Jan Hendrik Oort FRS^[1] (Franeker, 28 April 1900 – Leiden, 5 November 1992) was a Dutch astronomer. He was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. The Oort cloud of comets bears his name.

Oort was born in Franeker, Friesland and studied in Groningen with Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn. His Ph.D thesis was titled The stars of high velocity. In 1927 he confirmed Bertil Lindblad's theory that the Milky Way galaxy rotates, by analyzing the movements of stars.^[2] In 1935 he became professor at the observatory of the University of Leiden, where Ejnar Hertzsprung was the director.

In 1928, his son Coen Oort was born, who later became an important Dutch economist and public official and who in 1990 headed the Oort Commission, which was responsible for a major overturn of Dutch tax law.

Oort was fascinated by radio waves from the universe. After the Second World War he began work in the new field of radio astronomy, using an old radar antenna from the Germans.

In the 1950s, he raised funds for a new radio telescope in Dwingeloo, in the east part of the Netherlands, to research the center of the galaxy. In 1970 a bigger telescope (the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope) was built in Westerbork, near the old one. It consisted of twelve smaller telescopes working together to perform radio interferometry observations, a technique which had been previously suggested by Oort, but which was first tested experimentally in Cambridge by Martin Ryle and in Sydney by Joseph Pawsey.

His hypothesis that the comets have a common origin, postulated in 1950, was later proven to be incorrect in detail, though correct in principle. That is, different types of comets have origins in different regions of the outer solar system. For more, see Oort Cloud, Hills Cloud, and Kuiper Belt. Another contribution Oort made was to demonstrate that the light from the Crab nebula was polarized.

A few of Oort's discoveries[link]

• In 1924, Oort discovered the galactic halo, a group of stars orbiting the Milky Way but outside the main disk.^[3]
• In 1927, he calculated that the center of the Milky Way was 5,900 parsecs (19,200 light years) from the Earth in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.^[2]
• In 1932, by measuring the motions of stars in the Milky Way he was the first to find evidence for dark matter, when he found the mass of the galactic plane must be more than the mass of the material that can be seen.^[4][5][6]
• He showed that the Milky Way had a mass 100 billion times that of the Sun.
• In 1950, he suggested that comets came from a common region of the Solar System (now called the Oort cloud).
• He found that the light from the Crab Nebula was polarized, and produced by synchrotron emission.

Honors[link]

Commemorative plate at the house where Jan Oort was born in Franeker.

Awards

• Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1942
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1946
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1951
• Gouden Ganzeveer in 1960
• Karl Schwarzschild Medal of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in 1972
• Balzan Prize for Astrophysics in 1984

Named after him

• Asteroid 1691 Oort
• Oort Cloud
• Oort constants of galactic structure

Upon his death, Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar remarked, "The great oak of Astronomy has been felled, and we are lost without its shadow."^[7]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Literature[link]

• Oort, J. H. (1970). "Galaxies and the Universe: Properties of the universe are revealed by the rotation of galaxies and their distribution in space". Science 170 (3965): 1363–1370. DOI:10.1126/science.170.3965.1363. PMID 17817459.  edit
• Rougoor, G. W.; Oort, J. H. (1960). "Distribution and Motion of Interstellar Hydrogen in the Galactic System with Particular Reference to the Region within 3 Kiloparsecs of the Center". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 46: 1. DOI:10.1073/pnas.46.1.1.  edit
• Oort, J. H. (1924). "Note on the Difference in Velocity between Absolutely Bright and Faint Stars". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10 (6): 253. DOI:10.1073/pnas.10.6.253.  edit

Online exhibition[link]

Jan Oort, astronomer (Leiden University Library, April–May 2000) [1]

Jan van Oort (Amsterdam, 13 April 1921 – Arnhem, 29 November 2006) was a Dutch children's book writer and comic strip cartoonist, working under the pseudonym of Jean Dulieu. He is known for his creation of Paulus the woodgnome.

Personal biography[link]

Jan van Oort was born on 13 April 1921 in Amsterdam.^[1] He was the son of concert singer Hendrik C. van Oort, and grandson of the political cartoonist Johan Braakensiek. Van Oort was into music, and creative activities such as drawing and puppet making.^[2]

Jan van Oort studied the violin on the conservatorium where he graduated in 1940, and became violinist with the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. During the Dutch famine of 1944, the orchestra was decommissioned, allowing Van Oort more time for drawing. While living at the time in Soest, he made twelve designs of gnomes, and let his wife Kitty Sijmons pick the best one. This one he elaborated to a full-blown children's book character and named him Paulus.^[2][3]

Shortly after the war, Van Oort and his family moved to Terschelling, and a year later ended his participation in the orchestra, aiming for a full job in comics strips, although having no education in this field.^[2]

In 1984 when he was 63, he finished his cartoonist career. Van Oort died in 2006 in Arnhem, at the age of 85. In September of that year, his daughter Dorinde van Oort published a novel about her family, where her father is named Lepel Mansborg.^[2]

Paulus books[link]

Paulus the woodgnome was published from 1946 onward in the daily newspaper Het Vrije Volk. Van Oort used the pseudonym of Jean Dulieu, the literal French translation of Jan van Oort, to protect a possible image loss to his violinist career in case of failure in his cartooning work. In total, Van Oort created approximately 3600 comic strips for this newspaper.

In 1948, the first illustrated Paulus children's books were published, including Paulus the deputy Sint Nicolas and the Paulus winterbook, the latter having even coloured illustrations. During the years more publications followed, including Paulus and Eucalypta, Paulus and the dragon, and Paulus and Skipper Mackarel. In 1964, he published his masterpiece Paulus and the acorn men, with many colour illustrations and the death theme. Various books by Dulieu have been translated to English, German, South-African, Japanese and Swedish.

Paulus in other media[link]

In the period 1955 to 1964, Paulus the woodgnome was broadcast as radio drama. Van Oort did all the voices himself, with the exception of Princess Priegeltje, which was done by his daughter Dorinde van Oort. Starting 1967, Van Oort made 39 puppet movies of 10 minutes each for the Dutch television programme Monitor. He created all puppets, scenery and accessories by himself. These movies were also broadcast in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

In the 1970s, Van oort started a new series of newspaper comic strips, totalling 23 full stories. In 1984 when he was 63, he finished his last Paulus.

Even in 2008, new Paulus books are still being published, based on so far unpublished material, by De Meulder Publishers.

Other publications[link]

Besides Paulus, Van Oort created for Albert Heyn a book Boffie and Buikie in a tie, an album for which 96 paper strips could be collected from Albert Heyn shop purchases.

Following travels to Italy, Van Oort published in 1953 the book Francesco about Francis of Assisi.

Awards[link]

Van Oorts book Paulus the deputy Sint Nicolas was Best Children's Book in 1962, and he received an Edison award for a grammophone record of one of his Paulus stories.

His full career as comic strips cartoonist was awarded the Stripschapsprijs in 1981.

Since 1995, the Paulus Archives are collecting and publishing the life and works of Jean Dulieu and Paulus the woodgnome, notably via the magazine Bouterbode.

References[link]

External links[link]

• List of programmes (old catalogue) in the archives of Beeld & Geluid
• List of programmes (new catalogue) in the archives of Beeld & Geluid
• Biography at Lambiek's Comiclopedia
• Paulus, de lotgevallen van een boskabouter (Dutch), comprehensive website of M.L. Bergsma about Paulus
• Paulus Archives (Dutch), website
• De Meulder Publishers (Dutch)

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

This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (May 2010)

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]