Bill Nye answered popular questions sent in by students
Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill Nye the Science Guy visited the University of Guelph on Thursday, Mar 5. The excitement was tangible as 2,300 students and community members filed into the Athletic Centre and took their seats. According to the CSA, this was a larger turnout than convocation normally gets. Tickets cost $15 and were so popular that there were two rounds of ticket sales.
“People were re-selling them for $100, $200, even $300 on Facebook,” said third-year Bachelor of Science student, Jagdesh Birdi.
In the first round, tickets sold out in just under 30 minutes. For many of the students in attendance, seeing Bill Nye live was a nostalgic experience.
—
“My generation is going to phase out… aka die,” said Nye. “You guys are going to be left running the show.”
Bill Nye, a guy involved with science.
“I remember my first Bill Nye video probably back in grade four,” Birdi said he remembered his teacher, “rolling in the big box TV on the stand. They would roll it out and plug the VCR in and Bill Nye came up and I remember thinking ‘who is this guy.”
Nye’s visit took the form of a Q&A. Students submitted questions that they wanted Bill Nye to answer. Questions were fielded by physics instructor Jason Thomas, who goes by the stage name of The Great Orbax. This was a fitting choice according to students.
“Orbax is a great person to ask him questions,” said Anmol Bains, fourth-year Bachelor of Science student. “It’s nice to see someone who has a connection with students be able to have that connection with Bill and pass it on to us.”
Throughout the Q&A, Nye and Orbax had great dialogue (even when Nye accidentally mispronounced Orbax’s name). Nye talked about everything from space and aliens to climate change and whether artificial intelligence is going to be a good or bad thing in the future. He made sure to tell the audience that AI will be helpful and not harmful. The main message delivered throughout his talk was that students and people in general can change the world.
“My generation is going to phase out… aka die,” said Nye. “You guys are going to be left running the show.”
Photos by Alex Vialette
A version of this article appeared in print in The Ontarion issue 188.3 on Mar. 12, 2020.
Please visit www.theontarion.com/submit to find out how you can share your work with The Ontarion.