Big Think is an online knowledge forum, founded in 2007, that features interviews, multi-media presentations, and roundtable discussions with major intellectuals from a wide range of fields.^{[1] [2]} The concept for Big Think, which has been described as a YouTube for ideas, was first developed by Victoria Brown (Co-Founder and CEO) and Peter Hopkins (Co-Founder and President).^[3] The pair met while working together at PBS on the Charlie Rose show in 2006.^[1] Among the initial investors in the project were Peter Thiel of PayPal, Tom Scott of Nantucket Nectars, television producer Gary David Goldberg, lead investor and venture capitalist David Frankel (entrepreneur), and former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers.^[1][4][5] As of July 2010, the site featured interviews with 1500 people.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Big Think Website
• Interview with Founders at Online Journalism Review

Big is a 1988 romantic comedy film directed by Penny Marshall and stars Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish "to be big" to a magical wishing machine and is then aged to adulthood overnight. The film also stars Elizabeth Perkins, and Robert Loggia and was written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg.

Big was the latest, and most successful, of a series of age-changing comedies produced in the late 1980s; the others being: Like Father Like Son (1987), 18 Again! (1988), Vice Versa (1988), the Italian film Da grande (1987).^[2][3][4][5]

Plot[link]

After being told he is too short for a carnival ride while attempting to impress an older girl (Kimberlee M. Davis), 12-year-old Josh Baskin (David Moscow) from Cliffside Park, New Jersey goes to a wishing machine called Zoltar Speaks, and wishes that he was "big." His wish is granted, but he finds out that the machine is unplugged, and backs away. By the next morning he is shocked to discover that he has been transformed into a 30-year-old man (Tom Hanks), and when he goes back to the wishing machine he finds that the carnival has already left. Fleeing from his mother (Mercedes Ruehl), who thinks he is a strange man who has kidnapped her son, Josh then finds his best friend, Billy Kopecki (Jared Rushton), at the school they both attend; Billy is shocked at first, but Josh convinces him of his identity by singing a secret song that only the two of them know. With Billy's help, he learns that it would take a couple of months to find the Zoltar Speaks machine, so Josh rents a flophouse room in New York City and gets a data entry job at MacMillan Toy Company.

By chance, Josh meets the company's owner, Mr. MacMillan (Robert Loggia), checking out the products at FAO Schwarz, and impresses him with both his extensive knowledge of current toys and his happy-go-lucky childlike enthusiasm. In a now-famous scene, the two end up playing duets together on a foot-operated electronic keyboard, performing "Heart and Soul" and "Chopsticks". This earns Josh a promotion to a dream job: testing toys all day long and getting paid for it. With his promotion, Josh's larger salary enables him to move out of the workingman's hotel and into a spacious apartment, which he and Billy fill with toys, their own Pepsi vending machine and a pinball machine. Josh soon attracts the attention of Susan Lawrence (Elizabeth Perkins), a fellow toy executive. A romance begins to develop, much to the annoyance of Susan's competitive boyfriend, Paul Davenport (John Heard). Josh becomes increasingly entwined in his "adult" life by spending more time with Susan, mingling with her friends and moving in with her. His new ideas become valuable assets to MacMillan Toys; however, Billy begins feeling annoyed and neglected, feeling that Josh has forgotten who he really is.

MacMillan asks Josh to come up with proposals for a new line of toys. Josh is intimidated by the need to formulate the business aspects of such a proposal, and Susan insists that she will handle the business end; that Josh need only rely on his affinity for toys to come up with a good idea. Nonetheless, Josh soon begins to feel overly pressured by this new life. When he expresses doubts to Susan and attempts to explain that he is really a child, she interprets this as fear of commitment on his part, and dismisses his explanation in frustration.

Longing to return to the life of a child, Josh eventually learns from Billy that the Zoltar Speaks machine is at Sea Point Park. In the middle of presenting their proposal to MacMillan and other executives, Josh leaves. After Susan realizes something is wrong, she leaves as well and encounters Billy, who tells her where Josh went. At the park, Josh finds the machine and makes a wish to become "a kid again." He is then confronted by Susan, who, seeing the machine and the fortune it gave Josh, realizes he was telling the truth. Susan becomes despondent at realizing their relationship is over. Josh tells Susan she was the one thing about his adult life he wishes would not end, and suggests she use the machine to turn herself into a little girl. She declines, indicating that being a child once was enough, and takes Josh home. After sharing an emotional goodbye, Josh, now 13, reverts to his child form and is reunited with his family.

