Discussion with professor from Rice University welcome to houston. [applause] ladies and gentlemen thank you for the Houston Museum of Natural Science for inviting me to someone who sits on the board of several museums i have a deep appreciation for the role of institutions that play in the local community as a window of the past and a guide to the future the indispensable resources i go above and beyond what you read in books. Houston is fortunate enough to have this place its a great pleasure to be here. As a natural scientist i have always sought to maintain to be involved in cultural organizations and when i applied for scholarship at the university of cambridge i had to submit an essay about was completely different to my main area of study. And a piece about the architectures i can explain later to anyone who is interested what that actually means that my first bonus check and the more Senior Executive such as the Folger Shakespeare library in washington dc the British Museum today its one of the great joys to spend even more time with these organizations. But something is always troubled me. I have heard people assert again and again culture is that the foundation of civilization. Certainly it is essential for understanding the only have to visit the chapel here to appreciate. But in my view it is preceded by a great engineering which is the True Foundation of which true civilization is built thats why i wrote think imagine that it is the lifeblood. Today i have four stories while ive been talking about the book after its publication. You can interpret just as you wish and i hope it sparks an internal discussion with you. My first story is about transcending limits a few months ago i gave a lecture at the institute were i am chairman of the board. It is one of the major Biomedical Research hubs home to several prizewinners. After my talk and ask a question that made me think are humans just like e. Coli . [laughter] s question was the way that we abuse Natural Resources because of the oak lawn e. Coli bacteria population grows slowly at first and then exponentially. After the period of rapid expansion things go downhill rather quickly as the bacteria battle it out for resources. And 18th century tim thomas made a similar point arguing human population growth has more catastrophic competition followed by decline in the fifties american geologist coin themselves as they predicted around the year 2000 and stopped rapidly to make so many predictions and limits to growth but somehow all of these predictions of the collapse of civilization have never come to pass. So together we face great challenges today. Not the least of which unintended consequences of itself. Some of these such as Antimicrobial Resistance and Climate Change have the potential to become existential threats. But we are not bacteria. Time and again engineers have used their ingenuity and imagination to overcome those resource constraints to Work Together to build a better world that is why the amount of oil the world uses with gdp has fallen by one third since 1985 and engineering has enabled us to do more with less why texas is by a large margin the largest generator of power in the United States and why by using Carbon Dioxide could make it the lowest carbon force of oil in the world this is Real Progress instigated by developments accelerated by evolving Consumer Preferences guided by a combination of policy and Market Forces made possible by engineering. My second story is unintended consequences. During the 1980s the dominant Communications Operator at t was broken up into several Smaller Companies followed by the loosening of structures all designed to open up the market and encourage competition we can now look back and ask what this has achieved thanks to at t is actually bigger than it was before was broken up but when it comes to innovation it has lost something. The r d powerhouse was described as a nobel prize actuary now owned by tokyo talent and practical knowhow to migrate overseas the practical consequence of this plays out today American Companies do not have any distinct competitive advantage of five g. Instead Companies Like ericsson, no caps and the chinese for huawei are rolling out five g mobile internet in many parts of asia and europe setting new standards along the way. Five g is being developed. This would not matter if we lived in the world underpinned by globalization and free trade. But it does matter when we experience a technologically driven trade war a major feature of which is of china and as a result we are at risk of falling behind this is a change with five g to provide the speed what is needed by the self driving cars and robots and drones to transform our economy enable physicians to perform surgery on patients on the other side of the world using extended and tactile reality enabling them to feel what is going on. And as i recently saw during a demonstration at the Wembley Stadium in london five g will offer 560 degrees Sports Coverage in real time which will completely change the way we experience life sports the technological and geopolitical standoff with the speed and breadth and depth of innovation at worst it could reverse the globalization of products many of you will remember having to carry the phones going overseas one for the us one for europe and one for japan. Its my fear we are headed down the same path today. My third story is about making a practical difference december 11, 1945 Alexander Fleming and two other men put down their