Sick Product of a Sick System

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

We are led along in this cinema to believe that the effort and money spent would provide a glimpse into how the universe was created. All the back stories and personal struggles were implying that there would be a "discovery" which would lead to a conclusion. Unfortunately I am a cynic. I see that a group of well paid, mostly tenured university scientists chosen to help with a project that could serve mankind as well as serve the interests of the individuals in terms of elevating themselves to the highest realms of their chosen fields-- ends predictably in a compromise. The only way to keep these folks traveling to an exotic and thrilling location every year- Geneva- so that they could cohabit with like-nerds (friends,cohorts) to themselves, despite the fact that outcome 140 would mean they were wasting massive amounts of time and money - public funds- no less- is trite. It's more than trite, if a discovery isn't made soon- it will go down in history as the biggest joke of all time- a joke made by the pseudo-intelligensia and foisted on the tax payers of the respective countries who contributed these funds. By example, it will be tantamount to a group of fishermen charged with catching a saltwater species in a freshwater lake. Even if they caught one it doesn't prove anything! Nerds are easily defined as any group of people who chose to segregate themselves socially by adhering to a set of activities which a majority of people find not only boring, but find those people to be social misfits. If these CERN folks cant find a theory to hang this research upon soon which will add to the progress of real and practical science, they will all be branded as something worse than nerds: pseudo-nerds!

I am a layman and like to think of myself as an intelligent one. So, as I predicted in my headline, I like this movie, even though I have reservations. "Particle Fever" is about a labor intensive physics experiment--that involved many thousands of scientists, lasted from 2007 to 2012 and is actually still on-going. The fact that I watched this film in a format where I could stop and replay gave me an advantage over theater-goers whose reviews say that they could not follow much of the science. I got some things by listening to them twice whereas I might not have otherwise.I like the people aspect of the movie. Monica Dunford is just the cutest, tomboyish experimental (hands-on) physicist. Aside from having the most fabulous name, Fabiola Gianotti is proof that C.P. Snow was exaggerating when he said art is art and science is science and the twain shan't meet. Wrong. As well as being a top physicist, Fabiola was a classical musician and a passionate student of classic literature before she decided to go into science. Savas Dimopoulos is a font of wisdom whether acknowledging that theoretical physics is as much art as it is science or contrasting the act of making a cup of gourmet coffee (if it doesn't come out right you can try again in a few minutes) with physics (if your theory doesn't work out, then you've wasted thirty or forty years of your life).I don't remember who was who, but I enjoyed the humor of several of the scientists, especially the physicist who explained to an audience that there are two answers to the question of why they are conducting this experiment, the one they tell people and real one--not so much because their trying to hide something as they don't think the real reason would make much sense to most people.Then there is the very human moment when the "final" results are being released to a huge audience, and the man for whom the particle is named, Peter Higgs, is brought in and seated, but Monica Dunford points out that he has been given a less choice seat than her colleague's research assistant. At least he is inside. Dimopoulos is left out in the hallway, unable to get a seat at all even though he is a well-known physicist who has spent three decades writing about the Higgs particle.Despite not being a scientist, I have actually been to CERN, more than 25 years ago. It was pleasing to me to see the facilities and surrounding countryside.Although I learned some things about the science from this film, I am afraid I learned enough to understand why some nay-saying physicists do not think CERN's claim to have discovered the Higgs boson is correct and that the particle has not been found. The mass of the found particle surprised the scientists because it was around 125 or 126 GeV instead of the expected 115 or 140, the extremes hoped for by each of two competing theories. A number almost half way in between seems neither to confirm nor disprove either theory. Tienzien Gong has claimed that the reason for this is that they discovered not the Higgs boson but the "vacuum" boson, which an earlier physicist had predicted would have a mass of 125.4 GeV. So Gong thinks CERN's claim of success and the Nobel Prize awarded to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs are premature. But I throw cold water on an otherwise entertaining and informative movie.

