Science is Golden

by Karl Kruszelnicki

No one conveys the excitement and wonder of science quite like Dr. Karl and his 27th book takes us on another thoroughly entertaining exploration of the world around us.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

271 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2008

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

[Zacharia Caporale]

This month, Dr Karl has helped me impress my girlfriend at least three times and kept me company on the toilet. Thanks, Dr Karl.

[Lucy]

It was okay :) the last quarter got a bit slow

[Richard]

I had never read a Karl Kruszelnicki book before this one. Before buying it I had found out that "Dr Karl" is an Australian science geek who has written numerous books, appears on radio and TV, and is devoted to making science understandable and fun.

I read a lot of what I refer to as "middle weight" science books - more detailed than a science for dummies book but less scholarly than a tome on the differences between Up and Down Quarks. When I started reading Kruszelnicki's book I initially thought it was going to be a little "light weight". The first few chapters were about why flying on planes is safe, whether or not pigs sweat, and a party trick called finger lifting. All a bit interesting but nothing I could sink my teeth into.

Then I starting learning about how Hyenas get a bad rap and are quite interesting, that Dolphins are not the friendly, human loving creatures TV portrays them as, and that uncontrolled swearing is but a minor part of what Tourette's syndrome is all about. By the time I got to the sections about the link between endorphins and cocaine, why the Large Hadron Collider won't destroy the world, and how Black holes are almost common in the universe, I realized that Dr. Karl really is a science cheerleader. He managed to start out with some interesting tidbits to get the reader involved and then slowly get him/her reading about some significant physics including Einstein's theory of relativity and black hole event horizons.

Dr. Karl is an Australian scientist so some interesting sidelines in this book are learning more about science "down under" and dealing with the English spelling of words and their different idioms. When watching shows from the BBC I have to crank up the volume to try to understand what they are saying. Luckily, Dr. Karl's "English" English is easy to follow.

I think that this book would be interesting to a very large range of readers from young adult readers through adults who think that science isn't interesting. I plan to check out more from the thirty-five books of Dr. Karl library.

[Jrobertus]

This is a debunker book in which the author tries to correct a number of common misconceptions or myths. This includes topics like why “sweat like a pig” is wrong, since they don’t sweat, how lifting a body with one finger can be done, how the side of their body a dog’s tail wags indicates their mood, why you shouldn’t idle your car more than 5 minutes even when its cold and so on. It is a pretty fast and fun read but not particularly surprising.

[Laurel]

I have read many of Dr Karl's books, this one at times was hard to work out who his targeted reader was... young readers one minute, someone who has a few years studying science the next.

[Jase Harrison]

I just love Dr. Karl. Any time I read one of his books I hear it in his voice. Just a lot of fun.

[Sarah Mck]

The type of book you can pick up and read at your own pace. A few pages here, or sit and read the whole thing through in one sitting. Fascinating and always entertaining Dr Karl covers topics such as the danger of radiation, the euphoria of "runners high" to the socially (and erroneously) belief that dolphins are people loving heroes. Recommended to anyone with a thirst for knowledge :)

[Chris Cousins]

A typical Dr Karl book with a range of short, mostly unconnected snippets of science. As usual, this makes it a good book. With topics covering such things as peacocks, hookah pipes, dolphins, the LHC and black holes it is an enjoyable read.

[Zoe]

I really like Karl's books, he makes sense of things in a really easy to understand way.

[Jacqui]

Dr Kruszelnicki is good at making science part of my favourite genre: Infotainment. A fun and informative read!

[Jo]

Fairly simply explanations about popular science. Fun and easy to read. References are mostly newspaper or magazine articles, which is a little disappointing.

[Magpie]

Anne 2015