is bill nye a scientist?
Bill Nye the Science Guy is an American mechanical engineer and television host. He is best known as the host of the science television show Bill Nye the Science Guy and as a science teacher.
Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing in Seattle, where he invented the hydraulic resonance Suppressor tube. He left Boeing in 1986 to pursue comedy and did science experiments for a local sketch television show.
Nye is trying to become the next Mr. Wizard by pitching his children's television program, Bill Nye the Science Guy, to Seattle's public television station.
The show ended in 1998 in national TV syndication. The program became a hit among kids and adults, was critically acclaimed, and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming for Nye himself.
Nye became the CEO of The Planetary Society. He has written two books about science, one of which is a best seller.
He has frequently appeared on other TV shows, including Dancing with the Stars, The Big Bang Theory, and Inside Amy Schumer. He starred in a documentary about his life and science advocacy, Bill Nye: Science Guy, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2017; and, in October 2017, he was named a NYT Critic's Pick. In 2017, the Netflix series Bill Nye Saves the World debuted, and ran for three seasons until 2018. The End is Nye, his most recent series, aired on Peacock and Syfy in August of 2022.
Nye was born November 27, 1955, in Washington, D.C., to Jacqueline Jenkins (1921–2000), who was a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby "Ned" Nye (1917–1997), who also served in World War II and worked as a contractor building an airstrip on Wake Island. Ned was captured and spent four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp; living without electricity or watches, he learned how to tell time using the shadow of a shovel handle, spurring his passion for sundials. Jenkins-Nye was among a small elite group of young women known as "Goucher Girls", alumnae of Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, whom the Navy enlisted to help crack codes used by Japan and Germany. Nye says that Rosie was the Top-Secret Codebreaker. She wouldn't talk about what she did during World War II because people would ask.
Nye attended Lafayette Elementary School and Alice Deal Junior High before attending Sidwell Friends for high school on a scholarship, graduating in 1973.
After taking an astronomy class with Carl Sagan, his enthusiasm for science deepened.
Nye was an engineer for the Boeing Corporation after graduating from Cornell. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to become a NASA Astronaut.
Nye started doing standup comedy after winning a Steve Martin lookalike contest in 1978. He began moonlighting as a comedian while working at Boeing. He has stated, "At this point in our story, I was working on business jet navigation systems, laser gyroscope systems during the day, and I'd take a nap and go do stand-up comedy by night."
He volunteered at the Pacific Science Center on weekends as a "science explainer".
Nye quit his job at Boeing to focus on his comedy career.
During Nye's 10-year college reunion in 1987, he went to great lengths to meet Carl Sagan.
Nye was told that he could talk to him for five minutes. Nye explained that he was interested in creating a science television program. "Sagan told me to focus on pure science, and I mentioned how I planned to talk about bridges and bicycles, stuff that I'd been interested in as an engineer."
Kids like pure science more than technology. That was great advice.
Nye was a writer and actor on a local sketch comedy show in Seattle in 1986. Nye got his break on the show after John Keister met him at an open mic night. "Why don't you do science?" Shafer suggested. Nye entertained audiences with comical demonstrations, including what happened when you ate a marshmallow that had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. His other main recurring role on Almost Live! was as Speed Walker, a speedwalking Seattle superhero "who fights crime while maintaining strict adherence to the regulations of the international speedwalking association."
Nye's stage name came from a famous incident on the show. He corrected Keister on his pronunciation of the word "gigawatt", and Keister responded, "Who do you think you are—Bill Nye the Science Guy?" Nye's science experiments resonated with viewers, and the local chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded him a talent Emmy for one of his segments.
Even though Nye was a regular on Almost Live!, he was only doing freelance work for the program. While looking for more TV gigs, he got the opportunity in 1989 to host Fabulous Wetlands, a short educational show about Washington's wetlands, sponsored by the Washington State Department of Ecology. On Fabulous Wetlands, Nye explained the importance of preserving estuaries, and the hazards of pollution. The show was, in many ways, a model for Nye's later show, with "zany camera cuts paired with Nye's humor" that set it apart from other scientific broadcasts. Nye soon got more offers to appear on nationally broadcast programs, including eight segments of the Disney Channel's All-New Mickey Mouse Club.
Nye appeared on live-action educational segments of Back to the Future: The Animated Series after his stint on Almost Live!
In 1993, collaborating with James McKenna, Erren Gottlieb and Elizabeth Brock, Nye developed a pilot for a new show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, for the Seattle public broadcasting station KCTS-TV. They pitched the show as "Mr. Wizard meets Pee-wee's Playhouse". Nye obtained underwriting for the show from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy.
The program became part of a package of syndicated series that local stations could schedule to fulfill Children's Television Act requirements. Because of this, Bill Nye the Science Guy became the first program to run concurrently on public and commercial stations. The series was produced by Walt Disney Television and Rabbit Ears Productions, and distributed by Disney.