bowties to receive a nobel prize for their research into penicillin. As a ceremony unfolded in stockholm a little known female chemical engineer was at home looking after her young son. Broadly she has been written out of history. It was she who took a promising and highly unstable chemical substance and solve engineering problems necessary to transform it into the drug to transform more lives than any other. By the time of the normandie Beach Landing june 1944 the allied forces had two. 3 million doses of penicillin one year later production has 650 billion units among them with the ingenuity and tenacity to me the story demonstrates perfectly why such a powerful force in our world like the ancient roman god who had two faces one looking at the past the other looks at the future in the case of engineering the other looks at humanity were engineers do what they see and come up with a solution these are the tools and systems we use to understand and shape our world. Time and time again. Engineers have applied their art to overcome those challenges and in the past 40 years the cost of totality along with a similar learning curve. I suspect the claim will happen one the same will happen with Carbon Capture technology with Climate Change. So this is what engineering does. Once impractical and expensive to make them available for everyone to use to make a practical difference in the world lightbulbs automobiles Artificial Intelligence algorithms all written off in that time to transform our world. My final story is about imagination taking place in the 19th century as engineers building ever more efficient steam engines the power produced by these machines was appending to establish social order to build the prosperity and opportunity through society these advances were unleashing the imagination the french physicist took an interest in the new engines what he thought would release some of the fundamental principles of the universe first formulated is what gives time its arrow that it was always moving many assume that they were always translating ideas into practical thoughts but very often at work the other way to. Only once a steam engine was made and working could he make the imaginative leap thats why call it make, think and imagine in that order. The things we make fuel our creativity and engineering allows us to imagine places we have never visited times we have never lived in and things that have not yet been done. Thats the job of Business Leaders in the Energy Industry because the future can look difficult and uncertain to meet demand for customers is always changing today oil and Gas Companies represent that biggest portion of the s p 500 over the last 30 years. And investors put their money elsewhere. And young talented people would much rather work from welfare although we rely on hydrocarbons for a long time to come that accounts for 85 percent of our energy today and likely 75 percent of a significantly larger base by 2040. The challenge is to build a future in which oil and gas depend on human prosperity and the climate is not at risk from unintended consequences. And other words take the carbon out of hydrocarbon. Thats what i have been trying to encourage people to do for several decades. In 1997 is ceo of bp i began to recognize the threat of Climate Change and pledged to do something about it. That was more than 20 years ago and there still a huge amount to do i have some ideas what oil and Gas Companies and the steps they can take but for now let me conclude my favorite quotation from abraham lincoln. Speaking at the end of 1862 he said the quiet past is inadequate to the stormy present they must think anew and act anew from ourselves that is a wonderful philosophy that i always try to follow because its not the job of leaders to be the advent of the inevitable its their job to write to the future and to imagine and then create the actions for tomorrow. This cant be done without the discipline of engineering and the ability to engineer to bring order to disorder with the relentless and chaotic flow of the universe that we call civilization engineering allows us to go out and make that vision into a reality. Without engineering it all comes apart like a glass full of bacteria. Thank you very much. [applause] so today we will talk about the book and try to discover what is inside and uncover the mindset will have a chance to read it and other chances to talk with him here. So please devise your question and thank you for explaining the title my kids said should i do the opposite . And john brown said were not used to that why that title for you personally quick. As a product one practical member as a member of the house from the United Kingdom it is an appointed house and the history goes back a very long way when the barons made sure the king kept order we dont do that anymore and while the head of state has no effective power or the house of lords but this is the preamble to the legislation but it does a very good job of science and engineering and technology within the United Kingdom as well. Starting from the very first page that my father said to get a real job. [laughter] what is the relationship with your father quick. You have a great relationship with my father i wanted to do Everything Different from what he had done in his life. My family had a history he was a great soldier during the war and in north africa and among other places and eventually joined the oil industry where everybody spoke farsi not arabic. Fortunately my dad said i