Professor Hawking's lecture...
(Thus marking the last entry in my backlog...)
The lecture got started late. Apparently, tickets were sold with the understanding that the orchestra pit would be fully elevated (Yes, the San Jose CPA has an elevator orchestra pit. How cool is that?!) and seats would be placed in it. However, AMTSJ is running West Side Story in the venue, right now, so the pit was full of orchestra seats. The solution: Seat those folks on stage. Lucky bastards...
Watching Professor Hawking lecture from a New York alleyway was entertaining, and worthy of comment at the time...
Prior to the performance, I noticed the fellow next to me was wearing a Scott e-vest. Those are kinda cool!
After the seating kerfluffle, the introductions started about 20 minutes late. Professor Hawking took the stage with his prepared speech about 8:30, and took about 45 minutes to talk. Afterwards, the audience was invited to write questions on slips of paper we were given, and turn them in via the ushers. Two new questions were given to Professor Hawking for responses, and five questions were selected as being common enough to have answers already programmed.
Professor Hawking uses a single switch to control an ordered set of choices built into the computer on his wheelchair. This method only nets him about five wordes a minute, so we got to chat amoungst ourselves for about 15 minutes for each of those two original questions. I don't remember the first question, but the second had to do with his appearance on The Simpsons and his opinion on Homer's doughnut-shaped universe theory.
Of the five more common questions, I remember three:
1) Do you believe in God? I believe in the concepts of God in Nature, but I don't believe in a personified God.
2) Teaching science in schools? Yes, but teach science. Creationism doesn't belong in schools.
3) Manned mission to Mars? "Stupid. Send robots. You don't have to bring them back."
We were out by around 10pm. It was a good lecture, and made me want to see more lectures by popular or well-known scientists. I should have gone to more lectures put on by the Foothill College Astronomy Club...
The lecture got started late. Apparently, tickets were sold with the understanding that the orchestra pit would be fully elevated (Yes, the San Jose CPA has an elevator orchestra pit. How cool is that?!) and seats would be placed in it. However, AMTSJ is running West Side Story in the venue, right now, so the pit was full of orchestra seats. The solution: Seat those folks on stage. Lucky bastards...
Watching Professor Hawking lecture from a New York alleyway was entertaining, and worthy of comment at the time...
Prior to the performance, I noticed the fellow next to me was wearing a Scott e-vest. Those are kinda cool!
After the seating kerfluffle, the introductions started about 20 minutes late. Professor Hawking took the stage with his prepared speech about 8:30, and took about 45 minutes to talk. Afterwards, the audience was invited to write questions on slips of paper we were given, and turn them in via the ushers. Two new questions were given to Professor Hawking for responses, and five questions were selected as being common enough to have answers already programmed.
Professor Hawking uses a single switch to control an ordered set of choices built into the computer on his wheelchair. This method only nets him about five wordes a minute, so we got to chat amoungst ourselves for about 15 minutes for each of those two original questions. I don't remember the first question, but the second had to do with his appearance on The Simpsons and his opinion on Homer's doughnut-shaped universe theory.
Of the five more common questions, I remember three:
1) Do you believe in God? I believe in the concepts of God in Nature, but I don't believe in a personified God.
2) Teaching science in schools? Yes, but teach science. Creationism doesn't belong in schools.
3) Manned mission to Mars? "Stupid. Send robots. You don't have to bring them back."
We were out by around 10pm. It was a good lecture, and made me want to see more lectures by popular or well-known scientists. I should have gone to more lectures put on by the Foothill College Astronomy Club...