Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

　　前美國太空總署(NASA)的機器人專家Randall Munroe以簡單的火柴人塗鴉與淺顯易懂的白話文，解說日常生活的科學原理，讓許多站在科學神聖殿堂外發抖、不得其門而入的麻瓜們有了一窺堂奧的機會。《What If 如果這樣，會怎樣》所掀起的科普熱潮鋪天蓋地，連男神小說家尼爾‧蓋曼都是他的粉絲！這次他維持一貫的自我挑戰──只使用1000個日常字彙──與宅味十足的科學幽默，繼續帶領我們探索隱身在生活裡的科學原理。

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.

作者簡介

　　Randall Munroe is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller What If?, the science question-and-answer blog What If, and the popular webcomic xkcd.  A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the Internet full-time, supporting himself through the sale of xkcd t-shirts, prints, posters, and books. He likes candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Very long walks. Lots of people say they like long walks on the beach, but then they get out on the beach and after just an hour or two, they say they’re getting tired. Bring a tent. He lives in Massachusetts.