While we at The Scholarly Kitchen were saddened to see Tom Scott end his always entertaining and informing series of videos, we were equally happy to see Randall Munroe, creator of XKCD launch a new video series based on his What If? books. We’ve been fans of the books going back to the first book’s 2014 release, and the videos offer Munroe’s distinct visual style and humor.

The important question, what if the earth suddenly stopped spinning, is answered below (TL;DR, it ain’t good).

David Crotty

David Crotty

David Crotty is a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. Previously, David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.

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