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Randall Munroe on Making the Complicated Simple

Randall Munroe and Marcus du Sautoy lift the lid on the technology we love and on the cutting edge of current scientific research.

In october 2017, Intelligence Squared brought together two of the world’s best- loved masters of explaining and popularising science, to lift the lid on the technology we love and on the cutting edge of current scientific research.

Randall Munroe is a physicist who once built robots for NASA. His webcomic xkcd uses simple cartoons and diagrams to make science funny, touching and incredibly clear. It gets a billion hits a year. In his latest series, Munroe has simplified the workings behind everything from space rockets to smartphones, while using only the thousand most common words in the English language.

On stage with Munroe was Oxford’s professor for the public understanding of science Marcus du Sautoy, who has won a wide following through his bestselling books and TV programmes explaining the elegance and complexity of mathematics.

While Munroe unpicked the detailed mechanics behind such technological breakthroughs as the large hadron collider at CERN, du Sautoy examined some of the broader, philosophical questions about the nature — and limits — of scientific enquiry itself.


Speakers

Chair

Dr Xand van Tulleken

Doctor and television broadcaster


Doctor and television broadcaster. He has presented numerous science shows for the BBC and Channel 4, often alongside his twin brother Chris. He has a background in humanitarian medicine and has recently been volunteering with humanitarian aid groups whose skills are now required on the streets of Britain. His books include How to Lose Weight Well: Keep Weight Off Forever, the Healthy, Simple Way.
Featuring

Randall Munroe

Creator of webcomic xkcd


Creator of webcomic xkcd and former NASA roboticist. He has been nominated for three Hugo Awards (the top prize in the sci-fi and tech world) and won ‘Best Graphic Story’ in 2014. Wired magazine chose xkcd as a key influence of the last 20 years, alongside Steve Jobs and online dating. The International Astronomical Union recently named an asteroid after him; asteroid 4942 Munroe is big enough to cause a mass extinction if it ever hits a planet like Earth.

Marcus du Sautoy

Mathematician and science broadcaster


One of the country’s best known science broadcasters. He is Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, where he holds the prestigious Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. He has presented numerous programmes on television and radio, including the internationally acclaimed BBC series The Story of Maths. His bestselling books include The Music of the Primes, The Number Mysteries and, most recently, What We Cannot Know: From Consciousness to the Cosmos, the Cutting Edge of Science Explained.