ROB ORCHARD - An Answer for Everything: 200 Infographics to Explain the World

TO OUR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS, WHO HAVE THE ANSWER FOR EVERYTHING ELSE BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland This electronic edition published in 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain, 2021 Text Rob Orchard, Marcus Webb, 2021 Illustrations Christian Tate, 2021 Sub-editors: Chris Bourn, Matthew Lee Proofreader: Sally Somers Rob Orchard, Marcus Webb and Christian Tate have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as authors of this work For legal purposes the constitute an extension of this copyright page Maps based on vectors from Maptorian and Shutterstock All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for ISBN: 978-1-5266-3364-4 (HB)
ISBN: 978-1-5266-3363-7 (eBook) To find out more about our authors and their books please visit www.bloomsbury.com where you will find extracts, author interviews and details of forthcoming events, and to be the first to hear about latest releases and special offers, sign up for our newsletters. and for over a decade weve been using data to try to make sense of it, turning research from expert sources into beautiful infographics for our Slow Journalism magazine, Delayed Gratification.

This book gathers together updated versions of the best of our infographics alongside a whole host of brand new data visualisations weve created to answer questions ranging from the serious to the silly. You may want to celebrate the highs the incredible achievements of elite athletes (. You may wish to engage with the lows the overheating of the Earth (. You may simply be keen to answer some of the questions that have long vexed humanity what the best thing since sliced bread is (. In answering these questions and scores of others we have been helped by the unprecedented access to high-quality information enjoyed by the nerdier fringes of 21st-century humanity. We owe a large debt to the bands of meticulous people across the world compiling detailed reports on the widest range of subjects.

There are the archivists at NASA whove detailed everything astronauts have left on the moon, from golf balls to falcon feathers (. Its been a joy to dive into their rich ocean of data. We hope that you find An Answer For Everything to be a stimulating read which piques your curiosity, tickles your ribs and leads you into impassioned debates around the dinner table, down the pub or in your favourite corner of the internet. If nothing else, if we leave you creditably well informed about what UFOs look like () then well have done our job. Enjoy the book! Rob, Christian and Marcus WHERE DO I START? How to navigate this book You can flip straight to the and pick a topic that appeals to you. Alternatively, here are a couple of additional questions which will set you off on a solemn or lighthearted journey through the book: Can we be serious for a moment? The gravest and weightiest questions in each chapter Can we be silly for a moment? The daftest and most frivolous questions in each chapter