How Bill Nye Became "The Science Guy" | Big Think

How Bill Nye Became "The Science Guy"

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Modern "theories" suggesting the Earth is flat are ignorant of basic experiential data, historical scientific findings, and how technologies like smartphone functions, says Bill Nye the Science Guy.

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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:

Matt Harden: Hey Bill, can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the earth is a sphere and not flat? I have a lot of Facebook friends who say that it's an act. Thank you.

Bill Nye: Is the earth flat or round? It's round. Now, let's see, how do we go about proving that? Go to the seashore. Go to the seashore and figure out why you can't, if you live on the East Coast figure out why you can't see Spain from the East Coast or North America? It looks like you might have a St. Louis hat on. I'm not sure. Just go to the middle of the Mississippi River and look south. Why can't you see Louisiana? Why can't you see New Orleans? What's the problem there? Then climb a tower or go to the top of a hill or a mountain and you'll see a little farther, but you will not see to the other side of the earth, places we know to exist. For example, I've been to London. I can tell you other people have. I've been to Vancouver British Columbia and you cannot see Vancouver British Columbia from Boise Idaho, let alone from New York City Or Toronto or what have you. Just start there then if you'd like look at pictures from space where you see the earth as a sphere. Those pictures are not faked. And I'll tell you if nothing else here is why you can tell they're not faked. Just to create the paperwork that NASA has created, NASA in this one case, just the paperwork to send anything out in space, to send people into orbit or to send them to the moon, that amount of paperwork would make faking it prohibitively expensive. No one could afford to generate that much documentation.

Then the other thing if you want to get into this, if your friends are really serious, have them get on a boat or a ship and go out at sea and you'll noticed you can't see infinitely far. Furthermore, if you get into it enough pick up a book about navigation or go online and learn about navigation. A very, very Important thing you have to take into account when you try to navigate the ocean from a ship or a boat is how high you are off the sea surface. The higher you are off the sea surface the farther you can see, ...

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