Cast[link]

• Tom Hanks as Joshua "Josh" Baskin
• David Moscow as Normal Josh Baskin
• Elizabeth Perkins as Susan Lawrence
• Robert Loggia as MacMillan
• John Heard as Paul Davenport
• Jared Rushton as Billy Kopecki
• Jon Lovitz as Scotty Brennen
• Mercedes Ruehl as Mrs. Baskin
• Josh Clark as Mr. Baskin
• Kimberlee M. Davis as Cynthia Benson
• Oliver Block as Freddie Benson
• Debra Jo Rupp as Miss Patterson
• Frances Fisher as Mrs. Kopecki (only in 2007 "Extended Cut" DVD version)

Reception[link]

Big was received with almost unanimous critical acclaim; based on 53 reviews collected by the film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of critics gave the film a positive "Certified Fresh" review and the consensus stating "Refreshingly sweet and undeniably funny, Big is a showcase for Tom Hanks, who dives into his role and infuses it with charm and surprising poignancy."^[6] The New York Times praised the performances of Moscow and Rushton, saying the film "features believable young teen-age mannerisms from the two real boys in its cast and this only makes Mr. Hanks's funny, flawless impression that much more adorable."^[7]

Big was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks) and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

The film is number 23 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 2000, Big was ranked 42nd on the American Film Institute's "100 Years…100 Laughs" list.^[8] In June 2008, AFI named Big as the tenth-best film in the fantasy genre.^[9] In 2008, Big was selected by Empire Magazine as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time."^[10]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated^[11]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - #42
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Okay, but I get to be on top." - Nominated^[12]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated^[13]
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - #10 Fantasy Film

Extended cut[link]

The film was re-released in 2007 in a 2-disc Extended Edition DVD. The DVD features the theatrical (104 minutes) and extended (130 minutes) versions of the film on the first disc. The second disc contains deleted scenes, featurettes, an AMC Backstory, and trailers and TV spots.

Broadway musical[link]

In 1996, Big was made into a musical for the Broadway stage. It featured music by David Shire, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr., and a book by John Weidman. Directed by Mike Ockrent, and choreographed by Susan Stroman, it opened on April 28, 1996 and closed on October 13, 1996, after 193 performances.

In popular culture[link]

The Walking Piano, as featured in Big.

The piano scene has been parodied in many forms, including The Simpsons and Family Guy. The Zoltar Speaks scene has also been parodied on Family Guy and Futurama. The Zoltar Speaks scene was also mimicked (albeit in reverse) in Neon Trees' music video, 1983.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Big at the Internet Movie Database
• Big at AllRovi
• Big at the TCM Movie Database
• Big at Box Office Mojo
• Big at Rotten Tomatoes
• Big at Metacritic

Thinking

Thought generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination.^[1] Because thought underlies almost all human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including, among others, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Thinking allows beings to make sense of or model the world in different ways, and to represent or interpret it in ways that are significant to them, or which accord with their needs, attachments, objectives, plans, commitments, ends and desires.

Origin and usage[link]

The word comes from Old English þoht, or geþoht, from stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider".^[2]

In common language, the word to think covers numerous and diverse psychological activities. It often refers merely to the act of being conscious of something, especially if that thing is outside the immediate environment ("It made me think of my grandmother"). It is sometimes a synonym for "tending to believe," especially with less than full confidence ("I think that it will rain, but I am not sure"). At other times it denotes the degree of attentiveness ("I did it without thinking"). Many other mental activities—many of which may shade into each other—can be covered by the word, such as interpreting, evaluating, imagining, planning, and remembering.

In common usage, "thought" is often attributed to animals, machines, other non-human objects, and phenomena. The exact meaning of such usage varies as well. The attribution of thought or thought processes to non-human objects and phenomena (especially computers) could be considered anthropomorphism, though such categorizations have been contested by such computer scientists as Alan Turing (see Computing Machinery and Intelligence). As regards animals, to what extent different animals think depends on the exact definition of the word that is given, so it may be taken literally or regarded as anthropomorphic.

