For the full brochure and a film clip, go to
pf-info
"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and
then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
— Isaac Newton
If you could have met Sir Isaac Newton while he was discovering the Law of Universal Gravity, would you?
Physicists stand at the threshold of perhaps the greatest scientific discovery of all time — or, perhaps, science's
greatest failure. Particle Fever tells the story of some of the world's most brilliant scientists as they approach the
moment of truth — the launch of the largest experiment in history. The results could finally lead to the underlying
theory of all matter...or dramatically mark the end of our ability to comprehend the universe we live in.
The
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is an enormous experiment involving 10,000
scientists from 100 different countries. The eight billion dollar machine sits 300 feet below the pastoral countryside near Geneva, Switzerland. There
is now less than a year before the switch will be thrown sending trillions of protons crashing into each other at
nearly the speed of light. The experimental particle physicists, those building the technological marvel, have had to
overcome exploding parts, internal fights, and engineering nightmares. As the time approaches to turn on the mag-
nets, they are exhausted and increasingly anxious. The theoretical particle physicists, who have constructed
elaborate theories that have gone untested for years, are also increasingly agitated. Their complex abstractions
must now face the unyielding reality of experiment. Will they see the elusive Higgs particle? Will they find new
forces of nature? Will there be evidence for real physical extra dimensions? If their theories are correct, there will
be Nobel Prizes. But what if their hypotheses are wrong?
We follow these great human spirits as they struggle with every step. There is comedy, tragedy and triumph. Can
the theorists and experimentalists work together to build the world's greatest machine with technology never before
seen on this planet? Can they convince politicians and the general public that basic science is worth the multi-
billion dollar price tag? Can they convince their families and friends, and even themselves that the decades of dedi-
cation and toil are for something worthwhile? And what if they win the battles with each other, governments and
the machine itself, but nature decides not to favor us? Will we be in the dark forever more?
About Particle Fever
The film is structured around following six to ten of the best physicists in the world who study the Laws of Nature — the rules by which the Universe is governed. We track their progress and emotional state from now until the moment the LHC — the experiment that will test their theories — turns on. There is great tension for the theorists because they might discover that their life's work was a waste. The tension for the experimentalists will revolve around whether the machine will work, will it work on time, will their funding remain intact as they attempt to build this engineering marvel. We explore sources of this tension — arguments within the physics community, engineering failures, and budget cuts. We'll look back at some of the great successes of the past as well as one of the massive failures — the canceling of the even bigger SSC experiment by congress in the 90's. Some of the tension of the experimentalists will be resolved as we film until the machine turns on. The theorists tension will remain, with some resolution in final interviews with them asking them what they will do once they know the answers.
The LHC experiment is a circular particle accelerator nearly 17 miles in circumference. It is in a tunnel 300 feet below the ground and lies just northwest of Geneva, half in Switzerland and half in France. The experiment will accelerate trillions of protons around the ring, to just about the speed of light in both directions, and have them collide into each other at up to 800 million times per second. The purpose of the collisions is to convert their kinetic energy (E) into new particles — this is allowed by relativity via E=mc^2. (You can go to
www.cern.ch and their visitor's site for lots of into on the machine.) These new particles will tell us which of our theories of Nature is correct.
The many components in the experiment will be sealed up by August 2008. Our plan is to film different sections of the experiment, and the process of sealing the experiment up and cooling it down in Summer 2008. We will also be at the experiment's lab, CERN, for a workshop on theoretical physics, which our cast of characters all plan to attend. The camera will be embedded in the group for a long duration for the physicists to forget about the camera. This will allow us to capture them in their most candid moments by themselves and in their interactions with each other. We go back to CERN in October 2008 (assuming the current LHC schedule) and continue to film there in multiple visits into the summer as the physics run begins in earnest.
We will do follow-up interviews with the theorists at their home institutions — Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, etc. — and see where they go as the time gets closer. We will also interview their mentors — e.g., Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow, and Gerard 't Hooft — to talk about this revolution in the broader context. We will talk to a few younger physicists, who may or may not get permanent jobs depending on what the LHC sees.
As far as physics goes, the plan is to introduce only a small number of physics concepts and return to them a number of times throughout the film via graphics and analogies. The main point of this documentary is to give the context in which drama lives, and to be able to follow the physicist's arguments to the extent of understanding who supports which theory. This will allow the audience to bond with their favorite theory or theorist.
