VCU to host screening of documentary “The Power of the Sun”

By Sathya Achia Abraham

The Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Physics will host a screening of "The Power of the Sun," which tells the story of how basic scientific discoveries sparked technological innovations that contributed to the current, multi-billion dollar, solar energy industry.

The screening will take place Tuesday, March 18, at 4 p.m. at the VCU Student Commons Theater, 907 Floyd Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

The documentary was produced by 1998 Nobel Prize recipient in Chemistry, Walter Kohn, Ph.D., who will provide a brief introduction to the film and following the screening, be available for a question-and-answer session. A reception will follow.

Kohn made seminal contributions to the physics and chemistry of semiconductors, superconductors and surface phenomena such as catalysis. The Austrian-born scientist is the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he remains active. He was a professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and at the University of California San Diego.

Solar energy is a renewable energy source that is being developed as an alternative to fossil fuels. In recent years, fossil fuels have been linked to climate change.

For more information, contact pjena@vcu.edu.