Born in Washington, D.C., Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing in Seattle, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes.

In 1986, he left Boeing to pursue comedy—writing and performing for the local sketch television show Almost Live!, where he regularly conducted wacky scientific experiments.

[10] Ned was captured and spent four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp; living without electricity or watches, he learned how to tell time using the shadow of a shovel handle, spurring his passion for sundials.

[15][16] After graduating from Sidwell Friends, he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he studied at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

[30] Nye soon got more offers to appear on nationally broadcast programs, including eight segments of the Disney Channel's All-New Mickey Mouse Club.

[28] Following his stint on Almost Live!, from 1991 to 1993 Nye appeared on live-action educational segments of Back to the Future: The Animated Series, assisting Dr. Emmett Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd).

The program became part of a package of syndicated series that local stations could schedule to fulfill Children's Television Act requirements.

Nye Labs, the production offices and set where the show was recorded, was in a converted clothing warehouse in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood.

With its quirky humor and rapid-fire MTV-style pacing, the show won critical acclaim and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning nineteen.

A CD-ROM based on the series, titled Bill Nye the Science Guy: Stop the Rock!, was released in 1996 for Windows and Macintosh by Pacific Interactive.

Nye's Science Guy character is also heard in a voice-over in the DINOSAUR attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom,[42] and was the on-air spokesman for the Noggin television network in 1999.

However, "shifting creative concepts, infighting among executives and disputes over money with Seattle producing station KCTS significantly delayed production for years.

[49] Teaming up with Seth MacFarlane and Brannon Braga, the series has Nye exploring natural and unnatural disasters, explaining them scientifically to detail surviving, mitigating, and preventing them.

[55] Nye appeared on segments of Heidi Cullen's The Climate Code, later renamed Forecast Earth on The Weather Channel, relating his personal ways of saving energy.

[58] In November 2008, he portrayed himself in the fifth-season episode "Brain Storm" of Stargate Atlantis, alongside fellow television personality and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[59] In October 2009, 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.

[60] He joined the American Optometric Association in a multimedia advertising campaign to persuade parents to provide their children with comprehensive eye examinations.

[65] Nye appeared in the 2016 documentary Food Evolution, directed by Academy Award-nominated director Scott Hamilton Kennedy and narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[66] In 2017, he was the subject of a biographical documentary film, Bill Nye: Science Guy, directed by David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg.

[68] Nye's fictional self also alludes to his rivalry with Rodney McKay, which was established in the aforementioned "Brain Storm" episode of Stargate Atlantis.

[69] Also in 2018, Nye made a second guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory as himself, together with fellow scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson, in the first episode ("The Conjugal Configuration") of the show's final season.

[70] In September 2019, Nye was a guest on Episode 127 of Jonathan Van Ness's podcast Getting Curious, where they discussed climate change, the failures of cold fusion, the potential of better battery technology for storage of energy produced by wind turbines and solar panels, the benefits of and forthcoming improvements to electric vehicles, and the detriment and failures of fossil fuel and nuclear energy, measures toward water cleanliness, the role of girls' and women's education in improving the environment, and the threat the Trump administration posed to the environment and to scientific thought in general.

[71][72][73] That same year, Nye's vocals were featured on the closing track "Noble Gas" from electronic music producer Steve Aoki's album Neon Future III.

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

[100] On Earth Day 2015, Nye met with U.S. President Obama to visit Everglades National Park in Florida and discuss climate change and science education.

On Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on May 12, 2019, he discussed climate change and the proposed Green New Deal, and said:[108] Here, I've got an experiment for you—safety glasses on.

My attendance tomorrow should not be interpreted as an endorsement of this administration, or of Congressman Bridenstine's nomination, or seen as an acceptance of the recent attacks on science and the scientific community.

[117] On October 28, 2020, Nye took to Twitter endorsing Joe Biden for president, urging his followers to vote on behalf of climate change and science.

Due to his father's, sister's and brother's lifelong struggles with balance and coordination, Nye decided to not have children to avoid the chance of passing on the condition, even though he "dodged the genetic bullet" himself.

[136] In May 2015, Rutgers University awarded him an honorary doctor of science degree and paid him a $35,000 speaker's fee for presenting the ceremony's keynote address.