It becomes easier to understand why a YouTube video channel about tracing the origins of English words has garnered more than 17 million hits when you see the host, Marina Orlova, a 29-year-old Russian with a sexy accent.

The philologist/ etymologist’s Hot for Words ultimately proves a clever way to explore a traditionally sleepily subject, while learning the backstories of phrases like “hangover,” and “peeping Tom.”

Orlova is one of 50 presenters coming to Monterey Thursday, Jan. 21, for the Entertainment Gathering (or EG). The purpose of the three-day event: Bringing together some of the most unique minds in the world to exchange ideas and open up avenues to a better life. Just how they do that is somewhat mysterious – even the event website doesn’t define exactly what takes place. (“How do you explain EG?” it asks. “It’s a bit like music. You can’t really explain music in words.”)

The first EG conference – chaired by TED founder Richard Saul Wurman – was held in Los Angeles in 2006. Initially billed as a “once-and-only-once conference,” the event was too successful to be a one-time deal and was held again in Los Angeles in 2007 and brought to Monterey in 2008.

The hefty $4,000 pricetag has afforded past opportunities like hanging with Yo-Yo Ma and the MythBusters, sharing drinks with Nobel Prize winners and kicking it with Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs while listening to the world’s top dueling pianists, without the stuffiness of a mega-conference.

Since inception, the intimate event – just 400 seats are sold – has welcomed everyone from James Cameron to Sarah Silverman and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Along with the big names, including book designer Chip Kidd and indie minstrel Jill Sobule, EG’s appeal is in the presenters, who include New York Times food writer Mark Bittmann, Dick Cavett, and three generations of the Dyson family: physicist Freeman Dyson; his daughter, Internet guru Esther and his son, kayak designer George.

Here’s a look at some of the others:

It was Easter 1990 when Bruce Shapiro – using a 286 computer, two stepper motors and some circuitry – made his first robot, “Eggbot,” a two-axis machine that draws patterns on eggs. After Eggbot, Shapiro moved on to larger and more complicated motion control devices as public artworks installed in science centers (including San Francisco’s Exploratorium). Shapiro believes in motion control as an educational device and has been teaching kids to build their own Eggbots at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The amount of people who will ever experience what photographer Bryant Austin has – free-diving with whales and photographing them at less than 6 feet – can fit inside a Yugo. Austin’s high-resolution, life-size photographs of endangered whale species are the most detailed in existence. After a moving interaction Austin had with a humpback whale and its calf five years ago while diving in the Kingdom of Tonga, he sold all his belongings and dedicated his life to whales. Austin’s work is currently touring Norway and Japan to promote peaceful change in whaling nations.

Magician Eric Mead has never advertised and only recently has launched a website. That hasn’t stopped the practicing mentalist from building a client list, including George Lucas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jack Nicholson, by word of mouth. Mead starts by telling the audience he doesn’t claim to be psychic, but says illusion can be just as convincing. “Magic isn’t about solving puzzles; it’s about not knowing, and having a little bit of mystery,” he says.

Walter Alvarez – professor of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley – is widely known for his theory that the dinosaurs were killed when an asteroid hit the Earth. In 1980, Alvarez happened upon sedimentary rock in Italy that contained high levels of iridium. Chemical dating put the rock at around 65 million years old, the same time dinosaurs became extinct. His theory, documented in T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, became increasingly controversial as scientists began discovering the same levels of iridium, at the same age, at other sites.

You may remember a Seinfeld episode featuring the Flying Sandos Brothers, a group of Gypsy magicians who stole Jerry’s jacket. The inspiration: the Flying Karamazov Brothers, a performance troupe, usually dressed in kilts, that mixes comedy, theater, music and juggling. FKB began in 1973 as street performers in Santa Cruz, heavily inspired by Shakespeare’s philosophy of bringing art and accessible entertainment to the stage, and has since had four successful Broadway runs.

Cameron Carpenter was the first organist ever to be Grammy-nominated for a solo album. The homeschooled prodigy transcribed more than 200 pieces of music for the organ. Check out Carpenter’s performance of Chopin’s “Revolutionsetüde” during a live webcast in New York. Dressed in white from head to toe, his feet move back and forth across the pedals as fast as his hands move from left to right and up and down the multi-tiered organ. It’s more like watching Jimi Hendrix than a classical musician.

These six luminaries represent only a fraction of the scientists, artists and rebels speaking. MIT’s Michael Hawley, who took over EG in 2007, says he designed it as “the kind of conference I’d beg to attend.”

THE EG CONFERENCE happens Thursday-Saturday, Jan. 21-23, at the Monterey Conference Center, 1 Portola Plaza, Monterey. $4,000. 646-3770, www.the-eg.com