Philosophy[link]

The Thinker, sculpture at the Musée Rodin in Paris

The phenomenology movement in philosophy saw a radical change in the way in which we understand thought. Martin Heidegger's phenomenological analyses of the existential structure of man in Being and Time throw new light on the issue of thinking, unsettling traditional cognitive or rational interpretations of man which affect the way we understand thought. The notion of the fundamental role of non-cognitive understanding in rendering possible thematic consciousness informed the discussion surrounding Artificial Intelligence during the 1970s and 1980s.^[4]

Phenomenology, however, is not the only approach to thinking in modern Western philosophy. Philosophy of mind is a branch of modern analytic philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body.^[5]

The mind-body problem[link]

The mind-body problem concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between minds, or mental processes, and bodily states or processes.^[5] The main aim of philosophers working in this area is to determine the nature of the mind and mental states/processes, and how—or even if—minds are affected by and can affect the body.

Human perceptual experiences depend on stimuli which arrive at one's various sensory organs from the external world and these stimuli cause changes in one's mental state, ultimately causing one to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Someone's desire for a slice of pizza, for example, will tend to cause that person to move his or her body in a specific manner and in a specific direction to obtain what he or she wants. The question, then, is how it can be possible for conscious experiences to arise out of a lump of gray matter endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties. A related problem is to explain how someone's propositional attitudes (e.g. beliefs and desires) can cause that individual's neurons to fire and his muscles to contract in exactly the correct manner. These comprise some of the puzzles that have confronted epistemologists and philosophers of mind from at least the time of René Descartes.^[6]

Functionalism v embodiment[link]

The above reflects a classical, functional description of how we work as cognitive, thinking systems. However the apparently irresolvable mind-body problem is said to be overcome, and by passed, by the Embodied cognition approach, with its roots in the work of Heidegger, Piaget, Vygotsky, Merleau-Ponty and the pragmatist John Dewey.^[7][8]

This approach states that the classical approach of separating the mind and analysing its processes is misguided: instead, we should see that the mind, actions of an embodied agent, and the environment its perceives and envisions, are all parts of a whole which determine each other. Therefore functional analysis of the mind alone will always leave us with the mind-body problem which cannot be solved.^[9]

Biology[link]

A neuron (also known as a neurone or nerve cell) is an excitable cell in the nervous system that processes and transmits information by electrochemical signaling. Neurons are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, and the peripheral nerves. A number of specialized types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord and cause muscle contractions and affect glands. Interneurons connect neurons to other neurons within the brain and spinal cord. Neurons respond to stimuli, and communicate the presence of stimuli to the central nervous system, which processes that information and sends responses to other parts of the body for action. Neurons do not go through mitosis, and usually cannot be replaced after being destroyed,^{[dubious – discuss]} although astrocytes have been observed to turn into neurons as they are sometimes pluripotent.

Psychology[link]

Psychologists have concentrated on thinking as an intellectual exertion aimed at finding an answer to a question or the solution of a practical problem. Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka,^[10] and in the work of Jean Piaget, who provided a theory of stages/phases that describe children's cognitive development.

Cognitive psychologists use psychophysical and experimental approaches to understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with the mental processes which mediate between stimulus and response. They study various aspects of thinking, including the psychology of reasoning, and how people make decisions and choices, solve problems, as well as engage in creative discovery and imaginative thought. Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms—rules that are not necessarily understood but promise a solution, or heuristics—rules that are understood but that do not always guarantee solutions. Cognitive science differs from cognitive psychology in that algorithms that are intended to simulate human behavior are implemented or implementable on a computer. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of relationships.

