Particle Fever

Particle Fever is a gripping insider account of the world's biggest, most expensive scientific experiment. But it's also a real-life drama about understanding the universe.

This new documentary, directed by Mark Levinson, makes the workings of the Large Hadron Collider  comprehensible – and exciting-- to even the most science-phobic viewer.

Particle Fever follows half a dozen diverse characters – out of more than 10,000 scientists from more than 100 countries – who work on the world's largest and most expensive science experiment. It shows them theorizing, arguing, playing table tennis.

Director Levinson, who has been a sound editor since the 1980’s – most notably on Anthony Minghella’s films – gained a Phd in particle physics before that.  He calls Particle Fever a film “about man’s pursuit of understanding.  I wanted to make a film that would appeal to people who may not even think they were interested in science, but can relate to this absolutely amazing human endeavor.”

The film will be followed by a discussion and question and answer period with the following panelists:

• Professor Tony Gherghetta is a theoretical physicist whose research on the origin of mass and the Higgs boson investigates possible outcomes for experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that could follow from new physical concepts such as supersymmetry and the possible existence of additional dimensions of space beyond the three familiar from everyday experience.

• Professor Jeremiah Mans is an experimental physicist conducting research at the LHC as a member of the CMS collaboration.  His group has major responsibility in the upgrade of the CMS Hadron Calorimeter, an important element of the larger detector.

• Professor Priscilla Cushman is an experimental physicist whose current research centers on the search for hypothetical dark matter particles permeating our galaxy using specifically designed, high-sensitivity detectors which function at near absolute-zero temperatures.  Her work is with the CDMS detector housed in the deep underground laboratory in the Soudan iron mine in northern Minnesota.