Karl, the Universe and Everything

by Karl Kruszelnicki

Grab your towel and hitchhike across the galaxy with Australia's most popular scientist Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. Learn about Dr Karl, the universe and everything, and discover how air-conditioning is sexist, how you can kill a spinning hard drive by shouting at it and how space junk is threatening our future capabilities for space travel.Could there be life on one of Saturn's moons? How much power could you collect from all the lightning on Earth? Why do books have book-smell? Why is 10 per cent of the Earth's land area prone to sinkholes?Why are some people chronically late? What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning? Why do most people hardly remember anything from the first half-a-dozen years of their life?How close are we to the Artificial Uterus? Why do some songs turn into "earworms" and stick inside your brain? Why does your hotel room access card get wiped so easily?And is your home WiFi really spying on you?

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Audiobook

320 pages, Hardcover

Published October 31, 2017

About the author

Known popularly as Dr Karl.

Karl has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery and has worked as a physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and as a medical doctor at the Kids' Hospital in Sydney.

In 1995 he took up the position of the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University, spreading the good word about science and its benefits.

His enthusiasm for science is totally infectious and no one is better able to convey the excitement and wonder of it all than Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is.

Dr Karl's Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) site:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/

http://www.abc.net.au/profiles/conten...

Reviews

[Figgy]

Review to come.

Lots of interesting info across a range of topics, delivered in a colloquial and easy to get into format.

It did seem there were references to one of his other books on every other page (obviously one of the battles for someone who has so many books published in similar formats) and there seemed to be quite a few uses of Initial Capitals in places that could add confusion for some readers.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

this style of books really fire, because it's just spamming you with really interesting facts and #humour basically, and every story has something that you Have To Alert Someone To because it's That Wild (also i often Randomly Capitalise and dr karl is Very On That so 😎 )

also nearly every single story/chapter is like i didn't know i was interested in that turns out i am, i don't know how he manages to find More interesting things he's written 40+ books (he could constantly repeat i've only read 2 of his books 😎 )

i really liked this (also i love how you don't have to know anything going in bc everything iss layman's terms, which is Nice bc i'm Stupid)

anyways this basically my first book 2018 it was reading Well Spent

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks Libro.fm for the ALC audiobook.

This book was super random. There were some interesting nuggets of info in here, and perhaps it will arm me with something I may need for pub trivia sometime, but there really wasn't a rhyme or reason to anything in this book. Also he kept referring to his previous books and he has like 40+, which I assume are also random hodgepodges of facts.

[Jake McCartney · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining enough read with varying facts. There was a handful of chapters that were uninteresting and a chore to read but the good outweighed the bad overall.

[Jake Crozier · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Jade Maree · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read. Make sure you have someone near you as you will be constantly asking ‘did you know...?’ And then regaling them with your new found knowledge.

[Angelique Simonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

full of great little facts very fun book

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felt a little bit like it was a science episode on QI but with a more polite humour level. Really written for kids, maybe more teens than younger primary due to some of the concepts, but easy to understand, more about the 'weirder' things in life, and stuff that you just may wish to know why. Loads of fun facts and ideas. I think the only real issue I had was that the audio was read by a woman, perfectly good mind you, but the issue was being that the author is male, and there were a few personal pronouns used, it was just 'weird'.

[Elouise · Rating 5 out of 5]

If possible, I would rate this 7/5. I've learnt about the physics of a swinging pony tail, about the possibility of life on a moon in one of Saturn's rings, that a spider's web doesn't twist, and exactly what WiFi stands for (as well as what exactly you're sending back to the router when you're on the interweb).

Get this one. Get any of the previous ones. Just get some Dr K in ya.

[Ellen Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish there was a 3.5 star option - I love Dr. Karl! All of his books are enjoyable to read, so my 3 star review looks a bit misleading. But my 4 star reviews are for books I REALLY like, so I need a middle ground.

Anyway, this book was super interesting - totally recommend if you want a nice big dose of life's questions answered in an easy-to-read format.

[Zainab · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book brilliantly answered questions I never knew I needed answers to! My favourite section was the one on the pedestrian crossing button PB/5! Who knew people so much thought and deliberation went into creating those incredible little machines!

[Adam Ashton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool stories, nothing life changeling but certainly interesting stuff. Very well delivered to someone who knows no science

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable and easy to read book.

[Cameron Deavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something decent to read on the toilet, so keep it near your shitter and you and your guests will be happy crappers

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funny and easy read that covers a range of random topics.

[Katerina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh boy.

[RZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

dr karl is a genius in the best way possible, who would have thought that i could ever like (and take in) so much information? best form of education.

[Sekaringtias · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A highly enjoyable science book!

[Parker G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a really good way of mixing fact and humour together to make the book more enjoyable to read!!

[Noah E · Rating 4 out of 5]

When reading this book I constantly asked myself, who knew? I had no idea about so much in this book. But after reading this book, you will know so many different facts about various things. So many times I asked people (and annoyed them) around me the phrase “Did you know_____?”

To start, the book is written quite well. It has structure, so you read about one topic instead of moving from one and then another, which is good especially since you can go through and find interesting ones that you may want to read (personally, I read all of them anyway). I don’t want to go into too much as you will want to read this book yourself as I cannot tell it as well as Dr Karl can on this book, but interesting, exciting topics await!

I really enjoyed this one, it was the first Dr Karl book I had read and I was not disappointed. Granted, I do listen to his radio show as a podcast, but I still found this book really in depth and so fascinating as it talks about things that we use in everyday life, from WiFi to the Earth itself. Due to the insight it gives, I rate this one highly!

[Jeff]

Finished in 2018