In developmental psychology, Jean Piaget was a pioneer in the study of the development of thought from birth to maturity. In his theory of cognitive development, thought is based on actions on the environment. That is, Piaget suggests that the environment is understood through assimilations of objects in the available schemes of action and these accommodate to the objects to the extent that the available schemes fall short of the demands. As a result of this interplay between assimilation and accommodation, thought develops through a sequence of stages that differ qualititatively from each other in mode of representation and complexity of inference and understanding. That is, thought evolves from being based on perceptions and actions at the sensorimotor stage in the first two years of life to internal representations in early childhood. Subsequently, representations are gradually organized into logical structures which first operate on the concrete properties of the reality, in the stage of concrete operations, and then operate on abstract principles that organize concrete properties, in the stage of formal operations.^[11] In recent years, the Piagetian conception of thought was integrated with information processing conceptions. Thus, thought is considered as the result of mechanisms that are responsible for the representation and processing of information. In this conception, speed of processing, cognitive control, and working memory are the main functions underlying thought. In the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, the development of thought is considered to come from increasing speed of processing, enhanced cognitive control, and increasing working memory.^[12]

Psychoanalysis[link]

"Id", "ego", and "super-ego" are the three parts of the "psychic apparatus" defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the "id"; the organized realistic part of the psyche is the "ego," and the critical and moralizing function the "super-ego."^[13]

The unconscious was considered by Freud throughout the evolution of his psychoanalytic theory a sentient force of will influenced by human desire and yet operating well below the perceptual conscious mind. For Freud, the unconscious is the storehouse of instinctual desires, needs, and psychic drives. While past thoughts and reminiscences may be concealed from immediate consciousness, they direct the thoughts and feelings of the individual from the realm of the unconscious.^[14]

For psychoanalysis, the unconscious does not include all that is not conscious, rather only what is actively repressed from conscious thought or what the person is averse to knowing consciously. In a sense this view places the self in relationship to their unconscious as an adversary, warring with itself to keep what is unconscious hidden. If a person feels pain, all he can think of is alleviating the pain. Any of his desires, to get rid of pain or enjoy something, command the mind what to do. For Freud, the unconscious was a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression. However, the contents did not necessarily have to be solely negative. In the psychoanalytic view, the unconscious is a force that can only be recognized by its effects—it expresses itself in the symptom.^[15]

Sociology[link]

This is a "thought bubble". It is an illustration depicting thought.

Graffiti on the wall: "'to think for myself' became less favorable".

Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact. Scholars in this interdisciplinary area are typically either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis.^[16]

Despite their similarity, psychological and sociological researchers tend to differ in their goals, approaches, methods, and terminology. They also favor separate academic journals and professional societies. The greatest period of collaboration between sociologists and psychologists was during the years immediately following World War II.^[17] Although there has been increasing isolation and specialization in recent years, some degree of overlap and influence remains between the two disciplines.^[18]

The collective unconscious, sometimes known as collective subconscious, is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a society, a people, or all humanity, in an interconnected system that is the product of all common experiences and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality. While Freud did not distinguish between an "individual psychology" and a "collective psychology," Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal subconscious particular to each human being. The collective unconscious is also known as "a reservoir of the experiences of our species."^[19]

In the "Definitions" chapter of Jung's seminal work Psychological Types, under the definition of "collective" Jung references representations collectives, a term coined by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in his 1910 book How Natives Think. Jung says this is what he describes as the collective unconscious. Freud, on the other hand, did not accept the idea of a collective unconscious

See also[link]

• Critical thinking
• Reasoning

External links[link]

Look up Thought or Think in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References[link]

Bill Nye
Nye at Bridgewater State University in 2007
Born	(1955-11-27) November 27, 1955 (age 56)[1] Washington, D.C.[1]
Residence	Los Angeles
Fields	Mechanical engineering
Institutions	Boeing Cornell University Planetary Society
Alma mater	Cornell University (BS)
Known for	Bill Nye the Science Guy
Signature

William Sanford "Bill" Nye (born November 27, 1955),^[2] popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, mechanical engineer, and scientist. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children's science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1998) and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator.

