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Randall Munroe

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Not to be confused withRandy MonroeorRendall Munroe.

Randall Munroe
Munroe speaking at re:publica in 2016
Munroe speaking atre:publicain 2016
BornRandall Patrick Munroe
(1984-10-17)October 17, 1984(age 39)
Easton, Pennsylvania,U.S.
Alma mater
GenreWebcomics,popular science
Notable works
Signature
Randall Munroe with a small stick figure at the end
Website
www.xkcd

Randall Patrick Munroe(born October 17, 1984)[1][2][3]is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of thewebcomicxkcd.Munroe has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006.[4]In addition to publishing a book of the webcomic's strips, titledxkcd: Volume 0,he has written four books:What If?,Thing Explainer,How To,andWhat If? 2.

Early life and education[edit]

Munroe was born inEaston, Pennsylvania,[5]though he grew up in Virginia.[6]His father has worked as an engineer and marketer.[5]He has two younger siblings and was raised as aQuaker.[5][7]He was a fan ofcomic stripsin newspapers from an early age,[4]starting withCalvin and Hobbes.[8]

After graduating from theChesterfield County Mathematics and Science High School at Clover HillinMidlothian, Virginia,he graduated fromChristopher Newport Universityin 2006 with a degree inphysics.[9][10][11]

Career[edit]

NASA[edit]

Munroe worked as a contract programmer and roboticist forNASAat theLangley Research Center,[12][8]before and after his graduation with a physics degree.[5]

In late 2006, he left NASA, and moved toBostonto focus on webcomics full time.[13][12]

Webcomic[edit]

Main article:xkcd
A stick figure speaks on a stage; among the audience members, a few hold up signs, with one standing higher with a "[citation needed]" sign
"Wikipedian Protester", published onxkcdwith all-caps title-text (tooltip): "Semi-protect the Constitution".[14]On Wikipedia,semi-protectedpages may not be edited by new or unregistered users. "Citation needed"is a tag added by Wikipedia editors to unsourced statements in articles requesting citations to be added.

Munroe's webcomic, entitledxkcd,is primarily astick figurecomic. Itstaglinedescribes it as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language".[15]

Munroe had originally used xkcd as an instant messaging screenname because he wanted a name without a meaning so he would not eventually grow tired of it.[16]He registered the domain name, but left it idle until he started posting his drawings, perhaps in September 2005.[8][third-party source needed]The webcomic quickly became very popular, garnering up to 70 million hits a month by October 2007.[17]In 2008, Munroe said, "I think the comic that's gotten me the most feedback is actually the one about the stoplights".[17][18]

Munroe now supports himself by the sale ofxkcd-related merchandise, primarily thousands of t-shirts a month.[4][16]He licenses hisxkcdcreations under theCreative Commonsattribution-noncommercial 2.5, stating that it is not just about thefree culture movement,but that it also makes good business sense.[16]

In 2010, he published a collection of the comics.[19]He has also toured the lecture circuit, giving speeches at places such asGoogle'sGoogleplexinMountain View, California.[20]

The popularity of the strip amongscience fiction fansresulted in Munroe being nominated for aHugo Award for Best Fan Artistin 2011 and again in 2012.[21]In 2014, he won theHugo Award for Best Graphic Storyfor thexkcdstrip "Time".[22]

Other projects[edit]

Munroe is the creator of the now defunct websites "The Funniest",[23]"The Cutest",[24]and "The Fairest",[25]each of which presents users with two options and asks them to choose one over the other.[citation needed]

In January 2008, Munroe developed anopen-sourcechat moderation script named "Robot9000". Originally developed to moderate one of Munroe'sxkcd-relatedInternet Relay Chat(IRC) channels, the software's algorithm attempts to prevent repetition in IRC channels by temporarily muting users who send messages that are identical to a message that has been sent to the channel before. If users continue to send unoriginal messages, Robot9000 mutes the user for a longer period, quadrupling for each unoriginal message the user sends to the channel.[26][third-party source needed]Shortly after Munroe's blog post about the script went live,4chanadministratorChristopher Pooleadapted the script to moderate the site's experimental/r9k/board.[27]Twitchtrialed R9K mode as a beta feature,[28]and eventually introduced it under the name "unique-chat mode".[29]

In October 2008,The New Yorkermagazine online published an interview and "Cartoon Off" between Munroe andFarley Katz,in which each cartoonist drew a series of four humorous cartoons.[30]

In early 2010, Munroe ran the xkcd Color Name Survey, in which participants were shown a series ofRGBcolors and asked to enter a suitable name for each specific color. Munroe wanted to identify colors which were given identical or highly similar names by a large number of survey participants, which would then serve as an approximate list of the most common colors rendered similarly across a range ofcomputer monitors.Over 200,000 people eventually completed the survey,[31]and Munroe published the resulting list of 954 namedRGB web colors[32]on the xkcd website. They have since been adopted as conventional color identifiers in various programming and markup languages, includingPython[33]andLaTeX.[34]