will learn it before i get there and he did. I spent my teenage life around the oil and gas world i was determined i would never join in oil and gas company. [laughter] i went to university and i was determined to stay i was in geophysics at the time and those who uncover the mysteries and then under pressure and then my dad said get a real job. Do it for one year and if you like it and if you dont go back to research university. So then rather arrogantly i went that day and i said i would like a job and they said really and i said yes for one year. [laughter] and i really didnt want to leave the uk attitudes were very bad this was the sixties. They said yes to that too and i imagine myself getting to do some work in houston and then the letter came and then the Hr Department sent me a letter. [laughter] so off i went to Anchorage Alaska to become a Petroleum Engineer and to work in the field drilling and testing and live 200 miles north of the arctic bubble which i did for quite a while and it was very exciting than one year led to another after two years i said to the professor i love it and he said stick with it very few people love what they are doing. Thats decent advice. So from my professor my father was vindicated. [laughter] that was enough. So a Good Relationship with your father. But theres always conflicts between a father and son. There was no conflicts. So here you write with the commandments. [laughter] that you were inspired by your mother to solve problems that others have not considered to help find practical solutions. So which pressing problems have you tried to solve quick. I tried to solve a few and some of them are still in process because they are pressing but one that sees me oil and Gas Companies with the global climate. That worried me a lot and i was convinced we could produce hydrocarbons and reduce carbon we were putting in the atmosphere. Thats a problem i started to work on with bp and progress has been made. The other was for acceptance of gay people in britain which subsequent to my outing, that we can talk about later in my mind was a very important thing to do. My mother was a very determined person and managed to survive the holocaust in auschwitz and came out believing the best is always yet to come and you dont look back history is not that important but what you do tomorrow will be really important. So really the company went beyond petroleum. I kind of did its very difficult to start a company with a big impact but you do need to have that in this area. So i decided to go into private equity to set up a fund that purely dealt with no one non hydro come one non Hydrocarbon Energy so respond to several companies that are alive and well and doing things today around the world which is changing the way people think about energy. And was the Worlds LargestRenewable Energy and surprisingly against all the odds made good positive investment return. It also gave a proper return on investment many people when we started this in private equity i was very often introduced as that person and what you get is a good warm feeling that you are not making money but thats not true we made a lot of money but we also made very good nonhydrocarbon. So part of your title make. Everything is active. So as the root of all progress. My whole life. Like the early days i was interested in photography. I use to tinker with cars i moved forward but to my mind its very important maybe almost everyone i know everyone in the world but they all want to feel like they are making something whether a car or something to wear or carpentry or something bigger like a full house a certain sense of satisfaction i also think people that are working just with paper and we close the factory thats producing something and there is equal number of people let go when an organization than we would feel more strongly about the factory as something bad appears to all humans with a very basic point it seems to me. So what those lowlevel engineers there all engineers but the intellectual product. See you dont mean that. Correct and the chapter in the area that i think is great is the bookend of civilization which is a syntax when the british handle them they are beautiful and practical that they change the way the way the attrition of the human being the way they developed. Actually when i write a book i cannot write the whole time i have other jobs. This is a night job and the day job i am full swing have to write to a very strict and engineered outline so i can pick it up and drop it and start again and not have to go back to the beginning and make them bigger and bigger otherwise you get lost and have no direction. But with the very beginning battle and then you have more than 50 pages so was wondering through all of these meetings who impressed you the most quick. They were very distinguished so its risky to pick the best. [laughter] so an extraordinary man his name is bob, he started as a chemical engineer actually he tried not to join amoco to work in the refinery he wanted to go work in the hospital. Nobody understood why a chemical engineer could ever work in a hospital because there were paramedics and chemical engineers but he has engineered discoveries that help the human with artificial skin if you think of the drug screen as a river that you can float things like a tumor and it can kill the tumor rather than putting all the chemicals of the river you can put one little boat and get it to the tumor. It is an extraordinary event instead of to your body just