Staff Photo Nick Brothers: Bill Nye at Barnhill Arena, Sept. 19.
Barnhill Arena was quite literally packed to the rafters Friday night, and the atmosphere was electric as thousands of people waited to hear what Bill Nye “The Science Guy” had to say to us.
My little group had got there around 5:30 p.m., and the line was already 200 people long. At roughly 6 p.m. they opened the doors and we flooded inside, making our way to the floor seats, then waiting patiently.
The lecture was supposed to start at 7, but so many people were continuing to flood inside that it didn’t start until almost 7:30, much to the chagrin of the people who had been sitting for so long. Several chants of “BILL, BILL, BILL,” began, but died out soon after when he didn’t come out. People were flooding in from the backstage area, and it had turned into a clown car of anyone but Bill Nye. Finally, though, everyone was seated and it was time.
Bill Nye was greeted by thunderous cheers and applause, and thousands of phone cameras pointed at him. He looked aghast, then took his own phone from his pocket and made a video for himself of the sea of people who greeted him.
This was not Bill Nye “The Science Guy.” I mean, it was, but there was a grown-up level to Bill Nye last night. Instead of teaching us the basics about science, or showing us just how cool an experiment could be, he encouraged, practically begged us, to take what he was saying to heart, and go out and “CHANGE THE WORRRLD.”
He said change the world repeatedly throughout the night, along with a lot about sundials (something his father was very fond of that he grew fond of later in life), clean energy (I seriously need to figure out how to use solar power in an apartment.), as well as odds and ends from throughout his career as a scientist, thinker, and teacher.
There was very little in actuality about his opinions on religion, though I think he was pleasantly surprised at the turnout (there seriously had to have been 10,000 people there, as that’s how many Barnhill Arena can hold and i meant what I said when I said “packed to the rafters”) considering the University of Arkansas technically falls in the Bible Belt, and he has made something of a name for himself recently trying to disspell the myth of creationism, and the dangers it presents to the scientific community.
Let me take an aside here. When I was in 7th Grade, I had a science teacher who shouldn’t have been a science teacher.
She was very kind, but science was not her purview. Instead of teaching us in a monotonous tone straight out of the textbook, she did something very cool indeed. She made Bill Nye into our science teacher. Every day, we would watch a new episode of Bill Nye The Science Guy, and there would be a quiz over what we learned at the end of the video, with a quiz on all of them on Friday. Bill Nye taught me 7th Grade science.
That didn’t even have to happen in my life for Bill Nye to be such an influence, as I, like many others there, grew up in a time where Bill Nye was all over the television, making science fun and showing us how cool it could be, day after day.
Bill Nye grew along with us, and despite functioning as one of the greatest science teachers I had in my life, still has a lot of wisdom and knowledge ready to drop. To anyone that missed it, I encourage you to find a way to see his lecture online, as it was spectacular. To anyone that was there, can you guys believe we heard Bill Nye tell a dick joke? That blew my mind!
