What If?
E926545
What If? is Randall Munroe’s popular science blog (and later book) where he answers bizarre hypothetical questions using rigorous scientific reasoning and humor.
All labels observed (6)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| What If? canonical | 2 |
| What If? (blog series) | 1 |
| What If? (book) | 1 |
| What If? blog series | 1 |
| What If? book | 1 |
| What If? book series | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11449467 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What If? Context triple: [Randall Munroe, hasBlog, What If?]
-
A.
What If?
"What If?" is a song by the American rock band Creed, known for its heavy guitar riffs and introspective lyrics.
-
B.
What If
What If is a romantic comedy film best known for its witty exploration of friendship and love, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Mackenzie Davis.
-
C.
What If
"What If" is a song by the South Korean hip hop duo X&Y.
-
D.
What If We Never
"What If We Never" is a song featured on the album "Some Lessons Learned."
-
E.
What/If
What/If is a neo-noir thriller anthology miniseries on Netflix that explores the consequences of morally ambiguous decisions through a high-stakes, twist-filled narrative.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: What If? Target entity description: What If? is Randall Munroe’s popular science blog (and later book) where he answers bizarre hypothetical questions using rigorous scientific reasoning and humor.
-
A.
What If?
"What If?" is a song by the American rock band Creed, known for its heavy guitar riffs and introspective lyrics.
-
B.
What If
What If is a romantic comedy film best known for its witty exploration of friendship and love, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Mackenzie Davis.
-
C.
What If
"What If" is a song by the South Korean hip hop duo X&Y.
-
D.
What If We Never
"What If We Never" is a song featured on the album "Some Lessons Learned."
-
E.
What/If
What/If is a neo-noir thriller anthology miniseries on Netflix that explores the consequences of morally ambiguous decisions through a high-stakes, twist-filled narrative.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
non-fiction book
ⓘ
popular science blog ⓘ webcomic-related blog ⓘ |
| author | Randall Munroe ⓘ |
| basedOn | xkcd webcomic audience questions ⓘ |
| bookPageCountApprox | 320 ⓘ |
| countryOfPublication |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| creator | Randall Munroe ⓘ |
| genre |
humor
ⓘ
popular science ⓘ science communication ⓘ |
| hasFormat | question-and-answer ⓘ |
| hasIllustrationStyle | stick-figure drawings ⓘ |
| hasPart |
What If? blog series
ⓘ
linked to:
What If?
What If? book ⓘ
linked to:
What If?
|
| hasSubtitle | Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions ⓘ |
| illustrator | Randall Munroe ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
xkcd webcomic
ⓘ
linked to:
xkcd
|
| isbn10 | 0544272994 ⓘ |
| isbn13 | 9780544272996 ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mediaType |
blog
ⓘ
e-book ⓘ print book ⓘ |
| notableFor |
answering bizarre hypothetical questions
ⓘ
combining humor with scientific rigor ⓘ |
| originalMedium | online publication ⓘ |
| partOf | xkcd-related projects ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 2014-09-02 ⓘ |
| publisher |
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ⓘ
linked to:
Houghton Mifflin
|
| relatedWork |
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
ⓘ
Thing Explainer ⓘ |
| subject |
engineering
ⓘ
hypothetical questions ⓘ mathematics ⓘ physics ⓘ risk analysis ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general audience
ⓘ
science enthusiasts ⓘ |
| tone |
humorous
ⓘ
informal ⓘ |
| typicalQuestionType |
catastrophic events
ⓘ
extreme scenarios ⓘ impractical engineering problems ⓘ |
| usesMethod |
back-of-the-envelope calculations
ⓘ
estimation ⓘ rigorous scientific reasoning ⓘ |
| website | https://what-if.xkcd.com/ ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: What If? Description of subject: What If? is Randall Munroe’s popular science blog (and later book) where he answers bizarre hypothetical questions using rigorous scientific reasoning and humor.
Referenced by (7)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
Munroe
linked to: What If?
What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
→
partOfSeries
→
What If? book series
ⓘ
linked to: What If?