he is also a writing collaborated with stephen hawkins. the moderator tonight is timothy shriver. we are very lucky to have him tonight. he is the chairman and ceo of the special olympics. he is a social leader, educator, activist, filmmaker and entrepreneur and i found out tonight he only lives one street over for me so we are very very connected. we are going to have questions tonight from the audience. they will be on index cards and at around 7:15 we will have someone pick them up. after tonight's talk we are going to have a -- downstairs sponsored by the smith foundation and we certainly thank them for that. it should be an interesting moment because we will hear interesting things tonight from our guests and we can carry on this conversation downstairs, so please join me now in welcoming the three gentlemen, dr. chopra, mlodinow and tim shriver. thank you very much. [applause] >> good evening. thank you. good evening. i would like to add my welcome to everyone here and say right at the outset that i feel i have been in many many distinguished environments in my life but i ha