XKCD Presents: The Up Goer Five
Is the Saturn V by any other name just as awe-inspiring? One of the biggest hurdles to understanding any technical field is mastering the bewildering array of specialty words and terms. We at PopSci try very hard every day to take a difficult, jargon-larded concept and break it down as plainly as we possibly can. I was especially amused with XKCD's attempt to render the blueprints -- and functions of each part -- for the Saturn V rocket into what should be the most layman of laymans' terms: the 1,000 ("ten hundred") most commonly used English words. Click here to see the full graphic from XKCD. The resulting graphic of the "Up Goer Five" is absurd, as it should be. But it also very clearly illustrates that, while it's possible to describe the Up Goer Five with ten hundred words, one kind of misses the interesting nuance. Cold air for burning....