In 2015,The New Yorkerpublished "The Space Doctor's Big Idea", an article by Munroe explaininggeneral relativityusing only the 1,000most common English words.[35]

What If?[edit]

Main articles:What If? (book)andWhat If? 2 (book)
Munroe explaining one of the scenarios fromWhat If? 2while promoting the book inNorwood, Ohio,in 2022

Munroe has ablogentitledWhat If?,where he has answered questions sent in by fans of his comics. These questions are usually absurd and related to math or physics, and he explains them using both his knowledge and various academic sources.[36]In 2014, he published a collection of some of the responses, as well as a few new ones and some rejected questions, in a book entitledWhat If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.[19]Starting in November 2019, Munroe began writing a monthly column inThe New York TimestitledGood Question,answering user-submitted questions in the same style asWhat If.[37]

A sequel,What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,was published in September 2022.[38]

Radioactivity visualization[edit]

Munroe's 2011 chart on various doses of radioactivity insieverts,ranging from negligible to lethal

In response to concerns about theradioactivityreleased by theFukushima Daiichi nuclear disasterin 2011, and to remedy what he described as "confusing" reporting on radiation levels in the media, Munroe created a radiation chart of comparative radiation exposure levels.[39]The chart was rapidly adopted by print and online journalists in several countries,[citation needed]including being linked to by online writers forThe Guardian,[40]andThe New York Times.[41]As a result of requests for permission to reprint the chart and to translate it into Japanese, Munroe placed it in thepublic domain,but requested that his non-expert status be clearly stated in any reprinting.[42]

Munroe published anxkcd-style comic on scientific publishing andopen accessinSciencein October 2013.[43]

Thing Explainer[edit]

Main article:Thing Explainer

Munroe's bookThing Explainer,announced in May 2015 and published later that year, explains concepts using only the 1,000most common English words.[19][44][45]The book's publisher,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,saw these illustrations as potentially useful for textbooks, and announced in March 2016 that the next editions of their high-school-level chemistry, biology, and physics textbooks will include selected drawings and accompanying text fromThing Explainer.[46][47]

How To[edit]

Main article:How To (book)

In February 2019, Munroe announced his next book,How To,which was released in September of that year. The book deals with everyday problems by using physics to find absurd, and generally extreme, solutions to them.[48][7]

YouTube[edit]

On August 31, 2023, Munroe created a YouTube channel calledxkcd's What If?,where he first uploaded on November 29 of the same year. On the channel Munroe answers questions from theWhat If?book series, accompanied by xkcd-style animations.[49]

Influence[edit]

In September 2013, Munroe announced that a group ofxkcdreaders had submitted his name as a candidate for the renaming of asteroid (4942) 1987 DU6to4942 Munroe.The name was accepted by theInternational Astronomical Union.[50][51]

Personal life[edit]

In October 2010, Munroe'sfiancéewas diagnosed with stage threebreast cancer;there had been no prior family history.[52][53]The emotional effect of her illness was referenced in the comic panel "Emotion", published 18 months later in April 2012.[54]In September 2011, he announced that they had married.[55]In November 2012, he published a comic entitled "Two Years", and in December 2017, Munroe followed this with a comic entitled "Seven Years".[56]He revisited the subject in November 2020 in a comic entitled "Ten Years".[57]

His hobbies and interests includekite photography,in which cameras are attached to kites and photographs are then taken of the ground or buildings.[58]

Publications[edit]

Publications by Munroe[edit]

  • xkcd: volume 0.Breadpig.2009.ISBN9780615314464.
  • What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.London:John Murray.2014.ISBN9781848549579.
  • Thing Explainer.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.2015.ISBN9780544668256.
  • How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems.John Murray.2019.ISBN9780525537090.
  • What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.Riverhead Books. 2022.ISBN9780525537113.

