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.