and other problems.

Since 1859, we’ve built a lot of wires that can be struck by storms and cause damage. If such an event were to happen today, it would cost the US trillions of dollars in damages.

However, we shouldn’t worry about this if the sun went out!

If the sun went out, we could drive across ice instead of building bridges. We would not need to spend money on repairing those bridges because they are only used when it’s sunny outside. In addition, trade would be cheaper since we wouldn’t have to pay for shipping goods that are usually carried by ships in water.

If the Sun were to disappear, we would all be in darkness. This means that there is no use for time zones since everyone would live under one time zone. However, this poses a problem because international business hours are not always synchronized with each other. But without the Sun, we wouldn’t have any natural light and therefore freeze to death. Therefore, it’s better if we keep our current system of time zones so that people can communicate more effectively and boost their economy by trading with others around the world.

Big Idea #2: The little planet from The Little Prince would have some remarkable gravitational properties.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is a children’s story about an asteroid prince from very far away. But it would be impossible to live on a tiny, heavy asteroid like the one in the book because it would have too much gravity.

Let’s say we lived on a mini-planet that was 3.5 meters in diameter and 500 million tons in mass. That would give us the same gravity as Earth, but it would decrease much faster than on Earth. In fact, at our hips, the force of gravity would be 50% less and at our head, 25%.

If you had four feet and a head, your head would feel like it was in the center of a spinning merry-go-round.

Aside from the physical sensations, we could also escape the planet by running. The velocity needed for us to break free of Earth’s gravitational pull is only 5 meters per second, which is slower than a sprint.

It’s amazing how escaping from the Earth doesn’t matter where you run. If we don’t actually run toward the planet, then as soon as our speed surpasses escape velocity, we’ll leave it behind. We could jump off a ramp or run horizontally away from it.

If we were to get close enough to a planet, its gravitational force would pull us towards it. However, if we ran fast enough, the force would be too weak for us to return to the surface of the planet.