What If We Dumped Our Trash Into Volcanoes?
Sometimes asking crazy questions is the best way to learn about the world.
Trash is a huge problem. Every year, America alone generates about 254 million tons of it. And it’s all got to go somewhere. But when you put trash into landfills, it eventually produces leachate, a toxic liquid that seeps into our groundwater. So a lot of people have wondered, what about volcanoes? They are basically nature’s incinerators, so why not dump our trash in them?
For the last four years, the folks at What If have been using just these sorts of questions as the jumping off point for some pretty epic journeys of imagination. Now, for the first time, fans of this award-winning video series will be able to enjoy What If's intellectual adventures in a whole new way thanks to What If 100, a collection of What If's most popular episodes in book form!
As the title of the book suggests, What If We Dumped Our Trash Into Volcanoes? is just one of 100 different hypothetical questions asked and answered in the What If 100 book. Other thought-provoking hypotheticals include: What if extinct animals could be brought back to life? What if we could open a portal into a parallel universe? What if plastic was never invented? What if an asteroid hit the earth? What if time travel was possible? And so many more.
The What If 100 book is designed to inspire the imagination, get people excited about science, and encourage new ways of thinking about 21st-century problems. It’s also loaded with tons of cool facts, and features a foreword from renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. In short, it’s the perfect gift for the science-lover in your life—even if that science-lover happens to be you.