Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words
by Randall Munroe
Book Description
Have you ever tried to learn more about some incredible thing, only to be frustrated by incomprehensible jargon? Randall Munroe is here to help. In Thing Explainer, he uses line drawings and only the thousand (or, rather, “ten hundred”) most common words to provide simple explanations for some of the most interesting stuff there is, including:
– food-heating radio boxes (microwaves)
– tall roads (bridges)
– computer buildings (datacenters)
– the shared space house (the International Space Station)
– the other worlds around the sun (the solar system)
– the big flat rocks we live on (tectonic plates)
– the pieces everything is made of (the periodic table)
– planes with turning wings (helicopters)
– boxes that make clothes smell better (washers and dryers)
– the bags of stuff inside you (cells)
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How do these things work? Where do they come from? What would life be like without them? And what would happen if we opened them up, heated them up, cooled them down, pointed them in a different direction, or pressed this button? In Thing Explainer, Munroe gives us the answers to these questions and so many more. Funny, interesting, and always understandable, this book is for anyone—age 5 to 105—who has ever wondered how things work, and why.
Consistently fascinating and entertaining… Munroe leavens the hard science with whimsical touches… An illuminating handbook of methods of reasoning. – Wall Street Journal
Education should aim to teach people to reason confidently about problems that they have never come across before. This book is a great deal of fun, and a masterclass in such reasoning. Like all the best lessons, you only realise you’ve learned something once you’ve finished it. – The Economist
Author: Randall Munroe
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: November 2015
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0544668251
ISBN-13: 978-0544668256
