Upcoming Events at the Chapel Hill Public Library
Sunday Series Concert: Chamber Music
Sunday 14 May * 3:00 pm Meeting Room
An unusual chamber music concert featuring two cellos, two violins, and a viola. The concert will showcase the two-cello works of Boccherini and Schubert. The players include several who have participated in this concert series as well as a newcomer to the Triangle, Ed Szabo, a recently retired faculty cellist and conductor from Eastern Michigan University. The other cellist is Richard Clark who has for many years participated in amateur chamber music presentations in Chapel Hill. He is recently retired from his day job as a professor of radiology at UNC-Chapel Hill. The violist is Kathryn Baerman, a surgical resident at UNC Hospitals, and the two violinists are Mark Furth, a molecular biologist at Wake Forest University and Johannes Rudolf, another scientist in the Research Triangle.
Book Sale
Friday May 19 * 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm Meeting Room (Friends Only)
Saturday May 20 * 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Meeting Room
Sunday 21 May * 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm Meeting Room (Bag Sale)
Book Discussion: House by Tracy Kidder
Wednesday 7 June * 11:30 am Conference Room
In this now-classic New York Times bestseller, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Tracy Kidder leads readers through the grand adventure of building an American dream. In his portrayal, constructing a staircase or applying a coat of paint becomes a riveting tale of conflicting wills, the strength and strain of relationships, and pride in craftsmanship. With drama, sensitivity, and insight, Kidder takes us from blueprints to moving day. In the process, he sheds new light on objects usually taken for granted and creates a vivid cast of characters you will not soon forget.
Sunday Series - Lecture: How to Create a Star and Save the Earth
Sunday 11 June * 3:00 pm Meeting Room
The human race is approaching a difficult time in its history. There is a growing world-wide need for energy, a decreasing availability of oil, and increasing political instability because oil is owned by only a few countries. Even if oil were not scarce and were not owned by only a few, the burning of oil is causing a global warming such that ocean levels are rising, the ice caps are melting, and hurricanes occur more frequently and more intensely. In this non-technical talk, Professor Greenside will discuss one of the more promising solutions to these energy and environmental crises, namely the use of magnetic force fields to create a star on Earth that would generate energy the same way our Sun produces energy, by the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Using demonstrations, he will explain why fusion is so promising, why fusion has been difficult to achieve despite a 40-year international effort, and how close we are to making practical fusion machines. Dr. Greenside is a Professor of Physics at Duke University. He does research in the physics of pattern formation, how complex patterns form and how to predict their properties, and is presently applying ideas of physics to understand how the brain processes information. He did his undergraduate at Harvard University and got his Ph.D. at Princeton University.