Wow, this movie is a poster child for what's wrong with big budget science. At the beginning they show clips of conservative members of congress, who are arguing that the American version of CERN should be defunded. I'm sure this was intended to be a hit/slam, but I found myself agreeing with the politicians. For the record, I'm a science geek, with a degree in engineering, who reads books about quantum mechanics for fun (David Deutsch in particular is my favorite author).The female lead, well, she was super-impressed by a 5 story structure. Kaplan, one of the male leads, comes off as very unlikable, although I warmed up to him by the end of the movie. Then there's the guy who won't collaborate with more than 2 colleagues, but Nobel prizes can only be given to a most 3 people. Great, this guy's ego is so big that he'll sacrifice science to protect his reputation. There's very little science here beyond what's in the headlines. Basically, all this money was spent on CERN, they were expecting the Higgs to be in one of two places, but they found something (it must be the Higgs!) in a different place, therefore it's pretty much back to the drawing board. Perhaps science is at its limits - but you know what, Einstein didn't need an expensive CERN to know that general relativity was true. Yes, something is WAY off here, and this movie just solidifies that for me.I'd give this movie more stars if it could actually tell me WHY a Higgs imparts mass to other particles (or anything interesting!) because the personalities of the people they interviewed were simply not interesting to me.

Nerdgasm in "Particle Fever"Warning: Nerdy martial is contained within this review. Moreover, it's the worst kind of nerdy material, that of a non-scientist. Read at your own discretion. "Particle Fever" is a documentary about the super particle accelerator and supercollider in Cern, Switzerland that is funded and staffed by over 100 nations. Under the direction of the European Organization of Nuclear Research, it has been a thirty year project that is the center of controversy in the scientific community. The controversy is not over military application of its findings, whether the collider will create a singularity and kill us all, or who will take credit for the results. No, the controversy is something more sinister: will the Higgs particle reveal evidence for the popular supersymmetry hypothesis of the universe or the dreaded, evil multiverse hypothesis. Jobs can be lost in the flash of a proton, reputations can be ruined depending on the results, the whole universe could be at risk if we find we are part of a multiverse! Of course I exaggerate, slightly, but "Particle Fever" does a credible job in laying out the consequences of some results over others in the experiment. The main goal of the 17 miles, billion dollar collider is to reveal the Higgs particle (a fundamental particle at the center of our existence), find its weight and energy, in GeV. GeV is 1.60217657 × 10-10 joules: really, really small, the smallest particle we know of, so far. The hope is to also find out if other, smaller particles emerge when two protons collide at near light speed. You must see the movie to find out if our universe is doomed and if hundreds of theoretical scientists have lost their jobs. Their sometime arch-rivals but collaborators on this experiment, the experimental physicists, will certainly have jobs after this, unless the universe collapses and having a job is moot. The experimenters, as they would boast, actual do things with their hands and have skills. The theorists need them more than they need the theorists, they argue. The movie doesn't explain things fully; it creates more questions than answers: 1. What is a multiverse, and why would the mass and energy of the Higgs indicate we live in a multiverse? Does it have to do with stability. The nerds don't explain. 2. One theorist postulated that under certain conditions of the Higgs, the universe could disappear. However, doesn't the concept of the conservation of energy and mass preclude a disappearance of matter and thus it would be only a universal transformation of matter? He doesn't explain that for us non-theorists. 3. Two questions about reading the mass and energy of the Higgs: a. If you are creating massive energy when colliding protons to reveal the Higgs, couldn't different energy levels at the collision change the measurement of the Higgs, for mass and energy are two sides of the same particle? I assume they accounted for this in their experiment, but like elite nerds, they didn't explain it to us unenlightened lay folk. Moreover, isn't the experiment itself creating uncertainty in their reading of the particle? Wouldn't the near-light speed collision of the protons change the very nature of the Higgs particle they are measuring? They didn't explain this to us either. "Particle Fever" makes science interesting. There are true science protagonists in this movie. It focused on a few scientists, and the women scientists get a center and starring role. Their infectious obsession with their fields gave us all, "Particle Fever." Rating: Pay Full Price Peace, Tex Shelters