Publications with contributions by Munroe[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Chamberlin, Alan."JPL Small-Body Database Browser".JPL Solar System Dynamics.Archivedfrom the original on March 5, 2017.RetrievedAugust 24,2020.
  2. ^Ly, Chen (October 12, 2022)."Randall Munroe on answering the strangest scientific questions".New Scientist.Archivedfrom the original on January 19, 2024.
  3. ^Cavna, Michael (September 12, 2022)."The world's funniest former NASA roboticist will take your questions".The Washington Post.RetrievedSeptember 13,2022.
  4. ^abcCohen, Noam (May 26, 2008)."This Is Funny Only if You Know Unix".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedSeptember 25,2008.
  5. ^abcdTupponce, Joan (November 24, 2009)."A Cartoonist's Mind".Richmond Magazine.Archivedfrom the original on March 27, 2020.RetrievedJanuary 28,2020.
  6. ^"What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions".Scientific American.311(3): 146. August 19, 2014.doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0914-92b.ISSN0036-8733.I grew up in Virginia
  7. ^abMartinelli, Marissa (September 6, 2019)."Xkcd Creator Randall Munroe on the Joys of Overthinking Everything".Slate.Archivedfrom the original on September 10, 2019.RetrievedSeptember 11,2019.
  8. ^abcMunroe, Randall (December 11, 2007).Authors@Google: Randall Munroe(@Google TalksAdobe Flashvideo).Mountain View, California:Google.Event occurs at 24:13, 48:05, other timepoints.Archivedfrom the original on December 19, 2021.RetrievedSeptember 25,2008....Calvin and Hobbes was the first comic that I discovered. /... I'm pretty sure I started [posting drawings] in September 2005
  9. ^Munroe, Randall."About".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on May 23, 2019.RetrievedSeptember 26,2008.[third-party source needed]
  10. ^Munroe, Randall(October 6, 2006)."Many news things, some overdue".xkcd: The blag of the webcomic.WordPress. Job.Archivedfrom the original on August 24, 2013.RetrievedJanuary 1,2014.My about page mentions that I work for NASA — I'm technically a contractor working repeated contracts for them. However, they recently ran out of money to rehire me for another contract, so I'm done there for now.[third-party source needed]
  11. ^"Voyages 2012".December 2014.
  12. ^abLineberry, Denise (2012)."Robots or Webcomics? That was the Question".NASA.Archived fromthe originalon March 25, 2019.RetrievedDecember 11,2015.
  13. ^Harvkey, Mike (August 5, 2019)."Cartoonist Randall Munroe Will Be Your Answer Man".Publishers Weekly.Vol. 266, no. 31. p. 49.ProQuest2268106353.RetrievedNovember 16,2022– viaProQuest.
  14. ^Munroe, Randall."Wikipedian Protester".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on March 22, 2019.RetrievedApril 5,2010.
  15. ^Munroe, Randall."xkcd".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on February 3, 2020.RetrievedFebruary 5,2020.
  16. ^abcFernandez, Rebecca (October 12, 2006)."xkcd: A comic strip for the computer geek".Red Hat Magazine.Raleigh, North Carolina:Red Hat.Archived fromthe originalon March 6, 2007.RetrievedSeptember 25,2008.
  17. ^abSo, Adrienne (November 13, 2007)."Real Geek Heart Beats in Xkcd's Stick Figures".Wired.San Francisco:Condé Nast Publications.ISSN1059-1028.Archivedfrom the original on October 11, 2008.RetrievedSeptember 25,2008.
  18. ^Randall Munroe (June 15, 2007)."Long Light".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedApril 18,2020.
  19. ^abcAlter, Alexandra (November 23, 2015)."Randall Munroe Explains It All for Us".The New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedFebruary 23,2017.
  20. ^Spertus, Ellen(December 21, 2007)."Randall Munroe's visit to Google (xkcd)".Beyond Satire.Archived fromthe originalon October 5, 2008.RetrievedSeptember 25,2008.
  21. ^Hugo Staff."Hugo Awards 2012 nomination".Archived fromthe originalon April 9, 2012.RetrievedApril 7,2012.
  22. ^Hugo Staff (April 18, 2014)."Hugo Awards 2014 nomination".Archivedfrom the original on September 6, 2015.RetrievedApril 20,2014.
  23. ^Munroe, Randall."The Funniest".Archived fromthe originalon December 5, 2006.
  24. ^Munroe, Randall."The Cutest".Archived fromthe originalon May 28, 2010.
  25. ^Munroe, Randall."The Fairest".Archivedfrom the original on June 12, 2010.RetrievedSeptember 26,2008.
  26. ^Munroe, Randall (January 14, 2008)."ROBOT9000 and #xkcd-signal: Attacking Noise in Chat".blog.xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedSeptember 28,2018.
