Nye, Bill (1955–)

Bill Nye once dropped into Mount St. Helens's crater to explain how volcanoes work. He has paras-ailed over a lake to illustrate air pressure. He has stripped to shorts in a meat locker to make the point that freezing temperatures do not cause colds, but germs do. A scientist-turned-comic and producer of educational media, Nye shows the public how science affects their everyday lives. Nye is best known for his Emmy Award–winning television series Bill Nye the Science Guy. The show entertained and educated millions of young viewers in the 1990s with madcap antics, MTV-style pacing, and the silly, bowtie-wearing Nye as host. The program showed kids that science was “way cool.” It also set new standards for educational programming aimed at children. Nye continues to popularize science. He writes children's science books, creates games and media products for all ages, and appears on television specials. Disney's Epcot Center even features a “Bill Nye the Science Guy” exhibit.

Nye was born November 27, 1955, to Ned Nye and Jacqueline Jenkins-Nye and raised in Washington, D.C. The young Nye was fascinated with how things work. He took apart his bicycle. He tinkered with a rubber band–powered airplane to make it turn left. Growing up during a time when the U.S. space program often made frontpage news, he loved learning about airplanes and flight. He attended the private Sidwell Friends School where, as he told Peter Carlin in People magazine, he was a member of the science club and “a big-time nerd.” He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 1977. While at Cornell, he took an astronomy class from Carl Sagan. He lists the famous astronomer among his heroes, along with comedian Steve Martin and his mom, whom the Navy's cryptography division recruited in 1942 for her math and science skills. After graduation, Nye worked as an engineer for the Boeing Corporation and Sundstrand Data Control near Seattle. At Boeing, he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes.

In Seattle, his flair for comedy became evident. He started moonlighting as a stand-up comic and, in 1986, landed a regular gig as a writer and performer for the local KING-TV comedy show, Almost Live! The same year, he debuted the character of the Science Guy on KJR Radio. He created a television pilot of a Science Guy episode for the local PBS station in 1992 and the next year signed a major deal with the Walt Disney Company's syndication arm, Buena Vista Television. The Puget Sound Business Journal reported that the agreement took “the quirky science booster” into just about every U.S.television market. In some cities, children could watch the Science Guy 7 days a week on public and commercial television stations.

From 1993 to 1998, Nye was the writer and on-air “talent” of Bill Nye the Science Guy, copro-duced by Disney and Seattle public television station KCTS. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting contributed funding. Kids loved the zany mix of science and fun and so did the broadcasting industry. The television show reached more than 4 million viewers in the United States and Canada. The New York Times wrote that the February 1997 industry ratings earned the series the status of most popular syndicated educational show among children ages 6 to 11. During its 5-year run, the show won 28 Emmy Awards. In 1999, the Annenberg Public Policy Center recognized Bill Nye the Science Guy as an excellent educational and informational program. Research also showed that the program featured a high percentage of women and minorities among its guests, helping to counter the stereotype of scientists as white men.

...