A moment with ... Bill Nye, the Science Guy

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Bill Nye is a humorist who is seriously passionate about science. Known to many as "The Science Guy," he came to Seattle in 1977 as a mechanical engineer to work on flight-control systems for Boeing. A talent for comedy gradually drew him into television, where he has became one of the nation's most well-known science popularizers.

His latest effort to get NASA to put a sundial on Mars shows that Nye (Danish for "new') still has what it takes to be a serious practitioner of science as well as an entertaining educator.


	Nye

Q. Where have you been?

A. For the last two years, I've been working on a new series called "The Eyes of Nye." It's for people old enough to vote and addresses issues like cloning, genetically modified foods, pseudoscience. ... I mean, look, more people appear to believe in astrology today than ever. Yet almost everything around us we owe to science and the scientific method. How'd we catch Gary Ridgway? DNA.

Q. So when are we going to see the new Nye show?

A. We did 13 shows, but the whole thing's just sitting there. It's languishing because of the (financial) problems at KCTS. ... I hope the thing gets sold soon. (A spokeswoman for KCTS said the station is seeking a distributor and that the station's financial situation has no bearing on the series.)

Q. Why get so excited about, of all things, the low-tech sundial?

A. Our story begins on a small island in the Pacific Ocean. I am Ned Nye's son. And Ned Nye, as I'm sure you know, wrote the landmark book "Sundials of Maryland and Virginia" (Nye offers a wry smile, chuckles and holds up the obscure book. He then explains that his late father, a salesman and amateur natural scientist, was a prisoner of war in China and Japan for much of World War II). My father liked to look at the stars and construct sundials wherever they took him. Because of him, sundials are part of me.

Q. You started out as a serious engineer. How'd you end up as TV's favorite nerd?

A. It started (he starts speaking in an elderly voice here) back when I was at Boeing and friends convinced me to try out for a Steve Martin look-alike contest. I won. ... I started doing stand-up comedy three nights a week in Seattle, doing all those hilarious engineering jokes.

Q. How does your serious interest in promoting science dovetail with comedy?

A. The key to humor is that it takes you by surprise. Science is always taking you by surprise.

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