# Whose was your favorite "science guy" growing up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 13, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121 "2014-12-13T14:31:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![alted315](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/cc9497/32.png) [@alted315](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alted315)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/61 "2014-12-14T16:09:55Z")
professor proton ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/62 "2014-12-14T16:26:22Z")
Mr. Wizard. There wasn’t much else at the time. I’m not sure if I watched the show because I had a genuine interest in science or because I had a crush on [Stacy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbROZYEeNl0) (Please understand I was very young at the time). Oh, and Bill Nye. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/63 "2014-12-14T17:07:32Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > I loved Jack Horkheimer! Keep looking up! I always seemed to catch the tail end of his show. It was much, much later that I learned it was only a ~five minute segment. :smack: I’d like to add Square One to the list. Math goes with science, right? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/64 "2014-12-14T17:17:52Z")
If the “growing up” aspect of the question is directed at early childhood then I have to consider the pre-TV years. If it’s TV “science guys” we’re after then I’d have to say mine would be Mr. Wizard. Otherwise, I’d have to appeal to the radio shows and most likely [Big Jon and Sparkie](http://www.bigjohnandsparky.com/) (Saturday mornings) even though I can’t name anybody specific from the show. I just know that there was a wide variety of people of all categories to be guests on the show and I can’t imagine there not being at least one “science guy.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/65 "2014-12-14T17:35:59Z")
Mr. Wizard was the ONLY science guy around when I was a kid – literally. I still remember some of his shows I received a huge box full of old Science Digests from the early 1950s from my scientist uncle, and was surprised to se that he had been around even then doing his thing. His original show aired 1951-1965, there was a Canadian revival in 1971, then a new US show on Nickelodeon from 1983-1990. The puppet Penguins on Beakman’s World, “Don” and “Herb” were named after him (“Mr. Wizard” was in real life “Don Herbert”) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/66 "2014-12-14T20:52:19Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > His original show aired 1951-1965, there was a Canadian revival in 1971, then a new US show on Nickelodeon from 1983-1990. I remember watching Mr Wizard when I was a real little kid (I was born in 1955), and I remember the revival, though I don’t think it lasted long. I can recall one episode where he showed how the Indians were able boil water in birchbark kettles: **Mr Wizard:** … And why doesn’t the birchbark burn? **Junior Lab Assistant:** Because … because … the water lowers the … “kindling temperature”? **Mr Wizard:** That’s right! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/67 "2014-12-14T21:11:10Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Americans probably only know him, if at all, as that crazy old guy from Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” video, but [Magnus Pyke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2QP8VdqzZk&list=PLCQ7hJspkf9D0jDeKN-uIsBhuxTRuQ2cm) was a legend. And his brother invented Pycrete. Oh yes, Magnus was always huge fun to watch. But Raymond Baxter on [Tomorrow’s World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_World) edges him out. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/68 "2014-12-14T23:00:14Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Oh yes, Magnus was always huge fun to watch. But Raymond Baxter on [Tomorrow’s World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_World) edges him out. I was a big [David Bellamy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwQWHiEa6sI) fan until he became a [lunatic climate change denier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuYEJTtbG94) ☹ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/69 "2014-12-15T00:15:42Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Americans probably only know him, if at all, as that crazy old guy from Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” video, but [Magnus Pyke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2QP8VdqzZk&list=PLCQ7hJspkf9D0jDeKN-uIsBhuxTRuQ2cm) was a legend. And his brother invented Pycrete. There was an article about Pykrete (and the iceberh aircraft carrier) in one of those 1950s Science Digests. Didn’t know about Magnus Pyke, though, living in the States. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/70 "2014-12-15T02:09:21Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > There was an article about Pykrete (and the iceberh aircraft carrier) in one of those 1950s Science Digests. > > Didn’t know about Magnus Pyke, though, living in the States. They tested Pykrete on Mythbusters, reasonably satisfactorily. [Geoffrey Pyke was one of the great British eccentrics, who led one those lives that you couldn’t film because it would be dismissed as too far-fetched\*,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Pyke) although it ended sadly. And it seems Magnus was his cousin, not his brother. \*He proposed a pneumatic tube for transporting suitably drugged soldiers: > [@](#): > > A little later, Pyke proposed, tentatively, that his idea for “Power-Driven Rivers” could be extended to the transport of personnel. The pipes would need to be at least two feet in diameter and the pressures would have to be high. He worked out some rough ideas for supplying the passengers with oxygen and suggested that the problem of claustrophobia might be ameliorated by travelling in pairs and by the judicious use of barbiturate drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/71 "2014-12-15T02:15:26Z")
[I just found this rather lovely obituary for Magnus Pyke](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-magnus-pyke-1558840.html). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121/72 "2014-12-15T12:38:50Z")
I vaguely remember Mr Wizard, but he would have had to have been on repeats. It was Bill Nye by adolescence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whose-was-your-favorite-science-guy-growing-up/707121.md?page=3)