Bill Nye: How to Talk to an Alien | Big Think

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BILL NYE:

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.

In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.

While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”

Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.

Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.

Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Bill Nye: Well, that’s just like, just like StarTrek. Everybody speaks English very well. Sometimes they have accents, but . . .

We think we know how we came to be here on our world. We’ve studied this. How did you come to be? What are you doing here? We’ve worked for millennia - or many, many orbits of the sun - to reach this level. We believe that we came to be about a hundred thousand orbits ago and that life itself started on our world about three billion orbits ago. When did life start on your world?

And let me say, that’s a nice hat.

And then he or she would say, “It’s my helmet, it’s my space helmet, because your atmosphere is just—it’s no good for me.” And so on . . .

I’d want to know where they came from. I’d want to know why they wanted—what were they doing asking me what I was doing? It would be great to know, though, we’re not alone. That would be a heck of a thing. It would change the world.

Directed / Produced by

Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd