Thing Explainer

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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General book cover
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"In Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, things are explained in the style of Up Goer Five, using only drawings and a vocabulary of the 1,000 (or "ten hundred") most common words. The book will explore computer buildings (datacenters), the flat rocks we live on (tectonic plates), the things you use to steer a plane (airliner cockpit controls), and the little bags of water you're made of (cells)."

Thing Explainer is Munroe's second published book, not including xkcd comic books, which he announced on May 13th, 2015 in the blag after the amazing success of what if?. The book is a collection of diagrams and line drawings similar in style to the Up Goer Five comic, which can also be purchased as a poster. It will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on November 24th.

Summary

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)

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.

Book Cover

Cueball could be seen on the cover overlooking some of the labelled pictures. It is likely that the book will explore the themes labeled on the front cover which includes astronomy, constellations, and geology.

Preview Pages

Space Car.jpeg