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 1. News
 2. Victoria
 3. Melbourne


DR KARL KRUSZELNICKI SHARES THE STORIES BEHIND SOME OF HIS FAVOURITES

Joanne Hawkins

First published 27 Jan 2019, 6:00am



Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, known for his trademark colourful shirts. Pictures: Darren
Leigh Roberts

He’s known as Australia’s most popular scientist.

He’s been awarded the status of National Living Treasure by the National Trust
for his career in popularising science.

But Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is at pains to point out he’s not actually a scientist
— well, not anymore.

“I’m no longer a (working) scientist — in the same way that I used to be a TV
weatherman, a doctor in a kids’ hospital, a physicist, an engineer and a taxi
driver. I don’t do those anymore. I’m a science journalist and writer,” he
explained.

And a pretty prolific one at that.

Kruszelnicki has just published his 44th book, Vital Science (Macmillan
Australia, $34.99), which tackles the big questions such as why people tell
lies, why whales are so big and is cockroach milk really the next superfood?

“The scientists do all the hard work for me. I just turn their stuff into plain
English,” he said. “There are just so many amazing stories out there, so I’ll
keep writing one or two books a year.”

His weekly science hour on Triple J is the radio station’s longest-running
segment and he’s also been an enthusiastic embracer of the podcast format, with
shows such as Sleek Geeks with Adam Spencer and his latest, Shirtloads of
Science.

“Things are changing enormously and, at the moment, podcasts are what is
happening, but who knows what’s going to happen in 10 to 20 years? It’s all up
for grabs. But I predict a long life for the book. Like the wheel, it does its
job magnificently,” he said.



Kruszelnicki lives in Sydney with wife Mary and the youngest of their three
grown-up children. He is also perhaps as known for his colourful shirts as he is
for his passion for science.

“I remember when I was about 16, I was walking down the street (in Wollongong)
in winter and everyone was grey and gloomy and then I saw this woman wearing
bright colours and it made everyone smile. I thought if happiness was so easy to
get, let’s do it and I started wearing bright clothes.”

For the past couple of decades, his famous shirts — which he views as “stage
clothing” — have been made by his wife.

“They are far too precious to wear around the house but I wear them when I’m in
public, that is my duty,” he said with a smile.



Kruszelnicki at home. The paintings are by family members.

Typical Saturday morning

They often start with a walk down to the ocean or a rock pool for a swim. Then
my wife and I will probably have a slow breakfast together. Weekends are all
about just hanging around, catching up and being together.

Emergency snack

I always carry a piece of fruit with me. I try to avoid high-fat foods, although
I have a secret hankering for chocolate.

Signature dish

Spaghetti bolognese. I follow the old rule of adding time, as opposed to thyme,
although herbs are good, too. I let it cook slowly, for between five and seven
hours, making sure I give it a regular stir.

On my bedside table

I read my way through $10,000 worth of scientific literature every year, so on
my bedside table are copies of New Scientist, Scientific American, Aviation Week
& Space Technology, Focus, Harper’s Magazine and Smithsonian. There’s also a
book, The Edge of Memory by Patrick Nunn, which celebrates the spoken word and
stories that our ancestors have passed down from one generation to the next.

Fantasy place to live

I am very rational so I went to a lot of trouble to work out where to live, so
I’m already in the best place in Australia! In Sydney, there are three different
climates and I made a logical decision to live in the zone between the ocean and
the first hill because it’s much cooler. We’ve been here in the height of summer
when it’s been 28C and we speak to my mother-in-law in Campbelltown (further
inland) and the temperature there is 20C hotter.

Chill-out music

I like listening to blues. I was actually a roadie for (American
singer/songwriter) Bo Diddley. I’m also very fond of classical music. There’s a
recording of Westhoff’s Imitation of Bells (Imitazione delle Campane) by
(British violinist) Daniel Hope that gets me into a hallucinatory state of mind
and I’m able to write really well after listening to it a million times!

Happiness at home

Dinner with the family. Playing board games and card games with the family.
Going for a swim at the beach with the family. It all revolves around family.
When you die, the people who will cry most at your funeral are your family, so
you may as well invest in them early on!

