THE 100 MOST POPULAR HYPOTHETICAL

SCENARIOS EXPLAINED WITH SCIENCE

With Foreword by Dr. Michio Kaku
 Copyright © 2020 Underknown Corp. All rights reserved.

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada by Underknown

Corp. and Backyard Media Inc., 2238 Dundas Street West P.O. Box 59043,
Toronto, Ontario, M6R 3A8.

www.underknown.com

No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any

form or by any means, without the express written permission of the
copyright holders.

First Underknown edition: November 2020

ISBN: 978-1-99019-200-5
e-ISBN: 978-1-99019-201-2 Imagination will often carry
What If and Underknown are the property of Backyard Media Inc.
us to worlds that never were.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be copied or reproduced in But without it we go nowhere.
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1
 AN EPIC
EXPLORATION INTO
HYPOTHETICAL
WORLDS WHERE
ANYTHING IS
POSSIBLE.
Everything that we know about our Universe, we know because
someone asked the question, ‘what if?’. Embark on an epic trip
through time, space, and chance as we ask the biggest and craziest
questions that only science can answer.

The book in your hands counts down the most popular scenarios
across all of our platforms, as of Fall 2020. We’ve organized them
from the 100th most popular to the 1st place winner, as determined
by each video’s total minutes watched. Combined, this list represents
100 videos with a combined total watch time by our audience of over
45 million hours. The top video? We’ll keep that a surprise until you
get there. Curious about what could swallow so many attention spans
whole for that long? Dive in, and let’s find out.

2 3
WHAT IF WE 10
SCENARIO

DUMPED OUR
TRASH INTO
VOLCANOES?
A volcano is one of the
most unforgiving natural
phenomenons on Earth.
If you were to fall into its magma-filled center, your
body would quickly bubble up, and disappear without
a trace. If they’re so good at getting rid of things, why
aren’t we using them to get rid of our garbage?

Americans alone generate about 254 million tons

of trash per year, and although dumping it all into
volcanoes might sound like a perfect way to get rid of
it, it wouldn’t be that easy. Volcanoes might look like
nature’s garbage incinerators, but in reality they’re
much more dangerous and unstable, not to mention a
lot harder to get to.
The first obstacle in our quest for volcanic garbage
disposal would be finding an active volcano that can
get the job done. There are only about 1,500 potentially
active volcanoes worldwide, and most of them aren’t
located anywhere near humans, for obvious reasons.
That means that getting all our trash to an active
volcano could turn out to be pretty expensive, and once
we get there we may find out it’s not even the right kind
of active volcano. The kind of volcano we’d be looking
for is called a shield volcano, a slow-erupting variety
that contains the iconic lava lakes that gradually spew
out onto the Earth.
Unfortunately, these aren’t very common. You’re more
likely to come across their angry cousins, known as
stratovolcanoes. Stratovolcanoes are known for their
explosive eruptions, caused by the build-up of pres-
sure from hot gas and magma. In other words, they’re
probably not the safest location for the town dump.
Let’s say we’re lucky enough to find ourselves a nice
active shield volcano; before we worry about the
logistics of getting our trash there, let’s figure out if
it’s even a good idea to dump it inside. If you were one
of the first waste collectors hired to drive up to the
vent of a volcano, you’d quickly start to question your
career choices. The vent of a volcano is a treacherous
environment full of poisonous gases, lava splatter, and
projectile rocks, and things only get worse once you
start throwing stuff inside.
In 2002, a group of Ethiopian researchers threw a
66-pound (30kg) bag of trash into a volcano, and the
results were explosive. Lava lakes are unstable, so if
you pierce their surfaces with something cold, like
trash, you’ll trigger a chain reaction of explosions
involving pressurized and acidic steam.
Can you imagine how big those explosions would be if
you threw an entire nation’s trash in there? To put it in
perspective, rock falls into lava lakes in Hawaii have
sent lava 280 feet (85m) into the air, so it’d probably
look something like that. Even if you could safely get
your trash into the volcano, you’d still have to worry
about all the air pollution created by burning our waste
without filters. Plus, not all materials will completely
break down in lava, which means the polluting
remnants could erupt out and contaminate the
surrounding landscape; not ideal if you were hoping to
burn nuclear waste, for example.
Add these environmental impacts on top of the fact
that shipping all our trash to these volcanoes would
significantly increase the carbon footprint of the waste
disposal, and the whole thing looks like a terrible idea.

