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A review by roach
Clever! Das Wissensbuch by Barbara Eligmann, Wigald Boning
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
2.25
The physicist Deniz Ertas calculated that a human would have to gain a speed of at least 20 meters per seconds to not sink in water. That's 72 kilometers per hour - Jesus must have been an exceptional sprinter, should he have chosen this method.
(Quote translated from German.)
Clever! Die Show, die Wissen schafft was a German trivia game show about science that ran between 2004 and 2009, where guests would try to answer questions about live experiments. I remember watching it quite a lot when I was a kid and I have a bit of nostalgia for it.
When I recently remembered this show, I also remembered that there used to be a couple of merchandise products that were advertised during the show and so I thought it would be a funny thing to hunt down an old copy of this tie-in book for a couple of cents online.
Reading this was a neat little stroll down memory lane at first. It's neat to see a piece of media related to something familiar from childhood that was new to me, as I had never gotten one of these books back then. And the book is nicely produced as well with formulaic but neatly edited text about different science experiments and the occasional added picture from the show. The writing was in the exact same style as the writing of the show, which is fairly charming and humorous. I could easily hear the lines said by the voice of Wigald Boning, the show's goofy "scientist", in my head. So much so that I'm almost positive that these texts are mostly copied straight from the show notes.
The book also implements the quiz element of the show by giving the reader questions to answer and therefore guess the outcome of each experiment themselves, as if a participant in the show. It's neat and was probably a good little time-waster for a kid back when it came out.
But reading this book cover to cover like one reads most books was probably not the best idea as things started to become very repetitive and dull after a while. A lot of the experiments and questions also dealt with really basic little everyday knowledge that just isn't interesting enough to read a couple pages of elaborate explanations about.
And considering that all of these experiments must have been taken from the show, I don't really see a point in grabbing this book instead of just watching the episodes.
Clever! Die Show, die Wissen schafft was a German trivia game show about science that ran between 2004 and 2009, where guests would try to answer questions about live experiments. I remember watching it quite a lot when I was a kid and I have a bit of nostalgia for it.
When I recently remembered this show, I also remembered that there used to be a couple of merchandise products that were advertised during the show and so I thought it would be a funny thing to hunt down an old copy of this tie-in book for a couple of cents online.
Reading this was a neat little stroll down memory lane at first. It's neat to see a piece of media related to something familiar from childhood that was new to me, as I had never gotten one of these books back then. And the book is nicely produced as well with formulaic but neatly edited text about different science experiments and the occasional added picture from the show. The writing was in the exact same style as the writing of the show, which is fairly charming and humorous. I could easily hear the lines said by the voice of Wigald Boning, the show's goofy "scientist", in my head. So much so that I'm almost positive that these texts are mostly copied straight from the show notes.
The book also implements the quiz element of the show by giving the reader questions to answer and therefore guess the outcome of each experiment themselves, as if a participant in the show. It's neat and was probably a good little time-waster for a kid back when it came out.
But reading this book cover to cover like one reads most books was probably not the best idea as things started to become very repetitive and dull after a while. A lot of the experiments and questions also dealt with really basic little everyday knowledge that just isn't interesting enough to read a couple pages of elaborate explanations about.
And considering that all of these experiments must have been taken from the show, I don't really see a point in grabbing this book instead of just watching the episodes.
Content Warnings
Minor: Misogyny