They Blinded Us with ScienceAs scientists continue to forge ahead, paving humanity's road to the future, so should you do your part by reading and voting on each of these lists.
Updated October 8, 2021 16k votes 4k voters 253.7k views
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Vote up the baddest facts about Bill Nye.
You almost definitely know Bill Nye from one of the 100 episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy that aired from 1993-1998 - he was always wearing his signature light blue lab coat and a slick bow tie. But who is Bill Nye, really? What do we know about him, other than he's the science guy? According to his biography, William Sanford Nye was born on November 27, 1955, in Washington, D.C. He went to college at Cornell University, where he studied mechanical engineering, and took an astronomy class taught by Carl Sagan.
According to Bill Nye's wiki, he began his career in Seattle at Boeing, focusing on aeronautics. In 1999, he told the St. Petersburg Times that he applied to be a NASA astronaut "every few years," but "was always rejected," probably because they feared the progress that humanity would make with Bill Nye at the helm of our collective spaceship. NASA had no idea what they were missing out on. Bill Nye is actually a total baller. Check out these baller facts about Bill Nye's life that prove he's a total bad*ss.
Nye wrote a heartwarming blog post about his father back in 2013, where he said, "My dad called himself Ned Nye, Boy Scientist. His life was changed and shaped by four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in World War II."
His dad maintained his sanity in a Japanese prison camp with no clocks or electricity by creating his own sundials to keep track of time during his four years there. Nye carried on his father's unique love of sundials and helped create a sundial that was placed on Mars.
Well, he wasn't kidding. Not only was his mother, Jacqueline Jenkins-Nye, a serving member of the Navy, she was even enlisted to help crack the Enigma Code. Her work on the project is said to have shortened WWII by several years.
"She wasn't Rosie the Riveter, she was Rosie the Top-Secret Code Breaker," he remembers. "People would ask her what she did during World War II and she'd say, 'I can't talk about it, ha ha ha!'"
Nye was on Dancing with the Stars back in 2013. Apparently, during filming, he tore 80% of his quadricep and was told not to participate in further episodes.
Well, Nye stayed and busted out a robot dance in a Tron costume to the tunes of Daft Punk. He walked off the stage as the crowd chanted "Bill! Bill! Bill!"
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His Goal For His TV Show Was Literally 'Change The World'
Before starting Bill Nye the Science Guy, Nye drafted up a set of "rules" that he would hold the show to. It started:
Objective: Change the world.
Produce a TV show that gets kids and adults excited about science, so that the United States will again be the world leader in technology, innovation, and sound management of the environment.
For example, when our audience is of age, we'd like them to produce the best transportation systems in the world, e.g. cars, electric cars, trains, and aircraft.
In 2014, a writer from Popular Science followed Nye around for a few days to give readers a closer look at his life. The article covers a lot of minute details about his life that really help you understand Nye as a person. One of those details was his morning workout regimen:
The next morning, he rose, did his morning workout of 250 sit-ups and 150 push-ups, picked out a few bow ties among the hundreds hanging from his closet door, and caught a plane to Nashville.
Bill Nye the Science Guy ran for five seasons from 1993 to 1998, and in that time they won 18 Emmys. That's more than Breaking Bad. Nye raked in Emmys for some killer categories, such as Outstanding Children's Series, Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series, Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series, and Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series.
Not to mention all the show's Environmental Media, Online Film & Television Association, Television Critics Association, and Young Artist Awards.
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