Tag Archives: physics

Thing explainer explained

In his new book, Thing explainer: complicated stuff in simple words, Randall Munroe uses the top ten hundred words in the language spoken most in the world and lots of pictures to explain how some things work.  In a world with too many big words, this book is great.  However, some of the top words, simple enough alone, are still changed for others and one of the big words that tell you what the book is (marked above) isn’t even in the top words!  Despite several wrong word choices, Thing explainer hits the mark for interestingly explaining things.

courtesy of xkcd.com
courtesy of xkcd.com

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Honey, I shrunk the grad students

microI finally got around to reading Michael Crichton’s posthumous novel Micro, finished after Crichton’s death by another popular sci-fi author Richard Preston.  Since I first tore through Jurassic Park in 7th grade (more 20 years ago…yikes!), I have been a huge fan of Crichton’s imaginative worlds of science fiction.  Not to mention  that I was so inspired by Preston’s The Hot Zone that I entered the fields of infectious diseases and immunology for my career.  So imagine my disappointment to discover that Micro is little more than a science-themed knock-off of the wacky Rick Moranis comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

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