Early life and career[link]

William Sanford Nye was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Jacqueline (née Jenkins; c. 1920–2000), a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby "Ned" Nye (died 1997), also a World War II veteran whose experience in a Japanese prisoner of war camp led him to become a sundial enthusiast.^[3][4][5] Nye is a fourth-generation Washington, D.C. resident on his father's side of the family. After attending Lafayette Elementary and Alice Deal Junior High in the city, he was accepted to the private Sidwell Friends School on a partial scholarship, graduating in 1973.^[6][7] He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where one of his professors was Carl Sagan,^[8] and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1977.^[9] He was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Johns Hopkins University in May 2008. In May 2011, Nye was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Willamette University where he was the keynote speaker for that year's commencement exercises.^[10]

Nye began his career in Seattle at Boeing, where, among other things, he starred in training films and developed a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor still used in the 747. Later he worked as a consultant in the aeronautics industry. Nye told the St. Petersburg Times in 1999 that he applied to be a NASA astronaut every few years but was always rejected.^[11]

The Science Guy[link]

Nye began his professional entertainment career as an actor on a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle, Almost Live!; Nye attempted to correct the host of Almost Live! after the host pronounced "gigawatt" as "jigowatt."^[12][13] The character name came from the host's comment "Who do you think you are—Bill Nye the Science Guy?" and Nye was thereafter known as such on the program. His other main recurring role on Almost Live! was as Speedwalker, a speedwalking Seattle superhero.

Coincidentally, in 1991–93 he appeared in the live-action educational segments of Back to the Future: The Animated Series with a nonspeaking role as an assistant to Dr. Emmett Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd, in which he would demonstrate science with Lloyd's voice-over. The segments' national popularity led to Nye's hosting the educational television program Bill Nye the Science Guy from 1993 to 1998. Each of the 100 episodes aimed to teach a specific topic in science to a preteen audience, yet it garnered a wide adult audience as well. The show was very popular as a school resource and is still used to this day. He has written several books as The Science Guy. In addition to hosting the show, he was also a writer and producer for the series, which was filmed entirely in Seattle.

When portraying "the Science Guy", Nye wears a light blue lab coat and a bow tie and takes on the persona of an excited, jocular science educator. This popular image of Nye has been parodied by numerous sources, including the webcomic xkcd^[14] and the satirical news organization The Onion.^[15][16] In response to the fake headline "Crack Nearly Killed Me," Nye took the joke in good humor and sent The Onion an email thanking them for "dealing compassionately with this matter."^[17]

He appeared in his Science Guy persona alongside Ellen DeGeneres and Alex Trebek in Ellen's Energy Adventure, an attraction that has played since 1996 at the Universe of Energy pavilion inside Epcot at Walt Disney World. He also has a voice-over at the DINOSAUR attraction in Disney's Animal Kingdom park, where he tells guests about the dinosaurs while they queue for the ride. In addition, he appears in the "Design Lab" of CyberSpace Mountain inside DisneyQuest at Walt Disney World, where he refers to himself as "Bill Nye the Coaster Guy."

[edit] Post-Science Guy career

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Bill Nye "The Science Guy" and Executive Director of The Planetary Society received the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's "In Praise of Reason" Award at CSICON 2011 in New Orleans

Nye remained interested in science education through entertainment. He created a 13-episode PBS KCTS-TV series about science, called The Eyes of Nye, aimed at an older audience than his previous show had been. Airing in 2005, it often featured episodes based on politically relevant themes such as genetically modified food, global warming, and race.

He played a science teacher in Disney's 1998 TV movie The Principal Takes a Holiday; he made a hovercraft in order to demonstrate science in an unusual classroom manner. From 2000 to 2002, Nye was the technical expert in BattleBots. In 2004 and 2005, Nye hosted 100 Greatest Discoveries, an award-winning series produced by THINKFilm for The Science Channel and in high definition on the Discovery HD Theater. He was also host of an eight-part Discovery Channel series called Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye.

Nye has guest-starred in several episodes of the crime drama Numb3rs as an engineering faculty member. A lecture Nye gave several years ago on exciting children about math was an inspiration for creating the Numb3rs show.^[18]

Bill joined the American Optometric Association in a multimedia advertising campaign to educate parents on the importance of getting their children a comprehensive eye examination.^[19]

He was a regular in TV Land discussions. He has also made guest appearances on the VH1 reality show America's Most Smartest Model.^[20]

Nye appears in segments of The Climate Code on The Weather Channel, telling his personal ways of saving energy. He still makes regular appearances on the show, often asking quiz questions.