198 199
WHAT IF YOU You’ve seen it growing on your
fruit, eating your leftovers,
How do you know which kind of mold you’re dealing
with? And is it ever okay to just eat around the mold on
away, but if you find mold on harder foods like cheese,
carrots, or hard salami, it’s ok to cut the mold out and

ATE MOLD?
Biggest threat: mycotoxins
Your best hope: sticking to blue cheese
Worst consequence: stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea
Best consequence: molds have saved millions of lives
and maybe even hiding in your
basement.
It smells bad, it’s creepy-looking, and even if you
don’t know much about it, you probably know enough
to keep it as far away from your mouth as possible.
There are up to 300,000 different types of mold, and
they could affect you in very different ways. Some
could ruin your day by causing nausea or diarrhea.
Some could be used to make expensive cheeses, and
others could nearly kill you.
your food? Mold is the microscopic fungi you can find
living on plants, animals, and even in buildings. Molds
form branches that are like thin threads called hyphae.
These can burrow into food, something you might miss
since they can be difficult to see.
If you do notice mold growing on your food,
your first question will probably be, “should I
throw this away?”
We’ve put together a little guide to help you figure it
out. If you find mold on soft foods like yogurts, jams,
peaches, or tomatoes, you should throw it out right
eat the rest of your food. Harder, denser foods are
more difficult for mold to penetrate, meaning it can’t
spread inwards as quickly as it can in softer foods.
Let’s imagine that you didn’t have this handy guide, and
you ate some moldy food. What would happen to you?
The biggest problem wouldn’t be the mold itself. It’s the
other things that come along with the mold that could
really hurt you. First off, there’s the invisible bacteria
that can accompany the mold. If you eat that bacteria
you would experience stomach pain, vomiting, and
several urgent trips to the washroom.
That would be nothing compared to the damage that
would come from eating something called mycotoxins.
Mycotoxins are poisonous substances that are pro-
duced by certain strains of mold; they can be found in
a variety of foods, and can survive almost all kinds of
food processing. There are many kinds of mycotoxins,
about 500 to be a little more specific. Perhaps the most
dangerous variety is known as aflatoxin. Aflatoxin grows
on corn and peanuts. Too much aflatoxin can cause
liver damage, cancer, DNA damage, and immune system
deficiency.

Not all mold is harmful and sometimes people eat

mold on purpose. Take blue cheese, for example; it’s
produced using the non-toxic blue molds penicillium
roqueforti and penicillium glaucum. These molds have
antibacterial properties that enable them to suppress
pathogens. They also break down proteins, which is
why blue cheese is so creamy and has a sharp flavor.

Just like most things on our planet, there’s more

to mold than meets the eye. Sure it can make you
sick, but it’s also the key to one of the most powerful
antibiotics of all time: penicillin.

9
SCENARIO

200 201
8
SCENARIO
played an integral part in human and animal evolution.
If Pangea had not broken apart, you may not be here
today. Let’s assume that we survived and evolved to be
the people we are today. What would the Earth be like?
First, let’s talk about where your country would be
located. Europe would be a lot closer to North America,
just to the east. Asia would be up north, by Russia, and
Antarctica would remain down south. India and Aus-
tralia would be farther south, connected to Antarctica.
These countries that used to have hot climates would
now be cold, covered with snow and ice, and those
wouldn’t be the only environmental changes.
FAST FACTS
Pangea was created over a timespan of a few
hundred million years, during what is known as the
Permian Epoch.
The supercontinent included nearly every
landmass on the planet, but there was another
continent at the time. Cathaysia. This contained
what is now China, and was not attached to
Pangea.

