If you haven’t heard of Dr Karl, you’re been missing out on a lot of knowledge and fun. Dr Karl Kruszelnicki has made history by becoming the first Australian to win the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science.

For almost 40 years, Dr Karl has been answering questions on radio and television, writing books and sharing his knowledge on the complexities of science – and nature, health, the environment, technology and mathematics.

He can usually explain, in minutes, concepts or ideas that might have taken hours to research and understand.

The award, received in recognition of his “longstanding commitment to fire up people's curiosity for science and share his passion for the subject”, puts him in rarefied company. Previous winners include Sir David Attenborough, Arthur C. Clarke, David Suzuki and Margaret Mead. In addition to the Kalinga Prize, he received the Albert Einstein Medal at the World Science Forum in Budapest.

Always modest, he says: “One thing that gives me a great advantage is that I'm not particularly smart. My IQ is only about 110, which is in there with two thirds of the population between 115 and 85.

“That means for me to be able to understand something, I’ve really got to go into it, but then I understand it.”

Dr Karl was about two when his Polish parents, both Holocaust survivors, came to Australia from Sweden in the early 1950s.