As of fall 2008, Nye also appears on the daytime game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as part of the show's reintroduced "Ask the Expert" lifeline. In 2008, he also hosted Stuff Happens, a show on the then new Planet Green network.

In November 2008, Nye appeared in an acting role as himself in the fifth-season episode "Brain Storm" of Stargate Atlantis alongside fellow television personality and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.^[21]

Nye has appeared numerous times on the talk show Larry King Live, speaking about topics such as global warming^[22] and UFOs.^[23] He argued that global warming is an issue that should be addressed by governments of the world in part because it could be implicated in the record-setting 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. On UFOs he has been skeptical of extraterrestrial explanations for sightings such as those at Roswell and Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1967.

In 2009, portions of Bill Nye's shows were used as lyrics and portions of the second Symphony of Science science education music video by composer John Boswell.

Nye recorded a short YouTube video (as himself, not his TV persona) advocating clean energy climate change legislation on behalf of Al Gore's Repower America campaign in October 2009.^[24]

Nye (as his TV persona) also made a guest appearance on The Dr. Oz Show.

On March 12, 2011, Nye made an appearance on CNN to discuss the evolving nuclear incidents in Japan as a result of the devastating earthquake and tsunami there. Nye erroneously stated that cesium is used to "slow and control" the nuclear reaction. ^[25] In reality, cesium (specifically cesium-137) is a nuclear fission product, not a control rod material. Nye also erroneously stated that the nuclear reactor involved in the Three Mile Island incident is still running and that the use of boron to slow the nuclear chain reaction is uncommon, when in fact boron-10 is commonly used in control rods, and is circulated in the coolant of reactors in the United States, as well as stored on site as a method of emergency shutdown.^[26][27]

A solar noon clock atop Rhodes Hall was gifted from Nye to Cornell on Aug. 27 following a public lecture that filled the 715-seat Statler Auditorium. Nye talked about his father's passion for sundials and timekeeping, his time at Cornell, his work on the sundials mounted on the Mars rovers and the story behind the Bill Nye Solar Noon Clock. ^[28]

Life outside television[link]

Nye speaking in 2010.

In the early 2000s, Nye assisted in the development of a small sundial that was included in the Mars Exploration Rover missions. Known as MarsDial, it included small colored panels to provide a basis for color calibration in addition to helping keep track of time.^[29] From 2005 to 2010 Nye was the vice president of The Planetary Society, an organization that advocates space science research and the exploration of other planets, particularly Mars.^[30] He became the organization's second Executive Director in September 2010 when Louis Friedman stepped down.^[31][32]

In November 2010, Nye became the face of a new permanent exhibition at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA. Bill Nye’s Climate Lab features Nye as commander of the Clean Energy Space Station, and invites visitors on an urgent mission to thwart climate change. Beginning with a view of Planet Earth from space, visitors explore air, water, and land galleries to discover how climate change affects Earth’s connected systems, and how to use the Sun, wind, land, and water to generate clean energy. In an interview about the exhibit, Nye said, “Everything in the exhibit is geared to showing you that the size of the problem of climate change is big. Showing you a lot about energy use... It’s a huge opportunity... We need young people, entrepreneurs, young inventors, young innovators to change the world.” ^[33]

He holds several United States patents,^[34] including one for ballet pointe shoes^[30] and another for an educational magnifying glass created by filling a clear plastic bag with water.^[35][36] From 2001–2006 Nye served as Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor at Cornell University.^[9][37] Nye supported the 2006 reclassification of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union.^[38]

Since 2006, Nye has lived in Los Angeles in a house with modifications, though has owned a house on Mercer Island.^{[citation needed]} As of July 2007, Nye and environmental activist Ed Begley, Jr. are engaging in a friendly competition "to see who could have the lowest carbon footprint," according to Begley.^[39] In a 2008 interview, Nye joked that he wants to "crush Ed Begley" in their environmental competition.^[40] Nye and Begley are neighbors in Los Angeles, and sometimes dine together at a local vegetarian restaurant.^[40] Nye often appears on Begley's Planet Green reality show Living with Ed.

Nye made an appearance in Palmdale's 2010 video "Here Comes the Summer"^[41]; the band's lead singer Kay Hanley is his neighbor.

