In March, the \u2018Science Guy\u2019 came back to the Hill to check on the Rhodes Hall timepiece, newly overhauled by engineering students<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Joe Wilensky<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Bill Nye \u201977\u2014the famed science popularizer, climate advocate, and TV personality\u2014served as a visiting professor on campus in the early 2000s, he\u2019d often walk by Rhodes Hall and notice that in the center of the building\u2019s parapet was an intriguingly blank concrete circle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt just didn\u2019t look right\u2014somebody meant to put a clock there,\u201d Nye recalls thinking. \u201cLet\u2019s put a clock there!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the instrument that Nye set out to design would be no ordinary timepiece. It would include an indicator of \u201csolar noon\u201d\u2014the highest daily position of the sun in the sky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n