So instead of just listening to experts explain scientific concepts, the show’s hosts got to lead the way by asking questions—then interrogating what they’d learned by attempting experiments of their own. There were trips to salt-water marshes, recording studios, lava fields, a remote Australian river (“to study a platypus, you have to find one”), and archeological digs.

There’s no doubt 3-2-1 Contact was an educational show, but it was open-ended in a way that made the world seem expansive and unstructured—pretty much the opposite of required educational tools like math flashcards and science textbooks. I remember as a kid thinking 3-2-1 Contact was just as good as Sesame Street but somehow much cooler. This was by design. 3-2-1 Contact has been described as “a sort of ‘Sesame Street Discovers Science,’” The Times wrote in 1983, but for older kids, aged 8 to 12. It was also a kin to Square One, the math-focused program which featured Mathnet, the memorable sendup of the detective show Dragnet. Naturally, 3-2-1 Contact had its own investigative subplot, in which members of the Bloodhound Gang solved serialized mysteries.

The overarching goal among the show’s creators was to leave kids with “a changed perception of what science and technology are and what scientists do,” Atkins said in 1983. Based on the impression it left on me, I’d say 3-2-1 Contact succeeded. I didn’t grow up to become a scientist, but I did shape my life around asking “why.” And my expansive views of science and technology today mirror the far-reaching views of science and technology that were at the heart of 3-2-1 Contact.

The show taught me that trying to understand how things work is unequivocally thrilling. It was, in this way, a celebration of curiosity above all. Finding an answer can be satisfying, but asking questions often brings greater joy than the certainty of knowing.

Incidentally, at my first-ever real job, in a coffee shop outside Philadelphia, my boss, who was tired of my many queries, suggested gently that if I could someday make a living from asking questions, I should. I was 15, and he was perhaps teasing me a bit, but he was also echoing an idea that I’d encountered in 3-2-1 Contact so many years before.

And anyway. He was right. So I did.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.