Nye wore a blue lab coat and a bow tie while portraying "The Science Guy". Nye Labs, the production offices and set where the show was recorded, was in a converted clothing warehouse near Seattle's Kingdome. Although it focused on younger viewers, it also attracted a significant adult audience. Its ability to make science entertaining and accessible made it a popular teaching tool in classrooms. The show was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards and won nineteen, winning with its quirky humor and rapid-fire MTV-style pacing. Regular viewers are better at explaining scientific ideas than non- viewers.
Nye also published several books as The Science Guy. Pacific Interactive released a Bill Nye the Science Guy CD-ROM in 1996 for Windows and Macintosh.
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Nye's Science Guy personality is well-known at Disney Parks and Resorts, most notably his appearance with Ellen DeGeneres at the Universe of Energy pavilion at Disney World. Nye's Science Guy character is heard in a voice-over in the Dinosaur attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom, as well as on-air as the spokesman for the Noggin television network in 1999.
The Eyes of Nye is a comeback project for Bill Nye, aimed at an older audience and tackling more controversial science topics such as genetically modified food, global warming and race. However, "shifting creative concepts, fighting among executives and disputes over money with Seattle producing station KCTS" significantly delayed production for years. KCTS was hampered by budgetary problems and couldn't produce a show pilot on time. "KCTS went through some distress," Nye recalled.
"When we did The Eyes of Nye, the budget started out really big, and by the time we served all these little problems at KCTS, we had a much lower budget for the show than we'd ever had for the 'Science Guy' show which was made several years earlier." PBS declined to distribute The Eyes of Nye, and it was eventually picked up by American Public Television. The show lasted only one season and was more serious than other Nova-style shows. Nye admitted that he made a mistake by not wearing his bow tie.
I tried wearing a straight tie. Nye said that it was nothing. We were trying a new thing. It was not me.
The third and final season of Bill Nye Saves the World was released on May 11, 2018, after it was announced on August 31, 2016 that Nye would appear in a new series.
The End is Nye was ordered by Peacock in March of 2021. It aired on August 25, 2022.
Nye was a contestant in the 17th season of Dancing with the Stars, and she was with a new professional dancer.
They were eliminated early in the season after Nye injured his thigh.
From 2000 to 2002, Nye was the technical expert on BattleBots. In 2004 and 2005, he hosted 100 Greatest Discoveries, an award-winning series produced by THINKFilm for The Science Channel, broadcast in high definition on the Discovery HD Theater network. In 2007, he also hosted an eight-part Discovery Channel series, Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye.
A lecture Nye gave on getting children excited about math inspired the creation of the crime drama Numb3rs, where Nye appeared in several episodes as an engineering professor. On October 28, 2007, he also made guest appearances on the VH1 reality show America's Most Smartest Model.
Nye appeared on segments of Heidi Cullen's The Climate Code, later renamed Forecast Earth on the Weather Channel, relating his personal ways of saving energy. In the fall of 2008, he appeared periodically on the daytime game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as part of its "Ask the Expert" feature. 54
In 2008, Nye hosted Stuff Happens, a short-lived show on the Planet Green network.
In October 2009, Nye recorded a short YouTube video (as himself, not his TV persona) advocating clean-energy climate-change legislation, on behalf of Al Gore's Repower America campaign. He joined the American Optometric Association in a multimedia advertising campaign to persuade parents to provide their children with comprehensive eye examinations.
In 2013, Nye guest-starred in The Big Bang Theory episode "The Proton Displacement". In the episode, Sheldon Cooper befriends Nye and brings him in to teach Leonard Hofstadter a "lesson" after Professor Proton (played by Bob Newhart) helps Leonard with an experiment instead of Sheldon.
Bill Nye is accused of making his show similar to Professor Proton's show. Leonard got a text from Nye asking for a ride home after he got a picture of the two having a smoothie, and Leonard got a picture of the two having a smoothie, and Nye asked for a ride home. Nye had a restraining order against him, so he couldn't help him contact him, according to a later discussion with Professor Proton.
Nye was a celebrity interviewer at the White House Student Film Festival.
Neil deGrasse Tyson narrated the Food Evolution documentary, which was directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy.
Nye was the subject of a biographical documentary film, Bill Nye: Science Guy, directed by David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg.
In 2018, Nye guest-starred in an episode of Blindspot, "Let It Go", playing a fictionalized version of himself who is the father of the character Patterson. Nye's fictional self also alludes to his rivalry de él with Rodney McKay, which was established in the aforementioned "Brain Storm" episode of Stargate Atlantis. Also in 2018, Nye made a second guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory as himself, together with fellow scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson, in the first episode ("The Conjugal Configuration") of the show's final season.