Regions in the middle of Pangea would have lush

rainforests along their borders, and as you travel
further inland, it would become a desert. This would
be due to Pangea’s landmass being so large. The rain
which comes from the ocean wouldn’t be able to travel
far enough inland, leaving parts of Pangea practically
uninhabitable by humans and other species. The
weather up north would be different too, with Russia
being much warmer than it is today.
Biggest threat: changes to the weather
Our best hope: getting along with your new neighbors The weather wouldn’t be the only thing that would
Worst consequence: less species diversity change. On Pangea, we might have less diversity of
Best consequence: easy to travel the world species. The species at the top of the food chain today
would most likely remain there, but some of today’s
animals would not exist since they wouldn’t have a
chance to evolve. Fewer animals might make it easier
If these countries didn’t get along, things could get
ugly. How much easier would it be to start a war in
another country if they were just a short drive away?
Transporting weapons, people, and supplies would all
be faster and cheaper if certain countries were right
next to each other.
Or none of this would happen, and the entire world
would be more unified than ever. With us all sharing the
same land mass, maybe we’d learn to treat each other
just a bit better than what we do now.
Where today’s continents were positioned on Pangea

WHAT IF PANGEA NEVER

to travel, and on this modern version of Pangea you’d (artist impression)
probably want to do a lot of it. Luckily you wouldn’t
have to go far.

BROKE APART? If you lived in Florida you’d be right next to the

Millions of years ago, the Earth looked very different.
A huge landmass, called Pangea, covered about one-
third of our planet until about 175 million years ago,
when the Earth broke apart into continents and formed
the world we know today. If Pangea existed today, in
theory, you could drive from California to England,
since they’d both be part of the same landmass.
Although you may only think of Pangea as just another
piece of land, it would be much more than that. It has
Caribbean islands, Venezuela, and Brazil. You could
visit all these in a single day! And if you lived in Nova
Scotia, Canada, you’d be driving distance from France,
England, and Germany. Although this might sound like
fun, a lot of countries would have new neighbors, which
could cause some serious issues for some. Places like
the United States which used to have oceans on both
sides of the country would now have Africa on its East
Coast.

