Munroe's What If? articles generally begin with a question that few have wondered about — such as "Has humanity produced enough paint to cover the entire land area of the Earth?" and "Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns?" — and then answer it with surprising scientific rigor, often to absurd conclusions (for instance: a machine gun might not work as a jetpack, but an aircraft anti-tank gun would get you a lot closer). His famous stick-figure cartoons illustrate the absurd scenarios discussed throughout What If? as well. While Munroe's background in physics certainly comes in handy, he tells the Times that there's a lot of additional research involved in running the blog: "Doing What If? has gotten me doing more science research than I did for my degree."