
How To
Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems from Randall Munroe of xkcd
Randall Munroe(Author)
John Murray Publishers Ltd
Published on 3. September 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-4736-8034-0 (ISBN)
Description
Randall Munroe is . . .'Nerd royalty' Ben Goldacre
'Totally brilliant' Tim Harford
'Laugh-out-loud funny' Bill Gates
'Wonderful' Neil Gaiman
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the million-selling What If? and Thing Explainer
For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally bad that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
'How strange science can fix everyday problems' New Scientist
'A brilliant book: clamber in for a wild ride' Nature
'Totally brilliant' Tim Harford
'Laugh-out-loud funny' Bill Gates
'Wonderful' Neil Gaiman
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the million-selling What If? and Thing Explainer
For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally bad that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
'How strange science can fix everyday problems' New Scientist
'A brilliant book: clamber in for a wild ride' Nature
Reviews / Votes
Ridiculous, delightful and, damn it, educational * Sunday Times (Culture) * A pure delight, a salty-sweet mixture of hard science and bonkers whimsy * Boing Boing * Extremely accurate and often amusing answers to everyday issues * Daily Mail * Consistently fascinating and entertaining * Wall Street Journal * The creator of the popular, extremely excellent webcomic xkcd cleverly illustrates a guide of complicated solutions to simple tasks as common as digging a hole * USA Today * [How To] tackles problems from the mundane-such as how to move to a new house-to those that may trouble a mad scientist building her first lava moat. The solutions are often hilariously, and purposefully, absurd. Embedded in these solutions, however, is solid scientific, engineering, and experimental understanding . . . [for] anyone who appreciates science-based solutions to life's problems * Science Magazine * A witty, educational examination of 'unusual approaches to common tasks' . . . generously laced with dry humor . . . Munroe's comic stick-figure art is an added bonus. . . . Apart from generating laughter, the book also manages to achieve his serious objective: to get his audience thinking * Publishers Weekly, starred review * A gleefully nerdy hypothetical instruction book for armchair scientists of all ages * Booklist * An enjoyable treat for fans of logic puzzles, brain hacking, kaizen, mad science, and other forms of mental stimulation * Kirkus Reviews * Required reading across the world * New York Times * A great deal of fun * The Economist * Fascinating * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Children/juvenile
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
266 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4736-8034-0 (9781473680340)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Randall Munroe
How To
Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems from Randall Munroe of xkcd
E-Book
09/2019
1st Edition
John Murray
€6.49
Available for download
Person
Randall Munroe is the creator of the webcomic xkcd and bestselling author of What If?, Thing Explainer and xkcd: Volume 0. Randall was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and grew up outside Richmond, Virginia. After studying physics at Christopher Newport University, he got a job building robots at NASA Langley Research Center. In 2006 he left NASA to draw comics on the internet full time, and has since been nominated for a Hugo Award three times. The International Astronomical Union recently named an asteroid after him: asteroid 4942 Munroe is big enough to cause mass extinction if it ever hits a planet like Earth.