How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problem

September 12, 8pm Aratani Theatre, Downtown Los Angeles

Randall Munroe is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer, 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. Full of clever info-graphics and amusing illustrations, How To is a mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.

For any task you might want to do, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable 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.

By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn’t just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible.

“Munroe’s madness has its method: His solutions tend to the daft and are definitely outside the box, but figuring out for yourself how to get something done, whether changing a light bulb or powering a house, ‘can be fun and informative and sometimes leads you to surprising places.’ An enjoyable treat for fans of logic puzzles, brain hacking, kaizen, mad science, and other forms of mental stimulation.” —Kirkus Reviews

Kyle Hill is the science editor at Nerdist. He uses real-world math and science concepts to solve, measure, and make sense of pop culture quandaries in comics, video games, movies, and TV.