202 203
WHAT IF WE POURED
LIQUID NITROGEN
INTO A VOLCANO?
What would happen if you dumped one of
the world’s coldest liquids into the boiling,
volatile mouth of a volcano?
Biggest threat: explosions
Our best hope: a vapor barrier to protect your skin
Worst consequence: triggering a strong earthquake
Best consequence: the world’s biggest science fair project
First thing’s first, if you’re planning to put your protec-
tive gear on and dump a bucket of liquid nitrogen into
a volcano, you’re going to be disappointed. Before you
could even get close to the mouth of the volcano the
liquid nitrogen would evaporate due to the extreme
heat, so you’d have to be a little more creative. One way
you could do it would be to fill a bunch of cannonballs
with liquid nitrogen and launch them all into the
volcano at once. That would definitely start a reaction
inside the volcano, but you probably wouldn’t want to
stick around to see it.
Before you go mixing these two crazy things together,
let’s get to know them a little better. On the one hand,
you have volcanoes, which are basically giant holes
in the Earth’s crust. They’re full of boiling hot magma
that can erupt outward in the form of lava. On the other
hand, you have liquid nitrogen, the smoky-looking
substance that most people have heard of, but don’t
204
know much about. It can be as cold as -346°F (-210°C),
and when it warms up and becomes a gas, it expands
to 175 times its volume.
If we want the liquid nitrogen to have a noticeable
impact on the volcano, we’re going to need millions of
gallons of the stuff. Large masses of liquid nitrogen
can be produced commercially, and all we’d need to
transport it would be vented and insulated containers
to prevent pressure buildup. The really hard part would
come when you’d try to put those millions of gallons of
liquid nitrogen into the volcano. That brings us back to
the cannonballs.
The idea is that you’d fill each cannonball with liquid
nitrogen and blast it into the mouth of the volcano.
When the cannonball melts due to the extreme heat, it
will release the liquid nitrogen into the magma. Once
a few cannonballs reach the magma, there would be a
deadly brew of heated nitrogen gas floating its way up
and out of the volcano, gobbling up all of the oxygen
around it as it rises.
The liquid nitrogen might be able to freeze the surface
lava quickly enough to form a crust, but that still
wouldn’t be a very exciting effect for you watching from
outside the volcano. If you were somehow able to line
up thousands of nitrogen cannons and continuously
fire copious amounts of liquid nitrogen into the
volcano, things would start to get interesting.
With this amount of liquid nitrogen, more than just the
surface lava would start to freeze, and immense pres-
sure would build up underneath. Beneath the mouth
of the volcano, there would be miles of lava slowly
making its way to the surface. Its natural flow would be
stopped by the frozen top layer. All that pressure would
need to go somewhere. The surface lava would, at
7
SCENARIO
this stage, look like a crumbling black sidewalk, slowly
being elevated as lava pools under it.
Finally, explosions would begin. The volcano would
erupt, sending jets of atmospheric pollutants skyward
that could affect any living creature in the vicinity, or
the volcano might even explode, causing an earthquake.
Essentially, you’d be creating an induced eruption. A
blocked vent is what causes volcanic eruptions, but
generally, those blocks are natural. Perhaps you should
just keep liquid nitrogen far away from volcanoes, and
put it to better uses, like culinary experiments.
EXPLORE MORE
Instead of pouring liquid nitrogen into a volcano,
could we fill a pool with it and go for a cold dip?
g Scenario #3 | Page 212
205
6
SCENARIO
Biggest threat: high temperatures and pressure
Your best hope: a heat resistant pressure suit
Worst consequence: dying from the intense conditions
Best consequence: a chance to admire a 2.7 billion-year-old rock
WHAT IF YOU
For 20 years, Russian scientists and engineers drilled
deeper and deeper, hoping to uncover whatever
mysteries the hole may hold, earning it the ominous
FELL INTO THE
nickname of “The Well to Hell”. They began in 1971, in
the Kola Peninsula of northwest Russia. Measuring in
at just over 7.5 miles (12km) deep, the Kola Superdeep
DEEPEST HOLE
Borehole is the deepest hole humankind has managed
to dig on Earth.
ON EARTH?
Team Kola had managed to break the world record for
drilling depth, trying to get a leg up on the U.S. during
the Cold War. Eventually, they encountered tempera-
tures of 356°F (180°C), which melted their equipment.
The hole was capped in 1992, but what would happen if,
A journey toward the center of for whatever reason, you fell into this hole?
the Earth isn’t for the faint of You’ll start plummeting at almost 33 feet per second
heart. (9.8m/s), and every second after that, it gets faster if
we take the resistence of the air through which you’re
206
falling out of the mix. Falling at such a high speed, you’ll FAST FACTS
start to notice things getting a little toasty as your
heart rate starts to elevate, and panic sets in. Earth’s crust is 25 miles (40km) thick. Beneath the
crust lies 1,800 miles (2,900km) of mantle, and then
You might find it getting harder to breathe. At 490 feet the Earth’s core.
(150m), your poor lungs would be getting crushed by
the constantly increasing air pressure. You might also Kola scientists expected to find a granite-basalt
encounter what cave explorers like to call “foul air”, boundary 4.35 miles (7km) down, but instead they