goes to the target and he has had some success. Not only is the breadth of his development 25 billion those companies that have emanated from the lab but then i asked him what his purpose was he simply said i would just like to reduce suffering. I thought that was most impressive thing i heard anybody tell me. Why did you write the book quick. I had several reasons. I had the privilege and opportunity and to be involved in a lot of things in my life but the opportunity to get the people in these areas and ask if i could talk with them. I was trying to bring my readers into rooms around the world to meet people that they could not meet or talk to and i thought that was very important and that was important to me to make that key point that civilization contains engineering in order to keep that we need to do mor more, not less of this activity. So when things go wrong so antimicrobial assistance and now they find drugs that dont work against certain bacteria and then to have a different set of drugs. When there are problems with facial recognition we love to open the iphone with her face but we dont like it when social one facial recognition is used for surveillance against people or discriminate as is happening in china. So we have to do something about it if it happens in our country. And recognize everything we do has a bad side or unintended consequence with a bad use as well as a good one. The third chapter the pain is a symbol for what is unique. What do you think quick. I look at a pen as one of the ultimate ways of transferring what is in your head with great discipline because it is tough to use for good is very difficult. As an example in the book the one thats very easy to use its invented by a hungarian and he invented a very simple beautifully designed engineered product. You can even write upside down. And then you have one very simple cheap objective to allow you to do amazing things. Up at the military assistance that they were paid to think so describe when and where those precious moments of deep think quick. What i said about trying to solve a problem i think i have constructed my life to say the point of what i do is to solve problems. And the way i thank you are disciplined is i know if i can write it down and read it back and have it make sense i may get close to a solution. I cannot with my hands and say you know what i mean or what about that or i heard it on the street and to be resistant to get something done that actually does make sense. I cannot do that with the scree screen. It is too easy to delete. [laughter] so for me i have three kids in the middle of the night is when i could think and then you have a very dynamic life or that sometimes you have an idea you have to wait. I dedicate a lot of vacation vacations. And i have the privilege to come back and then i write. Often i do this in venice because it inspires me and it allows me that wherever i stop to see something that was inspiring before i get back. [laughter] the most profound chapter . The one that was the most difficult was the last chapter imagine because i was trying to make one singular point that in the end despite whatever we can engineer has an exceptional quality and maybe never. So i wanted to describe that and various dimensions and that was the most difficult thing to do. And that i went through the universe. What is the most profound message of the book that you wrote . It is about progress. The book is about progress and the fact that it does have the ups and downs and that should not put us off. We make things, invent things, think about things with great intended consequences but they also come along with good intended consequences those of which we can do more engineering on them rather than say its too late we cannot go ahead so it is this continuous thrust of progress for this condition. Attitude is good. Most definitely. For example decisions made with less than complete information has very tough situations of the genetically modified organisms was heavily rejected in europe and the us. It was based on fears that were not correct that there would be some form of genetic transfers or one that i read in a newspaper that we would have snowdrops on the top of our head and the fear is very bad i think the Anti Vaccination Movement is very dangerous indeed. And we need to think carefully before that happens and spreads these are a setback in a big wa way. And its a responsibility of this collapse. It so we express to our communities and politicians and to get things done for us per crafter all we live in democracies where expressions of what we believe and what we want eventually change things maybe not the first time that eventually will change things to keep progress on track equally. So i am wondering if you could speak for the rest of the world or for anybody. First. I wrote this with my own experience. Not from a chinese scholar or businessman but it would be presumptuous of me to write such a book because i wrote what i know about and civilization is the progress of humanity and the building of people with greater aspirations. Do we have different . Many different societies. And different starting points. But they are all different. And there are different value systems and what is most important around the world but in the end we want to improve when i look at civilization and progress i look in say it is less violent, its healthier, live longer more people can read. That is greater communication. So what is driving but about civilization and