Nye is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a U.S. non-profit scientific and educational organization whose aim is to promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.^[42]

Interviewed by John Rael for the Independent Investigation Group IIG, Nye stated that his "concern right now... scientific illiteracy... you don't [the public] have enough rudimentary knowledge of the universe to evaluate claims."^[43]

Personal life[link]

Nye announced his engagement during an appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and was married briefly to his fiancée of five months, author Blair Tindall, on February 3, 2006. The ceremony was performed by Rick Warren at The Entertainment Gathering at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Yo-Yo Ma provided the music.^[44] Nye left the relationship seven weeks later when the marriage license was declared invalid;^[45] their impromptu ceremony, which preceded the license purchase, violated California state law, said Tindall in a radio interview.^[46] Nye later secured a temporary restraining order against Tindall after she entered his property late at night to pour weed killer in his garden.^[45]

Nye enjoys baseball and occasionally does experiments involving the physics of the game. As a longtime Seattle resident before becoming an entertainer, he is said to have been a fan of the Seattle Mariners, although recently he has voiced his preference (as a D.C. native) for the Washington Nationals.^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

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Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill Nye

• Official website
• Bill Nye at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Nye on Twitter
• Nye-Tindall wedding video
• An interview/discussion with Nye as guest on the radio show Loveline
• "Changing The World With Science Education" interview on Point of Inquiry.
• Seattle Times interview (April 26, 2004)
• Science Channel interview

Paul Ekman (born February 15, 1934) is an American psychologist who has been a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He has been considered one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century.^[1] The background of Ekman's research analyzes the development of human traits and states over time (Keltner, 2007).

Biography[link]

Ekman was born in 1934 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and California.

At the age of 15 and without graduating from high school he enrolled at the University of Chicago where he completed three years of his undergraduate. He completed his final year at New York University where he earned his BA in 1954.^[2] He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Adelphi University (1958), after a one year internship at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute.

At the University of Chicago, his classmates included Susan Sontag, Mike Nichols, and Elaine May.^[3]

He received a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1971, which was renewed in 1976, 1981, 1987, 1991 and 1997. For over forty years, NIMH supported his research through fellowships, grants, and awards. He also wrote a famous book called "Telling Lies" in the year 1985. He was encouraged to write this book by his college friend and teacher Silvan S. Tomkins.

In 2001, Ekman collaborated with John Cleese for the BBC documentary series The Human Face. He retired in 2004 as professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). From 1960 to 2004 he worked at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute.

He was named one of the top Time 100 most influential people in the May 11, 2009 edition of Time magazine.^[4]

Work[link]

Ekman's work on facial expressions had its starting point in the work of psychologist Silvan Tomkins.^[5] Ekman's projects included developing techniques for measuring facial muscular movement while also developing theories about emotion and deception through empirical research. ^[6] Ekman showed that contrary to the belief of some anthropologists including Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and thus biological in origin. Expressions he found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, shame, joy, sadness, and surprise. Findings on contempt are less clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally recognized.^[7] Ekman's first publication in 1957 discussed all of his findings on developing methods for measuring nonverbal behavior.^[8]

In a research project along with Dr. Maureen O'Sullivan, called the Wizards Project (previously named the Diogenes Project), Ekman reported on facial "microexpressions" which could be used to assist in lie detection. After testing a total of 20,000 people^[9] from all walks of life, he found only 50 people that had the ability to spot deception without any formal training. These naturals are also known as "Truth Wizards", or wizards of deception detection from demeanor.^[10]

He developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to taxonomize every human facial expression. Ekman conducted and published research on a wide variety of topics in the general area of non-verbal behavior. His work on lying, for example, was not limited to the face, but also to observation of the rest of the body.

