Hi. Welcome to the boston book festival and todays session. My name is christine, and i am a board member of the boston book festival, and i am just one of dozens which feels like hundreds who work behind the scenes and truly believe that the festival is a wonderful source of inspiration and eyedsharing. Idsharing ideasharing. We have been gifted a beautiful new vespa, its under the welcome tent, and all donations will go towards keeping the festival free for you all. Donations are just 10, and i would love to see one of you riding around the city in that beautiful thing. So thank you so much. One other administrative thing is we will have a book signing right across the hall where you can ask the presenters any additional questions. So please enjoy todays session. Thank you. [applause] hello. Im Alexander Danner of the writers room of boston. I will be your moderator for tonights presentation with hillary chute and Sarah Glidden. I myself am an author, im also a writer of comics with
This is awesome. I wish you put us in a time machine and take us back to 1895. A man stands at the end of a drafty core door, the 19th century, and in the flickering light 7 oil lamp examines a machine made of nickel and ivory with brass rails, a squat, ugly contraption somehow out of focus, not easy for the core reader to visualize despite a listing of parts and materials. Our hero fiddles with some screws, add a drop of oil and plants himself in the saddle. He grasps a lever with both hands. He is going on a journey. By the way, so are we. When he throws that lever, time breaks from its moorings. The man is nondescript, almost devoid of features, gray eyes and a paleface and not much else. He lacks even a name. He is just the time traveler, for so it will be convenient to speak of him. Time and travel, no one had thought to join those words before now. And that machine with its saddle, it is a fantastic bicycle. The whole thing is the invention of a young enthusiast named wells, who
Much for being here and i hope you have taken advantage of all of the perks available to you and those who are not book fair members as yet i know you are considering becoming members so thank you very much. Acknowledges miamidade college, the convener of this outstanding book fair and many thanks to our students, faculty and staff are giving up their time to make sure this book fair is the caliber that it is today and has been for the past three decades so thank you to miamidade college. [applause] lets get right on with the show. I would like to bring on Mister Eldridge Birmingham for questions, he is the chief science officer, thank you. [applause] good afternoon, everyone. It is a great pleasure. I have lived in miami several years, this is my second presentation. The first was with Richard Dawkins and im equally fortunate to introduce james glieck who is one of the great science or historians of science ever. I thought what i would do was read a brief statement, some of you know c
[silence] good afternoon again. Come on in, please have a seat. We are ready to begin. As you see, we have been on time all day long and i know that you appreciate that, thank you. Welcome to this next session. I am Mary Lou Harrison and it is truly a pleasure to have you here at miami book fair. We have many, many sponsors as you heard throughout the morning, but we want to really acknowledge them because without them this affair would not take place. Many thanks to the foundation, to the bachelor foundation, the the grout foundation and all the other sponsors. I also want to recognize again and again and again the friends of miami book fair, thank you so much for being here and i hope you have taken advantage of all of the perks available to you and those who are not book fair members as yet i know you are considering becoming members so thank you very much. Acknowledges miamidade college, the convener of this outstanding book fair and many thanks to our students, faculty and staff a
I am pleased to welcome bill gates back to this table. Welcome. Bill thank you. Charlie here is what seems to me, with all of the concentration on the station, all of the great things that have taken place, two things come out of it. One is agriculture and your understanding of how crucial agriculture was and second is energy. So you pose this question. If you could have a superpower, what would it be . You could think about being able to defy gravity. Being able to see through walls. Anything. But you said what . Bill i said energy. Getting energy for everyone would transform their life as much as anything i can think of. The idea of flipping a light switch on or setting the temperature to hot or cold, if you went to somebody in africa who does not have energy and said that was possible, it would seem as bizarre as somebody flying or seeing through walls. It really is a kind of superpower. Americans have the equivalent of 200 humans pushing an axle on their behalf so their lights ligh