Sunday, September 14, 2014
4:30pm

An Afternoon with Randall Munroe
in conversation with Wil Wheaton

What If?:
Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

The Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(NOTE: Due to demand for tickets, we moved this event from William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica)

EVENT IS SOLD OUT*
*video will be posted a week after the event.
Tickets:
$20 General Admission
$40 Includes Munroe’s book + Reserved seat

From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.

Watch Randall Munroe’s TED Talk

Randall Munroe is the author of the popular webcomic xkcd and the science question-and-answer blog What If. After studying physics at Christopher Newport University, he got a job building robots at NASA Langley Research Center. In 2006, he left NASA to draw comics on the internet full-time, supporting himself through the sale of xkcd t-shirts, prints, posters, and books. He likes candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Very long walks. Lots of people say they like long walks on the beach, but then they get out on the beach and after just an hour or two, they say they’re getting tired. Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe’s iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. In 2013, a main-belt asteroid (4942 Munroe) was named after him

Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by signature xkcd comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion. The book features new and never-before-answered questions, along with updated and expanded versions of the most popular answers from the xkcd website. What If? will be required reading for xkcd fans and anyone who loves to ponder the hypothetical.

Wil Wheaton began acting in commercials at the age of seven, and by the age of ten had appeared in numerous television and film roles. In 1986, his critically acclaimed role in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me put him in the public spotlight. In 1987, Wil was cast as Wesley Crusher in the hit television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Recently, Wil has held recurring roles on TNT’s Leverage and SyFy’s Eureka; he currently recurs on CBS’s The Big Bang Theory. He played Axis of Anarchy leader Fawkes in Felicia Day’s webseries The Guild, and currently hosts Falling Skies: Second Watch, for TNT. Off-camera, he is the creator producer, and host of the wildly successful webseries Tabletop, which is currently in its second season.

But Wheaton is much more than just an actor; he’s an author, blogger, podcaster, voice actor, widely-followed original Twitter user, and a champion of geek culture. For more on Wheaton, visit his website.