progress quick. There is more to progress than engineering and discovery. What it does is provide the opportunity that comes to the will of society and with that right environment for progress to take place. You can do something that none of us have done here. What do you do, what could you do being representative of the people in the Uk Parliament remember, we are a Second Chamber without budget accountability. But you still have the residents. Yes. You certainly have a platform from which you can talk so i talk about the things im interested in that i do believe need to change. Things like Climate Change things like the Energy Provision. And of course ive been a very advocate for lgbt rights. And ive used that platform for these positions. Do see that you are successful . And some cases it moves very slowly, sometimes very quickly. For example, i think the reforms in lgbtq rights move very quickly through parliament. I was one of the voices. In Climate Change we are not, i think, yet at the point where all populations want something done. I think its on the agenda, probably the top of the agenda of the incoming european president. It is certainly on the agenda of every politician in the United Kingdom. Something will be done. Public policy will move to make that happen. I see increasingly not so much at the federal level but at different state levels in the United States same thing is happening there. Do you think the societies those societies progress is higher you have no progress where you have societies but have inclusion and diversity . Generally its more sustainable. Its much more sustainable. Very often i think Business People ask would you prefer to work with the dictator or with democracy and people immediately leapt to the conclusion that the dictatorship you can get a decision made very quickly. That may be true but equally can be on may very quickly. In a democracy and may take longer but certainly takes even longer to make the decision. This is where i think, you are going with the grain of society thats where i think you have to be very careful. We know that you love engineer as much as art. What is the role of art in the civilization we talk about engineering what is the role of art . So it enlightens, educates, and entertains humans. It enlightens them so they have to have the ability and means whereby, i think if we were simply surviving, just survival mode most of our changes or proceeds and disappears. When we kept the time to think about what we will do when we survive art provides enlightenment. Provides education. The transference what one generation does to another one. It also entertains. You write that the prophets will go to a trust will be used for the indication and support the arts. Whats going to happen if that comes from the book. They go to a place where for sure they will simply be used for the education for people who cant afford to be educated in these two topics. You have to stop talking about the book right now and lets say we go to the very last page. What would you like the reader to do what is the action you want the readers to do once they have closed the book. This is not a book full of action nor a business book to go prove yourself in the following four things. But it is a book which i hope allows you to say let me think about whats going on and look at different ways of making things better. And having a dialogue which is based on a little bit more information and i think thats what i would like to have that progress is a good thing that it can be continued. That bad things can be sorted out in the end. But we must keep going. And we have Big Decisions on x essential threats. I need to get those done soon. I hope we get to get uncover a little bit of a mindset of john brown. Whats more important is having the audience asking questions and so so if amy wants to represent you think this is the moment to have the audience thinking about it. I have lots of questions about the audience. Several people wanted to know if john brown can give us insight to us to texans on brexit. [laughter] is a bit easier tonight. Because i believe we are going to have an election on 12 december. I think thats very important because managing the house of commons the First Chamber the Principal Chamber of the elected representatives United Kingdom without having majority without the government having majority is proving to be quite impossible. We are committed under a plebiscite referendum which doesnt sit very well with the way the systems work in the uk but the population voted to leave europe so that must be honored. And we will proceed to do that. Unless the election miraculously produces a party in charge of want to do it. It seems the majority wanted to leave europe and that means we will do that. Personally i wanted to stay but now the election of the will of the people is to leave if we will leave. More of that later. I would say that i have a record of forecasting in this area which is roughly 10 mistakes, no successes. [laughter] why would you like to stay. Im a Firm Believer that a greater collection of people creates in europe in particular reduces tension because when we Work Together we trade together but below attention which i think is important in this area. Its been two provided for two long. Thats. 1,. 