deadly underground pockets of carbon dioxide. And at stumbled on an area saturated with water. This was
less than 2 miles (3km) into the trip, you’re going to see a significant discovery, as it wasn’t believed that
your skin start to burn up. Literally. water could penetrate this deep into the Earth’s
dense crust.
As you continue to fall, it only gets hotter and hotter.
This is because you’re being pulled closer to the
gravitational center of Earth and its molten core, which
Site of the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia
is baking the planet from the inside out. A temperature
of 176°F (80°C) can severely burn a person’s skin in less
than a second. At this point in the hole, you’re feeling
heat of over 356°F (180°C).
On the bright side, you’ve probably already passed out.
When you fall out of a plane you can pass out from lack
of air, but wake up as oxygen becomes more available,
and catch a glimpse of the ground as you smack into
it. Down here, you’re not waking up, unless you came
prepared and wore an atmospheric diving suit to help
with the increasing pressure as you fell. It’s heavy, but
it will help with that breathing problem.
In 2016, Luke Aikens jumped from 25,000 feet (7,620m)
without a parachute and survived. Granted, he landed 378 tons. Talk about a headache. At least you could
in a net. If he’s allowed to have one, you can too. You admire the 2.7 billion-year-old rock.
land in the net. And now you’ve got to get back out. In
2018, Alex Honnold managed to scale Yosemite Na- We’re still trying to figure out the equipment require-
tional Park’s 3,000-foot (914m) El Capitan granite wall, ments for digging this deep, let alone finding someone
without ropes, in just under 4 hours. Granted, he wasn’t crazy enough to take the plunge. Luckily, the hole only
wearing a huge suit like you are. This big outfit wouldn’t has a diameter of nine inches, so it’s too narrow for you
help you climb, and you would need some climbing to trip into. If you did decide to dive in, you could argue
equipment, to help you get a better grip on the walls of that all it would take is for someone else to try it first,
the hole. and spark the desire to out-do each other. After all,
that’s a primary reason the Kola hole exists in the first
When you’re at the bottom, you’d find things are warm,
to say the least, not to mention your body would
place. Even with its record-breaking depth, the Kola
Superdeep Borehole is only a fraction of the thickness
be dealing with air pressure equal to 54 elephants of the Earth’s crust, but it does make you think about
perched on top of your head, weighing in at a whopping what humans are capable of.
207
WHAT IF ONE MILLION
PEOPLE ACTUALLY
STORMED AREA 51?
If you happened to wander
into the Nevada desert and
stumbled upon the secret U.S.
military base, Area 51, you’d
quickly be arrested or maybe
abducted by aliens.
Biggest threat: armed guards
Our best hope: discovering friendly aliens
Worst consequence: humanity destroyed
Best consequence: finally finding the truth
If you haven’t heard of it before, Area 51 is a highly
classified U.S. military base. It’s heavily rumored to
have secret military technology and perhaps aliens. For
decades it’s been the source of conspiracy theories,
but now, you want to see if any of these theories are
true. It’s off-limits to visitors, so it may not be on your
GPS, but there are online guides you’ll need to use.
The closest airport is in Las Vegas. From there, you’ll
have to rent a car and drive through the southern
Nevada desert for several hours. Keep in mind that
there are going to be 1 million other people doing the
same thing as you. Nevada’s most populated city, Las
Vegas, has less than 800,000 people living in it, and the
entire state of Nevada only has about 3 million people.
Adding another million people, all at once would
seriously damage Nevada’s infrastructure. The roads to
get to Area 51 aren’t an 8-lane highway. Instead, they’re
small 2-lane roads and dirt trails.
208
5
SCENARIO
If 1 million people decided to do this, they may not
even make it to the military base. Instead, they may
get stuck in traffic or get into an accident. So much
for seeing any aliens, but let’s imagine that everyone
somehow makes it to the front gates of the base. Now
one million people are ready to storm Area 51.
You and your friends are peaceful people, so you
wouldn’t be carrying any guns. You’re just simply
running into the base. As soon as you crossed the Area
51 borders, you’d quickly be met by the base’s private
security. These people, also known as “camo dudes”,
have weapons in hand and patrol the base 24/7 in white
pickup trucks. You wouldn’t be able to sneak up on any
of these guys as they’d surely know you’re coming.
It wouldn’t just be the private security trying to stop
you. With an event this big, the whole world would
know, and it would be impossible to keep it a secret.
Area 51 is a detachment of Edwards Air Force Base,
which is located in southern California. Thousands of
active military members are stationed at Edwards. If you’re lucky enough not to get shot, or pepper-sprayed, technology, UFOs, or even aliens could be lurking
You could expect to see them, along with thousands of you’d get arrested, but what if you somehow managed to about. The truth is, nobody knows for sure. Proceed
other armed soldiers and police members. They’d have sneak past all the guards? Despite this, you still wouldn’t with caution though, as some suspect that the base is