  27. ^Petersen, Kierran (October 2, 2015)."A short history of /r9k/ — the 4chan message board some believe may be connected to the Oregon shooting".Public Radio International.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedMay 18,2018.Surprisingly enough, however, the /r9k/ board, otherwise known as ROBOT9001, was originally conceived as a way to increase the quality of messages on the wildly popular webcomic xkcd. It used a type of auto-moderation that prevented people from posting the same comment multiple times. [...] 4chan eventually moved the idea and software behind ROBOT9000 on to its site. They just added a one.
  28. ^"What Does R9K Mode Mean - Twitch - Streamer Tactics".streamertactics.September 30, 2022.RetrievedSeptember 30,2022.
  29. ^"Twitch Unique Chat Mode - Twitch - Streamer Tactics".streamertactics.November 18, 2022.RetrievedNovember 26,2023.
  30. ^Katz, Farley (October 15, 2008)."Cartoon-Off: XKCD".The New Yorker.Archived fromthe originalon April 1, 2015.
  31. ^"Color Survey Results".xkcd.May 4, 2010.RetrievedOctober 22,2021.
  32. ^"954 most common RGB colors (xkcd color survey results)".xkcd.RetrievedOctober 22,2021.
  33. ^"Specifying colors - Matplotlib 3.7.0 documentation".RetrievedMarch 2,2023.
  34. ^"CTAN: Package xkcdcolors".ctan.org.RetrievedMarch 2,2023.
  35. ^Munroe, Randall (November 18, 2015)."The Space Doctor's Big Idea".The New Yorker.Archived fromthe originalon April 1, 2023.
  36. ^"What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions".goodreads.RetrievedJanuary 17,2021.
  37. ^"Good Question".The New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on June 16, 2020.RetrievedJune 18,2020.
  38. ^Gartenberg, Chaim (January 31, 2022)."XKCD's Randall Munroe announces What If? 2, with more scientific answers to life's most absurd hypothetical questions".The Verge.RetrievedFebruary 1,2022.
  39. ^"Radiation dosage chart".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on November 22, 2019.RetrievedJanuary 28,2020.
  40. ^Monbiot, George(March 21, 2011)."Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power".The Guardian.London.Archivedfrom the original on June 26, 2015.RetrievedMarch 29,2011.
  41. ^Revkin, Andrew(March 23, 2011)."The 'Dread to Risk' Ratio on Radiation and other Discontents".Dot Earth blog.The New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on March 26, 2011.RetrievedMarch 29,2011.
  42. ^Munroe, Randall (March 19, 2011)."Radiation Chart".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on July 5, 2011.RetrievedMarch 29,2011.
  43. ^Munroe, Randall (October 4, 2013). "The Rise of Open Access".Science.342(6154): 58–59.Bibcode:2013Sci...342...58..doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.58.PMID24092724.
  44. ^Kastrenakes, Jacob (May 13, 2015)."XKCD has a new book about explaining complicated subjects in simple ways".The Verge.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedMay 14,2015.
  45. ^Alderman, Naomi (December 17, 2015)."Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe – funny, precise and beautifully designed".The Guardian.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedDecember 12,2016.
  46. ^Chang, Kenneth (March 22, 2016)."Randall Munroe, XKCD Creator, Goes Back to High School".New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedMarch 22,2016.
  47. ^Jao, Charline (March 23, 2016)."XKCD Creator Randall Munroe Making Content For High School Textbooks".The Mary Sue.Archivedfrom the original on April 14, 2016.RetrievedApril 6,2016.
  48. ^Munroe, Randall."how to".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on March 29, 2019.RetrievedFebruary 6,2019.
  49. ^"xkcd's What If?".youtube.RetrievedDecember 5,2023.
  50. ^"4942 Munroe (1987 DU6)".Jet Propulsion Laboratory.NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.July 29, 2013. Archived fromthe originalon September 6, 2014.RetrievedJune 11,2013.
  51. ^Munroe, Randall(September 30, 2013)."Asteroid 4942 Munroe".xkcd | The blag of the webcomic.Archivedfrom the original on October 3, 2013.RetrievedJune 11,2013.
  52. ^Munroe, Randall (November 5, 2010)."November - 2010 - xkcd".blog.xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on March 25, 2019.RetrievedJune 3,2018.
  53. ^Munroe, Randall (June 30, 2011)."Family Illness".Archivedfrom the original on May 21, 2018.RetrievedJune 3,2018.
  54. ^Munroe, Randall."xkcd: Emotion".xkcd.Archivedfrom the original on March 8, 2019.RetrievedJune 3,2018.
  55. ^Munroe, Randall (September 12, 2011)."<3".Blog.XKCD.Archivedfrom the original on November 3, 2011.RetrievedSeptember 12,2011.
  56. ^Munroe, Randall (December 13, 2017)."Seven Years".Webcomic.XKCD.Archivedfrom the original on March 4, 2019.RetrievedJanuary 6,2018.
  57. ^Munroe, Randall (November 16, 2020)."Ten Years".Webcomic.XKCD.Archivedfrom the original on November 17, 2020.RetrievedNovember 17,2020.
  58. ^Kuchera, Ben (July 2, 2007)."The joys of kite photography".Ars Technica.Archivedfrom the original on January 12, 2012.RetrievedJune 14,2017.

External links[edit]

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