2 its a practical matter which trade very heavily with each other. We should probably Stay Together to do that. We also do science and engineering together. We should continue to do that. Having said all that, if youve decided to go, im confident that the uk will do very well, it has to change what its doing but it needs to be inspired to create a new future. Is this a good segue to another question. A lot of these im combining because they are similar. What leadership is needed to progress toward lower Carbon Economy . Ending there has to be an acceptance of the leadership level in companies and in the leadership level of the relevant political bodies. The action needs to be taken which is realistic and done a very clear way. Many people around the world, say we must get rid of hydrocarbons. I dont believe that its actually possible. I do believe that we will probably be consuming about the same level of hydrocarbons and gas in particular. Its not going to grow much but we need to get people to say, given that, how do we do carbon isaac . How do we d carbon isaac . Do we collect Carbon Dioxide that results from burning it and take away sequestrant area in field reservoirs . Do we convert it into hydrocarbons and natural gas into hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide and then bury it but use the hydrogen to burn not the hydrocarbons, wellknown Chemical Engineering technique. What else do we do . I think thats one area. We have all the basic technology we need to apply it but in order to apply it to widescale it needs proper economic incentives or disincentives. That is where the Public Policy comes in. That is what they should be advocating. I think it goes with the grain of younger generations and certainly speaks into the data and the forecast as we see it today. Pretty consistent they been saying the same thing for a long time. And today we see more localized evidence of damage occurring. Whether that is warmer oceans or unusual freak weather. I think its time to do something about this. It wouldve been easier had we started a long time ago because the problem would be smaller. We talk about reducing carbon, where do you see the biggest impact coming from Nuclear Energy . Batteries, storage . If i may, they are two different things. One is the use of hydrocarbons which are very powerful things. They have enormous amount of energy in one else. In fact, the only other thing which has more energy is uranium. But there are plenty of other problems with Nuclear Power that societies dont many neighborhoods dont like them in their neighborhood. Nuclear reactors. Some do. The rate of growth is determined by Public Acceptance but there is hydrocarbons and then there is Everything Else. And Everything Else is Renewable Energy, solar and wind, its biofuels made from plants. Notably sugarcane. Its hydro its nuclear all these things have up to a smaller portion of Global Energy but is expanding. Thats why if the population the world grows and the economy of the world grows we will use very much more oil and gas but use more of these things. We need to continue to develop that. Very different approach to Energy Provision with some complexity. To do with changing the way we transmit the Energy Around the world. Around the nation and how we sport it when it cant be made. If the sun only shines during the day the wind actually blows only certain times normally of the day and so at night we need another way of making electricity. Or storing it. That has limitations at the moment. I would expect people to make breakthroughs in those areas too. Can you comment on the plastics pollution in the ocean . Which is a pressing crisis. Is certainly is. You have to ask where it all comes from and quite a lot i think puts down and began geothermal mistaking. The biggest problem is collecting the plastic. If you could collect it then you can do something with it. Theres no reason why in the United States and europe we shouldnt be doing just that. Collecting it and either transforming it into a lower quality plastic or else burning it for energy and doing something with the Carbon Dioxide. Thats all possible. We should probably use less of it. There are unusual, some plastics that are very difficult to capture, microbeads and things like that. We have to rethink whether we should really use these things to him is there a substitute . But we shouldnt get carried away. I wouldnt like to abmany people say lets ban plastic. Lets reduce it. Some applications that are through the modern wonders in particular in medicine. I think there are probably here that remember having injections with glass syringes and steel needles. Which used to be put into an autoclave to be made sterile. Nowadays we just unwrap something, which is preloaded and get that no one can feel it. Everything is wrapped up with plastics. We need to keep doing this otherwise we will suffer. We will get infections that we dont like or we will be inconvenienced. Plenty of things like that. A lot of plastics also go into things like that are really readily recycle because they are so big. Parts of cars and things like that. Thats very different matter. Its all this waste that just gets thrown away and wanders into the oceans. And then into fish its very bad. Can you comment on aand what we learned since then . Certainly. I cant do it firsthand because i wasnt ceo of bp at the time. But i think the industry learned a lot about decisionmaking, how every decision needs to be tech checked and double checked. Because of the drilling for oil is deeply hazardous process its been well known to be hazardous. And every decision has to be checked and double checked before its made. Before its acted on. If you think about it its like