their guns, tasers, tanks, and who knows what else. be at the actual Area 51 base, at least not yet. You’d heavily polluted from decades of government exper-
have to find it. That’s because the original Area 51 base iments. If that’s true, just being in the base without
The Armed Forces would try to keep casualties at occupies a space of 60 square miles (150km2), but the proper equipment could result in you getting sick or
a minimum, but they’d still be hitting everyone with property surrounding it is 575 square miles (1,600km2). In dying.
pepper spray and other non-lethal weapons. They’d the middle of the desert. It’s reported the base is discreet,
be determined to keep what’s inside Area 51 a secret, with blacked-out windows and hardly any visible lights Storming Area 51 probably isn’t a good idea. Sorry, you
so it’s not unlikely the camo dudes and their military from the outside. You could be walking around for hours won’t be getting a baby alien as a souvenir gift. The
counterparts would open fire on the crowds — and before you found it. But once you reached Area 51, what only way you’ll probably ever be able to see aliens is if
they’re authorized to use deadly force. would happen? What would you see? Crazy military they come to us.
209
4
SCENARIO
SARS CoV-2 belongs to the
family of coronaviruses,
named for crownlike spikes on
their surfaces.
SARS CoV-2 can cause COVID-19, which stands for
coronavirus disease 2019, a contagious viral infection
that primarily attacks your throat and lungs. Like all
viruses, the coronavirus must infect living cells in order
to reproduce.
Inside the virus, genetic material contains the infor-
mation to make more copies of itself. A protein shell
provides a hard protective enclosure for the genetic
material as the virus travels between the people it
infects. An outer envelope allows the virus to infect
cells by merging with the cell’s outer membrane.
Projecting from the envelope are spikes of protein
molecules. Both a typical influenza virus and the new
coronavirus use their spikes like a key to get inside
a cell in your body, where it takes over its internal
machinery, repurposing it to build the components of
new viruses.
When an infected person talks, coughs, or sneezes,
droplets carrying the virus may land in your mouth or
nose, and then move into your lungs. Once inside your
body, the virus comes into contact with cells in your
throat, nose, or lungs. One spike on the virus inserts
Biggest threat: infecting and killing your loved ones into a receptor molecule on your healthy cell
Your best hope: mild symptoms and speedy recovery membrane like a key in a lock. This action allows the
Worst consequence: lung failure and death virus to get inside your cell.
Best consequence: developing antibodies
The coronavirus doesn’t need to enter the host cell
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU
nucleus. It can directly access parts of the host cell,
called ribosomes. Ribosomes use genetic information
from the virus to make viral proteins, such as the
CAUGHT THE CORONAVIRUS?
spikes on the virus’ surface. A packaging structure
in your cell then carries the spikes in vesicles, which
merge with your cell’s outer layer, the cell membrane.
210
All the parts needed to create a new virus gather
just beneath your cell’s membrane. Then, a new virus
begins to butt off from the cell’s membrane. With the
virus spreading in your body, you develop pneumonia
symptoms. Each lung has separate sections, called
lobes. Normally, as you breathe, air moves freely
through your trachea, or windpipe, then through large
tubes, called bronchi, through smaller tubes, called
bronchioles, and finally into tiny sacs, called alveoli.
If your immune system is weakened, like in the case
of coronavirus infection, the virus can overwhelm
your immune cells, and your bronchioles and alveoli
become inflamed as your immune system attacks the
multiplying viruses.
The inflammation can cause your alveoli
to fill with fluid, making it difficult for your
body to get the oxygen it needs.
You could develop lobar pneumonia, where one lobe of
your lungs is affected, or you could have bronchopneu-
monia that affects many areas of both lungs.
Pneumonia may cause difficulty breathing, chest
pain, coughing, fever, and chills, confusion, headache,
muscle pain, and fatigue. It can also lead to more
serious complications. Respiratory failure occurs when
your breathing becomes so difficult that you need a
machine called a ventilator to help you breathe. These
are the machines that save lives.
Whether you would develop these symptoms depends
on a lot of factors, such as your age and whether you
already have an existing condition. Until we have a
widely available vaccine, stay home and wear a mask
if you can to protect the most vulnerable, and don’t
forget to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds as
often as possible.
211
3
SCENARIO
Before we go jumping into a whole pool of it, let’s get
to know liquid nitrogen a little better. Liquid nitrogen FAST FACTS
is nonflammable, odorless, and colorless; and it
creates its notorious fog whenever it’s exposed to Nitrogen was first liquified in 1883 by Polish
room temperature air. It can be used to freeze and physicists Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol
transport food products, to preserve sperm and eggs, Olszewski.
and to remove skin abnormalities, among other things.
Recently, its use has been embraced by the public, Although nitrogen comprises 78 percent of
with chefs and bartenders using it to create fancy ice the air we breathe it can also displace oxygen,
creams and cocktails. causing asphyxiation.