In his profession, he also uses oral signs of lying. When interviewed about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he mentioned that he could detect that former President Bill Clinton was lying because he used distancing language.^[11]

Ekman has contributed to the study of social aspects of lying, why we lie,^[12] and why we are often unconcerned with detecting lies.^[13] He is currently on the Editorial Board of Greater Good magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley. His contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships. Ekman is also working with Computer Vision researcher Dimitris Metaxas on designing a visual lie-detector.^[14]

Emotion classification[link]

Ekman devised a list of basic emotions from cross-cultural research on the Fore tribesmen of Papua New Guinea. He observed that members of an isolated culture could reliably identify the expressions of emotion in photographs of people from cultures with which the Fore were not yet familiar. They could also ascribe facial expressions to descriptions of situations. On this evidence, he concluded that the expressions associated with some emotions were basic or biologically universal to all humans.^[15] The following is Ekman's (1972) list of basic emotions:

• Anger
• Disgust
• Fear
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Surprise

However in the 1990s Ekman expanded his list of basic emotions, including a range of positive and negative emotions not all of which are encoded in facial muscles.^[16] The newly included emotions are:

1. Amusement
2. Contempt
3. Contentment
4. Embarrassment
5. Excitement
6. Guilt
7. Pride in achievement
8. Relief
9. Satisfaction
10. Sensory pleasure
11. Shame

Ekman had a policy against commenting on public officials, those seeking public office, litigants, or those with impending litigation.^[17]

Educational innovations[link]

Ekman was featured in an issue of Greater Good Magazine devoted to trust. In this issue, Ekman and daughter Eve are interviewed on parent-child trust. The main topic of the interview focuses on the benefits of trusting your children, how to encourage trustworthy behavior, and what it takes to build trust between parents and children. Ekman is a contributor to Greater Good Magazine, Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley.

On February 27, 2009, he was a guest presenter at the Science of a Meaningful Life seminar "Building Compassion, Creating Well-being", along with University of California, Berkeley and Greater Good Science Center Executive Director Dacher Keltner. Together they covered strategies for building resilience, reducing stress, and strengthening relationships with colleagues, clients, family, and friends.

Criticisms[link]

Ekman's work, particularly its applications to airport security via the Transportation Security Administration's "Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques" (SPOT) program, has been criticized for not having been subjected to controlled scientific tests.^[18] A 2007 report on SPOT stated that "simply put, people (including professional lie-catchers with extensive experience of assessing veracity) would achieve similar hit rates if they flipped a coin".^[19] Ekman no longer publishes details of his recent work in peer-reviewed journals, asserting that this is a deliberate strategy to avoid aiding scientists in countries that the United States considers a potential threat.^[18] The methodology used by Ekman and O'Sullivan in their recent work on Truth wizards has also received criticism on the basis of validation.^[20] Other criticisms of Ekman's work are based on experimental and naturalistic studies by several other emotion psychologists who, in the last two decades, did not find evidence in support of discrete emotions and discrete facial expression, thus questioning Ekman's proposed taxonomy.^[21]

Publications[link]

• Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion (Times Books, 2008) ISBN 0-8050-8712-5
• Unmasking the Face ISBN 1-883536-36-7
• Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life (Times Books, 2003) ISBN 0-8050-7516-X
• Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (W. W. Norton & Company, 1985) ISBN 0-393-32188-6
• What the Face Reveals (with Rosenberg, E. L., Oxford University Press, 1998) ISBN 0-19-510446-3
• The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions (with R. Davidson, Oxford University Press, 1994) ISBN 0-19-508944-8
• Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review ISBN 0-12-236750-2
• Facial Action Coding System/Investigator's ISBN 99936-26-61-9
• Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness (Penguin, 1991) ISBN 0-14-014322-X
• Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research ISBN 0-521-28072-9
• Face of Man ISBN 0-8240-7130-1
• Emotion in the Human Face ISBN 0-08-016643-1
• Handbook of Cognition and Emotion (Sussex, U.K. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 1999)

See also[link]

• Body language
• Emotions and Culture
• Emotion classification
• Microexpression
• Nonverbal communication
• Lie to Me (TV series)
• Wizards Project

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview
• Official site
• Complete bibliography
• A biography from Lifeboat Foundation site
• Video of Freitas-Magalhaes´s 2008 Ceremony of Doctorate Honoris Causa to Paul Ekman, "The Ekman Code or the Eulogy to the Human Face"
• Article: The Naked Face
• Interview (History Channel transcript)
• Interview (Financial Times)
• Greater Good Magazine: Interview between Ekman and daughter Eve on parent-child trust
• Recording of a conversation with Daniel Goleman
• Detecting Deception, American Psychological Association