In September 2019, Nye was a guest on Episode 127 of Jonathan Van Ness's podcast Getting Curious, where they discussed climate change, the failures of cold fusion, the potential of better battery technology for storage of energy produced by wind turbines and solar panels, the benefits of and forthcoming improvements to electric vehicles, and the detriment and failures of fossil fuel and nuclear energy, measures towards water cleanliness, the role of girls' and women's education in improving the environment, and the threat the Trump administration posed to the environment and to scientific thought in general.
Nye voiced himself in Happy Halloween, and also in the movie Mank.
Nye was a contestant on The Masked Singer spinoff.
In the early 2000s, Nye assisted in the development of a small sundial included in the Mars Exploration Rover missions. Known as MarsDial, in addition to tracking time, it had small colored panels to provide a basis for color calibration. From 2005 to 2010, Nye was the vice president of the Planetary Society, an organization that advocates space science research and the exploration of other planets, particularly Mars. He became the organization's second Executive Director in September 2010 when Louis Friedman stepped down.
Nye was the face of a major science exhibition at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California, in November of 2010.
Nye was a professor at Cornell University from 2001 to 2006
On August 27, 2011, he gave a public lecture at Cornell University that filled its 715-seat Statler Auditorium. He spoke of his father's passion for sundials and timekeeping, his time at Cornell, his work on the sundials on the Mars rovers, and the story behind the Bill Nye Solar Noon Clock, which he then presented to the university atop Rhodes Hall.
After the 2012 Mars Rover landing, Nye conducted a Q&A.
Nye is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a U.S. nonprofit scientific and educational organization that promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. Interviewed by John Rael for the Independent Investigation Group (IIG), Nye said that his "concern right now ... scientific illiteracy ... you don't have enough rudimentary knowledge of the universe to evaluate claims ." In November 2012, he launched a Kickstarter campaign for an educational aerodynamics game called AERO 3D, but it was not funded.
In September 2012, Nye claimed that creationist views threatened science education and innovation in the United States. In February 2014, he debated creationist Ken Ham at the Creation Museum on whether creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era. In July 2016, Ham gave Nye a tour of the Ark Encounter the day after it first opened to the public. He and Ham had an informal debate while touring the structure, and footage from Nye's visit was subsequently included in the documentary film Bill Nye: Science Guy, released in 2017.
Nye has been a member of the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education.
Nye met with President Obama to discuss climate change and science education on Earth Day.
In March 2015, Nye announced he changed his mind and now supported GMOs. In a new edition of Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, Nye rewrote a chapter on GMOs reflecting his new position. In a radio interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, he said, "There's no difference between allergies among GMO eaters and non-GMO eaters ... I have changed my mind about genetically modified organisms.
In July of last year, Nye said that the majority of climate change deniers are older people and that they would have to wait for them to "age out". On Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on May 12, he discussed climate change and the proposed Green New Deal.
Nye lives in Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle, and his house in California is solar-powered and feeds power back into the grid.
Nye and his neighbor, environmental activist/actor Ed Begley Jr., have engaged in a friendly competition "to see who could have the lowest carbon footprint", according to Begley. Nye often appeared on Begley's HGTV/Planet Green reality show Living with Ed.
In July 2012, Nye supported President Barack Obama's re-election bid. He frequently consulted with Obama on science matters during Obama's presidency, and famously took a selfie with him and Neil deGrasse Tyson at the White House. Nye attended the 2018 State of the Union Address after being invited by Oklahoma Congressman Jim Bridenstine. Nye's attendance drew scrutiny due to Bridestine's "history of expressing climate change skepticism", but Nye defended him: "While the Congressman and I disagree on a great many issues, we share a deep respect for NASA and its achievements and a strong interest in the future of space exploration. My attendance tomorrow should not be interpreted as an endorsement of this administration, or of Congressman Bridenstine's nomination, or seen as an acceptance of the recent attacks on science and the scientific community." Nye endorsed Jay Inslee during the 2020 Democratic primaries, until Inslee suspended his campaign on August 21, 2019. On October 28, 2020, Nye took to Twitter endorsing Joe Biden for president, urging his followers to vote on behalf of climate change and science.
Nye married musician Blair Tindall on February 3, 2006; however, he annulled the relationship seven weeks later when the marriage license was declared invalid. In 2007, Nye obtained a restraining order against Tindall after she broke into his house and stole several items, including his laptop computer, which she used to send defamatory emails impersonating Nye, and damaged Nye's garden with herbicide. Nye sued Tindall for $57,000 in attorney's fees, after she allegedly violated the protective order.
Nye revealed his family's plight in the PBS documentary.
Nye decided not to have children because of his father's and sister's struggles with balance and coordination, even though he dodged the genetic bullet himself.