checking in an airplane before you take off. The pilots go through checklists even they know im sure they all know that its fine but they take it very seriously. I think we learned something about that, the orders and the discussion on the ratio. But thats the process point. We learned too that very large disasters can wipe out companies and bp was very close to being very severely damaged if not at the edge. It has come back with the leadership but it was something that people remember vividly. A small set of bad decisions creates a very big disaster. Can you comment on Artificial Intelligence in our future of giving Computers Power . Marie try to summarize this. I think Artificial Intelligence is a very great thing and its good to see it developed with specific applications. Everything from ophthalmology which has lots of ai applications. Driving diagnosis very well through to the way in which i think your suggestions for purchases are presented to you in your screens depending on your habits is all actually a little application of ai. And it continues to get better and better. And it continues to look as if its intrusive. So be careful how its policed. Its not about ai its how we use it and what we think about when we do that. What regulations and engineering prevents it from being abused. I think there is a very big scare, which is artificial general intelligence which is, can you build a human . I think we are probably very long if not an infinite way away from this actually happening. You cant define human intelligence. Before you build something you need to define what youre doing. In the case of specific applications you can define what youre doing. You know what the objective is. And you can define it. In the case of human intelligence we dont understand it. We are looking at brains we dont understand those very well. We can understand fruit flies brain very simple about how it smells and does things like that. A mouses brain is a little more, we dont understand that in human brain we are nowhere close to really understanding the microstructure of the brain. We understand very basic things but actually emulating it will i think take a lot of time. So i dont get too scared about someone coming to see me who is not me who i cant turn off. When i say you know what i would like everything you touch turning into gold i actually do it and the world is suffocated by everything being gold. I dont think we are going to get there ever but i may be wrong when an archaeologist takes this book out in 150 years and says what a strange person who didnt believe in the future of us robots. Maybe i will be wrong but i think i might be right. What kind of car you drive head is it economical . [acustoma i drive two cars, so that in itself is uneconomical. Since i always tell the truth i will tell you what they are. First is an ev, a golf ev, its a very nice car, its very expensive for what it is. Therein lies the story about ev. They need to get less expensive otherwise they will not penetrate the market. You are paying a very big premium between gasoline golf and ev goals, you can see the difference. But its a very fine car for in town driving. My second car is a very large mercedes. I enjoy that very much. Used to be on the board of mercedes. I would expect that one day it will be converted into a hybrid, mercedes, then probably into an all electric mercedes. Lets see how that goes. Do see a trend growing with electric vehicles . Yes. But i think theres a few things that need to be done. Most of all theyve got to be engineered down to an affordable level because i think theres a limit to what people will spend on an automobile. I think we covered most everything. Can you comment on how the internet has changed engineering . Tremendously. Its changed everything. In the act of building and discovering and building. Because you can get many more opinions in one place very quickly. You can have teams built from faraway places with different ideas and different views. You can access the past very quickly. It has changed everything. Sometimes not well. It has no Due Diligence done on what you learn what you can certainly learn a lot and you can collaborate in ways that are inconceivable when i was practicing first as an engineer. Thank you. Help me think doctor afor being here. Especially our special guest john browne, author, engineer, maker, for being with us. [applause] heres a look at some of the events booktv will be covering this week. On monday at the American Enterprise institute in washington dc the National Reviews rich lowry will argue that nationalism plays a vital role in maintaining american democracy. The same day look for us at the Richard Nixon president ial library ab california for retired navy admiral and former nato supreme commander, lessons on leadership that is learned. On wednesday we will be at the National Constitution center in philadelphia or Harvard Law School professor lawrence a argues our guests dont like government is not representing its constituency. All these events are open to the public and if you are in attendance, take a picture antagonist at booktv on twitter, facebook or instagram. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome to todays distinguished Speaker Series from our Binghamton University form. My name is jake andrews im a very proud superintendent of the Windsor Central School district and this years chair of the form. Today we are delighted to open our program to a number of Members Community members outside of the