Secret domestic skill

I am the master dishwasher packer. We have two dishwashers so we never have a
load of dishes piling up. I can also get a very high-density stack of dishes
inside but they come out as good as new and never chip. I also use a brush to
clean off the food debris before I put them into the dishwasher and then run it
on the economy cycle, which saves water and electricity.


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My favourite things

Letter

In 1981, I wrote a letter to NASA and told them I would like to become an
astronaut. I told them I had degrees in mathematics, physics and engineering,
which would soon be joined by degrees in medicine and surgery, plus several
non-degree years of study in computer science, astrophysics, electricity
engineering and philosophy. They sent me back this letter of rejection, signed
by an actual human, in which they informed me that they were full up and, in any
case, only employed Americans. I was very disappointed. But I still have the
letter as a memento because what makes you as you are at any given time is not
just your successes but also your failures, and how you deal with those
failures. So, I’ve kept that to remind me of that major failure in my life! I
would have loved to have been an astronaut and seen Earth from space.



The letter of rejection from NASA.

Prayer wheel

I was in Tibet last year and saw this little solar-powered prayer wheel.
According to the Tibetans, when it turns it makes prayers not just for you but
for everyone in the universe, which I thought was a nice philosophy. So I bought
one and it now sits on my veranda where it spins and gives out good vibes. Mary
and I love to travel. On this trip, we took the train from Beijing to Tibet and
also went to Mongolia, which was amazing. I’ve also been down to Antarctica
three times and inside the Arctic Circle three times. Mary and I actually got
married in Kirkenes, in far-northeastern Norway, in 2006. We got married inside
the Arctic Circle on the longest day of the year, as a scientific metaphor: just
as the sun did not set at Kirkenes that day, so the love would not set on our
marriage.



Giving out good vibes: the prayer wheel.

Pineapple

My wife and I were in Malaysia last February as I’d been invited to do a
speaking tour of various universities and schools by the Malaysian Government.
I’m a passionate believer in education as it’s a way of making your life better
and it’s always interesting how people do education in different parts of the
world. While we were there, it was Chinese New Year, and there were these large
plastic pineapples hanging everywhere. My wife said we had to buy some, so we’ve
now got some large plastic pineapples in our backyard in Sydney. They still look
as good as new. I think they’re probably going to outlast the pyramids, to be
honest. When I look at them, I think of Chinese New Year and food and
celebrations and people just being happy.



A plastic pineapple brightens the backyard.

Tiki

My (Polish) father (Ludwik) loved indigenous art from Australia and New Zealand
and he carved this tiki. We have an art wall at the side of our house with
various ceramic and wooden pieces on it and I’ve had New Zealanders come past
and ask me where I got this piece from. When I tell them my father carved it,
they are very impressed with the high quality of the work. My father was a very
well-educated man. He had a master’s degree in economics and also spoke 12
languages and wrote the script for the first Three Musketeers movie in
Hollywood. But in Australia, he worked as a labourer. But he had managed to get
out of the concentration camps alive so was perfectly happy (here) because no
one was trying to kill him. My father actually thought I was a failure because I
was always changing careers.



The tiki carved by Kruszelnicki’s multi-talented father, Ludwik.

Coffee machine

I bought my first Atomic cappuccino maker about 30 years ago for $30. It
eventually died, by which time a replacement cost a lot more. But it is a very
beautiful Italian machine which reminds me of that old saying by Oscar Wilde
that if you try to make something beautiful, it is often ugly, but if you try to
make something useful, it is often beautiful. This machine is such a superb
melding of function and form. It works beautifully and is so elegant that it
fills my heart with joy every time I use it.



A superb melding of function and form.

Clothes line

I love hanging my clothes on the washing line. Did you know that in the US, 14
per cent of total electricity consumption is used to dry clothes, and in movies,
people who dry their clothes on the line are looked down upon as poor trash? It
doesn’t make any sense. My secret is to turn everything inside out so the
ultraviolet light from the sun will kill any bacteria but not fade the clothes.
Why so many people choose to use a clothes dryer, which is an inferior method to
dry their clothes, is totally beyond me.



Kruszelnicki loves hanging his clothes on the clothes line.


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