Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

Bottom line: this is a truly enjoyable book that ultimately succeeds in shedding light on complex things in the world that we may not have paused to consider (submarines, ICBMs and various space travel vehicles) in depth. This lack of consideration may variously result from the inherent complexity of some things (nuclear power plants) or their ubiquity (pens, pencils, roads and bridges). Randall Munroe compiled his own list of the 1000 most common words (presumably in American English) to use as the lexicon to explain a bunch a stuff. The illustrations are wonderful; crisp line drawings that vary in detail from the conceptual (human organs generally as bags) to the highly detailed. In some cases they are complete visual metaphors, presumably because the limitations in available vocabulary led to limitations in the accompanying picture. This book contains content from my own professional background, so I was delighted to see content pulled from the worlds of naval weapons, space systems and modern information technology. Because of this, I can confirm that even with limited vocabulary, he gets those things explained correctly. Anybody who has worked as technical writer trying to glean information from subject matter experts for later use in a user guide or other materials designed for non-experts will appreciate what Munroe has done here. Anybody who has ever prepared materials for consumption by elected or appointed government officials will also totally appreciate the challenge he takes on. Interspersed throughout --in the same simple language-- are short comments that are sometimes insightful, sometimes funny, and they will be instantly familiar to readers of his xkcd web comic. However, don't read this in one sitting. You might find yourself haunted by this thought: "Randall, you tell us in the intro that eventually you picked your own 1000 words based on a review of multiple lists. The addition (or substitution) of 50 to 100 more could have really taken moved some of the explanations from the highly metaphorical to the more concrete (to his credit, the "things" are "correctly" named in the table of contents). Great fun for the alpha geeks and curious kids in your life...and just in time for holiday shopping.

This book shows you that understanding how something works and knowing its name are different. In doing so, it makes you consider when and why it's actually important to use a special name for some things, and think harder about what your words are really telling people. The point of this book is not to explain things as well and as quickly as possible. It's to help you use your thinking bag in a different way than you do every day. That's why it's so much fun to read. I'm a teacher at a school for people who already know a lot, and who are very good at what they do. (I teach them about power for our lights and machines.) We use big words and special names all the time. But I sometimes ask my students to try explaining complicated stuff using only simple words, because when you do that, you find out whether you really understand it. It forces you to ask, what is the most important idea here? I wish more teachers did this. Putting ideas into simple words can also help you recognize how different words carry meaning other than just telling you what something is. This is especially true for things that people often have strong feelings about, like the laws of the land, or our body parts for making new people, or machines for burning cities. Special words can quietly suggest if something is a good or a bad idea, or cover up bad feelings. Playing the game of using only simple words can help you see things more clearly for what they actually are, and say just what you mean. So, this book shows us a way to pay special attention to how our own thinking bag works. And I think that's really, really cool.

The thing about this book is that it only uses the ten hundred most used words by people to tell you about things that are hard to understand. It makes it sound kind of strange because you hear some words over and over again, but all in all, it is a very fun book to look at. The man that wrote the book wrote about "Under a car's front cover" and the "US Space Team's Up Goer Five" and lots of things that have to do with a "Sky Boat." There is a page about "Colors of Light" but it is in black and white, so it is not as good as other pages. There is a big table in the middle that is "the pieces everything is made of" that has "the stuff they put in pools so nothing bad can grow in them," "brown metal that we use to carry power and voices" and "stuff you drink so doctors can look inside your body" along with all the other rocks and metals and air that is really fun to look at. I paid money for "Thing Explainer" to put it under the tree for my seven year old, but I will have to read it before he does, I am sure.

"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" von Randall Munroe ist ein außergewöhnliches Buch, das komplexe technische und wissenschaftliche Konzepte auf eine erfrischend einfache und humorvolle Weise erklärt. Randall Munroe, bekannt als der Schöpfer des beliebten Webcomics "xkcd", nutzt in diesem Buch seine Fähigkeit, komplizierte Themen in leicht verständliche Sprache zu übersetzen. Er verwendet dabei die 1.000 am häufigsten gebrauchten englischen Wörter, was zu teilweise lustigen, aber immer klaren und präzisen Erklärungen führt. Das Buch ist in verschiedenen Kapiteln organisiert, die eine Vielzahl von Themen abdecken, von der Funktionsweise eines Kernreaktors bis hin zu den Komponenten eines Mobiltelefons. Jedes Kapitel wird von detaillierten Diagrammen und Zeichnungen begleitet, die Munroes Erklärungen visuell unterstützen und das Verständnis erleichtern. Ein besonders bemerkenswerter Aspekt von "Thing Explainer" ist Munroes Fähigkeit, die Essenz jedes Themas zu erfassen und sie auf eine Weise zu vermitteln, die sowohl informativ als auch unterhaltsam ist. Seine humorvollen Illustrationen und Beschreibungen machen das Lernen zu einem Vergnügen und entmystifizieren selbst die kompliziertesten Maschinen und Konzepte. Dieses Buch ist ideal für Leser aller Altersgruppen, die ein Interesse an Wissenschaft und Technik haben, aber möglicherweise von der technischen Sprache abgeschreckt werden. Munroes einfache und zugängliche Erklärungen machen es leicht, ein tieferes Verständnis für die Welt um uns herum zu entwickeln. Insgesamt ist "Thing Explainer" ein brillantes Werk, das zeigt, dass es möglich ist, komplizierte Themen für jedermann verständlich zu machen. Randall Munroe beweist, dass Wissen nicht nur für Experten reserviert ist, sondern für jeden zugänglich sein kann, der neugierig ist. Eine klare Empfehlung für alle, die Freude am Lernen haben und die Welt auf eine neue Weise sehen möchten.

Não chega a ser interessante para qualquer leitor mas com certeza abre sorrisos com as explicações. Obrigado Randall Munroe por mais uma obra.

Yes i give this book 5 stars and it deserves! This book is not for people who want serious scientific information because the description of each topic is limited (only a page each). But if you are a science lover and want to know how things work (without their actual names) then yes this book is for you the book is informative, curious, and a real fun. You will love this book. The book is priced at above 500 bucks which I think is overpriced compared to the content of the book (only 47 topics covered). But if you compare with the quality of the book the hard bind, the very thick hard cover pages the excellent amazon services and beautiful fun illustrations added with the humour of the author this price is a good deal. Kids will enjoy this book, even teens and adults will enjoy this book and even old people will enjoy this book. This book has no age constrains as the author says this book is for people between the age 5 to 105. Moreover the book is completely written in simple english (only ten hundren most used words of english). Thanks for reading this and hope it helped you

Wonderful book, full of Munroe's humour, and really benefits from the large size (it's bigger than A4, and some pages fold out) to show off the detail in the drawings. I learned a lot!

Interesting topics but the explanations can be a bit chaotic to follow at times.