What's On at the Library

This fall at branches across the city, we have put together a fabulous array of science-related programs, all part of the Thought Exchange programs.

If pseudoscience and predictions that the world will end 2012 make you grit your teeth, we have the antidote. It is 2012: From Garbled Science to Death From the Skies!  in which Kelly Lepo takes on … the end of the Mayan Calendar! Galactic alignment! Mysterious planets! Deadly solar radiation! Geomagnetic reversal! … and other popular doomsday scenarios that claim the end is nigh. Kelly Lepo’s cross-city tour begins on October 19, 6:30 pm at the Danforth Coxwell Branch.

Also on October 19,  the Runnymede Branch is hosting acclaimed science writer Stuart Clark, who is in town promoting his new book, The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth. Clark, who usually writes non-fiction, has devoted his career to presenting the complex world of astronomy to the general public. Many of his books are in TPL collections.

The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth, the first in a trilogy, tells the story of Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, two men trapped by human ignorance and irrational terror in one of the darkest, yet also enlightening periods of European history.

On October 19, at the Mimico Branch Linda Tu presents Recent Advances in the Sciences, a three-part series (all talks start at 6:30). She starts with the cosmos then zeroes in on planet earth (October 26) and wraps up with a look at some frontiers in understanding how humans tick (November 2).

In November, we have two more talks that will intrigue and delight. Adam Atkinson delivers the goods on Astrobiology at North York Central on November 2, 7 pm. And on November 17, 7 pm, at the Gerrard/Ashdale Branch, Johannes Hirn of U of T’s Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics has some incredible stories to tell in Black Holes are like Kinder Surprises and Other Short Stories from the Universe.