Have you ever tried to learn more about some amazing thing, only to be frustrated by incomprehensible jargon? Randall Munroe is here to help. In Thing Explainer he uses only the thousand (or the 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)*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)*sky boats with turning wings (helicopters)*boxes that make clothes smell better (washing machines and dryers)*the bags of stuff inside you (human organs)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, heated them up, cooled them down, pointed them in a different direction, or even, 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 - from 5 to 105 - who has ever wondered how things work and why.