Table of Contents
Introduction xi
What Would Happen If…
You Were in an Airplane and Your Window Popped Out? 1
You Were Attacked by a Great White Shark? 6
You Slipped on a Banana Peel? 11
You Were Buried Alive? 16
You Were Attacked by a Swarm of Bees? 21
You Were Hit by a Meteorite? 27
You Lost Your Head? 32
You Put on the World's Loudest Headphones? 37
You Stowed Away on the Next Moon Mission? 41
You Were Strapped into Dr. Frankenstein's Machine? 48
Your Elevator Cable Broke? 52
You Barreled over Niagara Falls? 57
You Couldn't Fall Asleep? 61
You Were Struck by Lightning? 67
You Took aBath in the World's Coldest Tub? 72
You Skydived from Outer Space? 77
You Time Traveled? 82
You Were Caught in a Human Stampede? 92
You Jumped into a Black Hole? 97
You Were on the Titanic and Didn't Make It into a Lifeboat? 103
You Were Killed by This Book? 108
You Died from "Old Age"? 114
You Were Stuck in…? 117
You Were Raised by Buzzards? 125
You Were Sacrificed into a Volcano? 129
You Just Stayed in Bed? 131
You Dug a Hole to China and Jumped In? 135
You Toured the Pringles Factory and Fell off the Catwalk? 140
You Played Russian Roulette with a Really, Really Big Gun? 145
You Traveled to Jupiter? 150
You Ate the World's Deadliest Substances? 155
You Lived in a Nuclear Winter? 161
You Vacationed on Venus? 166
You Were Swarmed by Mosquitoes? 171
You Became an Actual Human Cannonball? 175
You Were Hit by a Penny Dropped from the Top of the Empire State Building? 177
You Actually Shook Someone's Hand? 183
You Were the Ant Under the Magnifying Glass? 187
You Stuck Your Hand in a Particle Accelerator? 192
You Were Holding This Book and It Instantly Collapsed into a Black Hole? 197
You Stuck a Really, Really Powerful Magnet to Your Forehead? 200
You Were Swallowed by a Whale? 204
You Took a Swim Outside a Deep-Sea Submarine? 207
You Stood on the Surface of the Sun? 210
You Ate as Many Cookies as Cookie Monster? 214
References and Further Reading 219
Acknowledgments 237