Particle Fever

This is an excellent documentary about the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland. It is the largest machine ever built by humanity and its sole purpose is to do research in particle physics. What makes this movie so special is the 'humanity' it reveals as you get to know the many people involved in this effort and their highs & lows from the day they turn it on until the day they discover the "God Particle."

An excellent documentary of the discovery of the Higg's boson by CERN and the people behind it. What drove them to build the largest machine ever created by humans in our current history? Competitive mentality mostly, at least from watching the Nobel Prize hopefuls in the film.Now that CERN has been upgraded to higher and higher levels of energy, will we open a portal to other dimensions and prove Super-symmetry?This is scratching the surface and not any "God-particle", as they have only gone down a couple of layers --- molecules - atoms - quarks - neutrinos, etc. There's almost no end to this and anyone who thinks they found the ultimate anything will be sadly disappointed. There's a good reason Einstein believed in God, he knew how insignificant man is in the cosmos.It's curious they chose to place a statue of Shiva outside the headquarters. Shiva is the Hindu goddess of destruction.One thing is for sure. Science is always wrong, it's sometimes useful.

The film follows the intense excitement amongst physicists leading up to the inauguration of the super particle collider at CERN, Switzerland, perhaps the most complex instrument and experiment that humans have yet conducted. It alternates between an insider's view by those experimental physicists at CERN who were involved in the engineering of this monumental machine for smashing particles together to create a situation as close to the birth of the universe in the Big Bang as possible & their counterpart theoretical physicists (mostly at Princeton) who are posing some of the mind-boggling questions that the CERN experiments would hopefully answer. Those questions: what is the fundamental nature of reality? Which of the various models of subatomic physics developed over the past century is correct? Does the evidence indicate that we live in one universe or that we are part of some inconceivably vast multiverse of infinite alternate universes? What are the limits of the human mind in both posing and answering these questions? The film is so well put together that one's attention is riveted throughout & there is no shortage of humor either in both the scientists who comment on the event nor in the ironic answers that the initial data coming out of these experiments seem to suggest. The film may work at an accessible level for the layman, but I saw it with a physicist friend and even he was impressed. A feast for all inquiring minds that is really not to be missed!

Very interesting. The story of CERN. The search for the "god particle". It tells of the effort of science to understand the universe and-or other universes. There is an obvious and evident bias against a Creator behind it all, but that is the way most scientists are today. Those who understand otherwise are weeded out by the process of advancement. There is also evidence that those who run these huge "scientific" processes may slant or withhold the unvarnished truth for public relations purposes. They know they have to achieve results which fit within a preconceived parameter in order to continue to be funded and have public support. Like all of the global warming manipulation of data to support a predetermined purpose, the same to some degree is shown in this film. I am sort of surprised that these subtle efforts were not deleted out, but glad they were not. True science, without bias toward the objective of the funders, really barely exists today. This is a very interesting look inside the theoretical vs experimental scientists views and how theory and results often do not match up and how that is handled by the individual minds involved. If you want to learn something do a little investigating on your own into the "goddess in the circle of stars statue" which they show several times in this film. It exhibits the world view behind this endeavor

An excellent piece of Science Communication - you don't have to be a Physicist to follow this drama - and yes, it has a dramatic feel to it. Within a few minutes I was sucked into the story. The people are real, not actors, and they are highly engaging. The visual effects and background music are very well done. Nice integration with footage taken as the story evolved in real time.I now understand what the Higgs Boson particle is, something I had not understood well before in spite of having read many popular journal discussions. If you are a science aficionado you will have lots of things to smile at, feel affinity with and geek out on as well. If you just like good movies where you get to learn and think about something new you will enjoy this as well.