An Evening with Ray Kurzweil
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With Ray Kurzweil, author, The Singularity is Near. This presentation is part of the ongoing Science on Screen Series.
The Coolidge Corner Theatre concludes the 2008-2009 season of its popular Science on Screen series with a special program, An Evening with Ray Kurzweil. The celebrated futurist, inventor and entrepreneur gives a multi-media presentation based on his best-selling book, The Singularity is Near, and shows a trailer of the upcoming film of the same name. Audience members also get a sneak preview of director Barry Ptolemy's Transcendent Man, a documentary charting Kurzweil's journey to bring the ideas from The Singularity is Near to a worldwide audience. A question-and-answer session with Kurzweil follows the program.
According to Kurzweil, the onset of the 21st century is the beginning of an era in which the very nature of what is means to be human will be both enriched and challenged. As our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy, we will achieve inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. Although the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, Kurzweil presents an inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.
Ray Kurzweil has been described as "the restless genius" by the Wall Street Journal. One of the leading inventors of our time, he was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition system.
Kurzweil is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, 18 honorary doctorates, awards from three U.S. presidents, seven national and international film awards, and many other honors. He has written five books, of which four have been national best sellers. The Singularity is Near was a New York Times best seller and was the #1 book on Amazon in both science and philosophy.
Tickets: Museum of Science members and students: $7.75; general admission: $9.75; Coolidge Corner Theatre members: free. Tickets are available in advance at coolidge.org or at the theatre box office, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline.
With Science on Screen, the Coolidge Corner Theatre shows a feature film or documentary with a basis in science, combined with exciting remarks by noted scientists and others in related fields. The Science on Screen series is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and New Scientist magazine.