With this new fascination with liquid nitrogen and the
fact that it’s available to the public, something terrible
was bound to happen, and that brings us back to the
liquid nitrogen pool party that we mentioned before. In
an effort to create a smoke effect to impress guests, a
resort in Mexico poured 4 large cans of liquid nitrogen
into the hotel pool. It created an impressive fog, but it
also did something the organizers didn’t know about:
it displaced the oxygen poolside. And with no oxygen,
guests couldn’t breathe.
Biggest threat: severe frostbite Luckily though, since it was just 4 cans of liquid
Your best hope: liquid nitrogen boiling off before touching your skin nitrogen that were added slowly, it boiled off in the
Best consequence: a vapor coat protecting your skin water before it made contact with anyone’s skin. How
Worst consequence: freezing to death much worse would it have been if the entire pool was
filled with pure liquid nitrogen?
If you were to quickly submerge your hand in liquid
The Leidenfrost effect occurs when a liquid, close
to a surface that is significantly hotter than the
liquid’s boiling point, produces an insulating vapor
layer that keeps the liquid from boiling rapidly.
every other liquid in your body would be frozen solid. If
you kept your head above the surface, your body would
freeze underneath you, and you’d sink right down. On
the bright side, there probably wouldn’t be much pain
involved since the nerve damage would be so severe
and occur so quickly.
As terrible as this would be for a living creature, it
could actually be beneficial for a dead one. Instead of
being buried or cremated, some people have chosen

