Rejected Question Categories
Rejected Question Categories
In What If? 2 (xkcd.com/whatif2), I answer ridiculous questions sent in by readers about everything from volcanoes to spaceships to soup.
Here are a few of the common types of question that I did not answer:
[In separate boxes for each category]
[In row 1:]
People cheating on homework: What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work!)
Medical advice: What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [ 📎 attachment ]? Should you see a doctor or what?
Personal: Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???
[In row 2:]
Spam: Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?
Phishing: Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here .
Requests for help with a crime: Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [ 📎 blueprints]
[In row 3:]
Unanswerable: Why am I me and not someone else
Vague: What is going to happen? (Be specific)
Vague+Ominous: Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?
?????: Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! [partially cut off horizontally:] Click here to log in and tell us

This comic shows the categories of questions he claims to have received, but rejected to use in his book, giving an example question for each category. In typical xkcd fashion, these begin out by being plausible, although often unlikely to have been submitted as a what if? question, moving in to more and more absurd types of questions, especially with the last question, that appears to be a combination of all previous categories and is therefore marked "?????"
The title text refers to the launch date of the book September 13, rendered in the American style 9/13. This format can be confusing to non-Americans, although usually not when the date is larger than 12, since it would then appear to reference the 9th day of the 13th month. This "13th month" was, however, referenced in the first comic about the book: 2575: What If? 2 . See also Randall's take on the date format, ISO 8601 , in 1179: ISO 8601 .
Randall then continues the title text by referencing the second to last category with vague ominous questions. The example question here asks if there is need to worry about spiders after Tuesday. So Randall notes that the release date, 5.5 months after the release of this comic, is of course assuming anyone will survive past next Tuesday (2022-04-05).
Tuesday has been notably referenced in 277: Long Light , 564: Crossbows , 1099: Tuesdays and most notably in 1245: 10-Day Forecast , where it seems that the last day ever will be a Tuesday. Tuesday is the second day of the week, and notably, the Tuesday of the week following the publication of this cartoon (April 5th, 2022) was the Day of the Spiders.
In What If? 2 (xkcd.com/whatif2), I answer ridiculous questions sent in by readers about everything from volcanoes to spaceships to soup.
Here are a few of the common types of question that I did not answer:
[In separate boxes for each category]
[In row 1:]
People cheating on homework: What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work!)
Medical advice: What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [ 📎 attachment ]? Should you see a doctor or what?
Personal: Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???
[In row 2:]
Spam: Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?
Phishing: Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here .
Requests for help with a crime: Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [ 📎 blueprints]
[In row 3:]
Unanswerable: Why am I me and not someone else
Vague: What is going to happen? (Be specific)
Vague+Ominous: Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?
?????: Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! [partially cut off horizontally:] Click here to log in and tell us
