Worldon 2012 Part I: Science, Fiction, Science

On Thursday, after my sightseeing yesterday, I visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. 

Their most picturesque exhibit is on solar energy, in the form of light coming down from the ceiling to photocells.  It’s in the center of the picture, between a couple balloons on the lower left and an artificial tornado on the right: 

Their standout exhibit is the captured German U-Boat, the U-505: 

At Worldcon itself, the conference room door was locked for one of the sessions.  Mary Robinette Kowal took charge and had the speakers stand against a wall as the rest of us gathered ‘round: 

Mary is third from the right

She’s the person who gave me a professional lesson on how to do a public reading, back at Norwescon. 

My favorite author, John Hemry (who also writes as Jack Campbell), gave a reading later on.  To my horror, he read a short story that serves as a lost chapter to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.  I didn’t get a chance to tell him I’m doing my own mashup of the same novel, and that it bears no resemblance to his.  I’ll have to tell him tomorrow (Friday). 

In the evening, I was among one thousand, three hundred and sixty Worldcon guests went to the Adler Planetarium, on the shore of Lake Michigan: 

They have many educational exhibits, but out back is an actual observatory, where I peered through their powerful telescope at the moon: 

This is real science!  Then I had to get some sleep for tomorrow’s sessions.