WHAT IF YOU FELL INTO A

nitrogen, it would feel frozen. But there wouldn’t be to have their bodies frozen when they die. It’s called
any frostbite or damage because of something called cryogenic freezing.
the Leidenfrost effect. Because liquid nitrogen boils

POOL OF LIQUID NITROGEN?

Liquid nitrogen may look like a lot of fun when you’re
watching people dump everyday objects into it, but it’s
actually a very dangerous substance.
Did you know that hundreds of people voluntarily
jumped into a pool of liquid nitrogen? It’s true! It
happened at a promotional pool party in 2013. By the
end of the event, one person was in a coma, and 8
others had been rushed to the hospital. What is it that
makes this substance so dangerous?
at the very low temperature of −320°F (-196°C), it
will bead up and create a layer of vapor underneath
The Leidenfrost effect in action
it when it touches any surface that’s at room tem-
perature, similar to when you drop water onto a flat
heated surface. If you dipped your hand inside liquid
nitrogen, a vapor barrier would immediately form that
protected your hand from freezing, but the protective
barrier would only be temporary.
If you were planning on taking a long swim, you
wouldn’t be coming back out. Instead, you’d get severe
frostbite all over your body. Then, the cold would work
its way deeper inside you. Muscles, fat, your blood, and

212 213
WHAT IF YOU JUMPED
INTO A POOL FULL OF
STOMACH ACID?
It’s as strong as battery acid and can melt
steel, but it lives inside of us and helps
digest our food. This is stomach acid.
Biggest threat: acid eating away your skin
Your best hope: a protective suit and mask
Worst consequence: third-degree burns and death
Best consequence: seeing all that stomach acid
Stomach acid is compared to battery acid in terms of
the damage it can do. It can range from 1 to 3 on the
pH scale, meaning it’s extremely acidic. That’s because
stomach acid’s main component is hydrochloric acid,
which is a highly corrosive substance. The reason it
can live inside us is due to a special mucous membrane
that lines our stomachs, but what would happen if we
covered all our skin with it?
Before we jump into a pool full of stomach acid, we’ll
first need to figure out just how we’d be able to fill
up an entire pool with the stuff. Let’s assume we’re
swimming in an average 20×20 foot (6×6m) pool that
can hold about 12,100 gallons (55,000 liters) of liquid.
214
A stomach can produce up to 0.3 gallons (1.5
liters) of stomach acid a day, so to fill up an
entire pool, we’d need the stomachs of over
50,000 people.
Let’s say we find our 50,000 volunteers to fill up this
pool. Before you even jump into it, you’re going to notice
the awful smell. Whenever there’s excess acid in your
digestive tract, it can cause your breath to stink. Multiply
that by 50,000, and you’d get an idea of how awful the
pool would smell. You’d be surrounded by a horrible bad
breath odor, and that’s even before you jump in. As soon
as you take the plunge, you’ll feel stinging in your eyes
and your nostrils.
To get a sense of what this might feel like, have you
ever had lemon juice squirted in your eye? It would be
similar to that, as lemon juice and stomach acid have
a similar pH level, but if you remember to bring your
goggles and nose plugs, you’ll hopefully be able to avoid
this part.
What’s much less avoidable is the stomach acid making
contact with your skin. When it does, it will cause some
mild irritation right away. Luckily, the epidermis layer
of your skin should be able to protect you before it
starts to hurt too badly. If you jump into the pool and
hop right back out, even with your skin all covered in
stomach acid, you’d be relatively okay.
2
SCENARIO
As long as you wash the acid off with soap and water
and towel off, you’ll be totally fine. If you didn’t get out
right away, the acid would slowly eat your skin. This
would eventually leave you covered in burns. If you
didn’t manage to cover your eyes during the swim, you’d
slowly lose your vision and end up blind, and your nose
would dissolve from the inside if the acid touched it
long enough.
If you accidentally swallow some of it, you’ll inevitably
vomit it back up, along with anything else you ate
earlier in the day. So no, don’t try this. It’s best to leave
stomach acid where it belongs, and that’s inside of us,
digesting our food.
215
1
SCENARIO
Biggest threat: being swallowed by a sperm whale
Your best hope: the whale spitting you out right away
Worst consequence: being dissolved by stomach acids
Best consequence: seeing the inside of a whale
WHAT IF YOU WERE
SWALLOWED BY A WHALE?
Close calls with whales happen more often than you
might expect but has anyone ever been swallowed?
Although many people have gotten away relatively un-
scathed, there’s no denying that some were just yards
away from becoming a whale’s lunch. If you’ve never
seen a whale up close, it’s hard to comprehend just how
monstrous they can really be. To put it in perspective,
the blue whale is the largest animal on the planet. Its
216
tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant, and it
can fit anywhere between 100 and 200 people in its
mouth. We wouldn’t have to worry about a blue whale
swallowing us anytime soon, because their anatomy
makes it nearly impossible. Instead, we should be more
concerned with their smaller cousins, sperm whales.
In 1891, reports emerged that a man had been swal-
lowed by one of these whales, and although he lived
to tell the tale, he would never be the same again.
According to the story, James Bartley was swallowed
when a whale attacked his ship, and he wasn’t retrieved
until the following day. When the crew found and killed
the whale, they quickly brought it on board their ship
and cut it open, revealing an unconscious but very alive
James Bartley.
His face and arms were bleached white, and he was
blind, all thanks to the stomach acids of the whale.
However, as the years went by, people started poking
holes in this story, and questioned whether James
had really been swallowed by a whale. Wouldn’t the
stomach acids do more damage than just bleaching his
skin? The science suggests if you get swallowed by a
whale, coming back out with shiny white skin would be
the least of your worries.
The first thing you’d have to worry about would be
getting shredded to pieces by the sperm whale’s
impressive set of teeth. Each tooth is approximately
8 inches (20cm) long; that’s about the length of an
average chef knife, and sperm whales have anywhere
from 40 to 50 of these. Let’s say you’re lucky enough to
make it past all of them. Next you’d begin your descent
down the throat. Not only would it be dark and slimy
down there, but you’d also find it hard to breathe due to
the lack of oxygen and an increase in methane gas.
As the whale’s throat muscles constrict in and out to
help force you down, you’d also start to feel hydro-
chloric acid beginning to eat away at your skin. Next,
you’d be dropped into the first, and largest, of the
whale’s four stomachs. You’d probably be in there for a
while, but the bright side is that you might have some
light in the form of a bioluminescent squid or two being
noshed on after your arrival, since sperm whales love
neon flying squid.
You’d better enjoy this brief light show, because after
this you’d just be tossed from one stomach to the next,
with the acids breaking down almost all of your body
FAST FACTS
Sperm whales are the largest toothed whales in
the world. They also have the largest brains on
Earth, weighing in at 17 pounds (7.7kg), over five
times as large as a human brain.
Bowhead whales have the largest mouths of
any whale species.
There are zero confirmed instances of a whale
eating a human in history.
until you’re just a bunch of bones being unceremoni-
ously ejected from the whale’s anus. It’s pretty safe to
say that there’s no way you could be swallowed whole
by a whale and live to tell the tale. Sorry, James. You
may have been able to fool people in the 1890s, but
we’re on to you now.
For as vast as they are and as monstrous as they might
seem to us, whales actually have no interest in eating
humans. And if they could talk, they would probably
make a point of telling us that.
THE #1 WHAT IF SCENARIO
This is the most watched episode on the What If
show so far. It has been watched for more than
315 million minutes (that’s a total of about 600
years) in 5 different languges. The combination
of a frightening situation, the various legends
including parallels to the story of Jonah in Islam
and the interesting facts about the anatomy of
whales made this episode a hit for viewers across
cultures and regions.
217
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Everything that we know about our Universe, we know because someone asked
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What If 100: Hypothetical Scenarios Explained with Science counts down the
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