The hilarious website https://what-if.xkcd.com is devoted to explaining crazy thought experiments using sound scientific approaches. For example, here’s one where XKCD estimates how much global sea levels would drop by if you were to remove all ships from the ocean currently in operation: https://what-if.xkcd.com/33/. Or what would happen to the Earth’s rotation axis if the whole of humanity simultaneously jumped eastward? Inspired by this line of thinking, why are we all not using similar examples to help non-experts to better comprehend our research?
In this session, we invite you to entertain us by using innovative thought experiments to explain and quantify your research. Contributions from all geosciences are welcomed, under the sole condition that your explanation is understandable by a wide geoscientific audience, and that you follow a ‘what-if’ format. This implies that you formulate a central research question using an entertaining thought experiment, which you can then elaborate upon and answer at the end of the talk. We encourage participants to submit contributions in their own field of expertise although generic scientific themes may be covered as well.