Philosophy
PBS's Independent Lens on Tuesday November 25th will offer a film on Fermilab's competition with the LHC to discover the Higgs boson particle.
A character-driven documentary highlights the cross-Atlantic competition pitting US-based Fermilab against Europe-based CERN in the race to discover the supposed mass-endowing Higgs boson particle.
This research showdown will premier at the world’s largest science celebration, Science Chicago.
The 75-minute film Atom Smashers will air Sept. 19 and 21 at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry with a panel session following the initial screening. Eight Fermilab scientists play key roles while other employees appear occasionally in shots.
Following its Chicago debut, the film will head to several international cities and hit the air ways with a 53-minute version on PBS’s Independent Lens Nov. 25.
Co-director Monica Ross, an adjunct professor at Columbia College in Chicago, said the film doesn’t follow the traditional NOVA-like format of scientist interviews. Instead, the crew followed the lives of scientists working and trying to relax amidst the pressures of dealing with budget cuts, aging machinery, and the threat of watching the prize from a more than decade long search be ripped out of their grasp by the new experiment on the block: the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
"There is enough physics there for the people that are interested to find out what the Higgs boson is and how the Tevatron works," says co-director Clayton Brown, a lecturer at Northwestern University. "But for those people who say, 'I flunked high school physics' there is enough character building, politics and culture to engage them."
In between long hours analyzing data and fixing four-story detectors, you see physicists engaging in athletic and musical hobbies and struggling with questions about how to balance a career and family.
While the larger story of the film draws on the quest for scientific discovery and America’s turbulent relationship with science funding, the characters demonstrate the similarities among the passionate in all careers.
"I think most people don’t tend to associate the words passion and obsession with physicists or scientists in general," Brown says. "They think of them as very dry. It has been really great to show the rest of the world that physicists are just as passionate or obsessed about what they are working on as musicians or poets."
The Chicago-based 137films acquired 110 hours of interviews during 3½ years of filming at Fermilab, in Washington DC, London, and New York. Footage of CERN was borrowed from a director working on a documentary there. The film has received international attention from several film and science festivals.
Although none of the crew has a scientific background, they say they are fascinated by science's ability to explain "who we are, what we do, and why we are here."
The documentary poses questions for the public to consider.
"We hope viewers will come away from this asking themselves: Should we continue to do this type of work? And it looks like the dominance is shifting overseas, is that something we should be concerned about?," Brown says. "Those questions are too important for us to answer for the viewer."
Preview
The Atom Smashers
Fermilab 'ghosts' hint at new particles
- Fermilab...a New Documentary Film
"Fermilab documentary offers inside look" A new documentary about the people and science of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is now available on YouTube. by Andre Salles February 12, 2013 Symmetry When Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross were commissioned...
- Higgs Boson Announcement...the Drama Is Not Effective
"Physicists to Make Major 'God Particle' Announcement Next Week" by Jeanna Bryner December 8th, 2011 LiveScience Scientists at the Swiss lab that hosts the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), will announce their...
- Standard Physics Model Is On The Line
"End of Higgs Search Will Confirm or Refute the Standard Model of Physics 'Within Months'" by Alexis Madrigal July 24th, 2011 The Atlantic The number one particle on physicists most-wanted list, the Higgs boson, has played a key role in our...
- "the Atom Smashers"--eccentric
Now I know why they ran this so late last night. "The Atom Smashers" was a study of eccentric physicists and the race to discover the Higgs Boson--overall somewhat boring. It is a small world of theoretical physicists and the question here, especially...
- "the Atom Smashers"--tonight On Pbs
Fermilab Wow, a back to back science offering from PBS. Tonight on Independent Lens is a program called "The Atom Smashers". "The Atom Smashers" And co-director Clayton Brown's blog the atom smasher "Review: The Atom Smashers" by Duran October...
Philosophy
Fermilab vs CERN--clash of atomic titans
PBS's Independent Lens on Tuesday November 25th will offer a film on Fermilab's competition with the LHC to discover the Higgs boson particle.
"Film chronicles race between Fermilab and CERN"
September 2nd, 2008
Symmetry
September 2nd, 2008
Symmetry
A character-driven documentary highlights the cross-Atlantic competition pitting US-based Fermilab against Europe-based CERN in the race to discover the supposed mass-endowing Higgs boson particle.
This research showdown will premier at the world’s largest science celebration, Science Chicago.
The 75-minute film Atom Smashers will air Sept. 19 and 21 at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry with a panel session following the initial screening. Eight Fermilab scientists play key roles while other employees appear occasionally in shots.
Following its Chicago debut, the film will head to several international cities and hit the air ways with a 53-minute version on PBS’s Independent Lens Nov. 25.
Co-director Monica Ross, an adjunct professor at Columbia College in Chicago, said the film doesn’t follow the traditional NOVA-like format of scientist interviews. Instead, the crew followed the lives of scientists working and trying to relax amidst the pressures of dealing with budget cuts, aging machinery, and the threat of watching the prize from a more than decade long search be ripped out of their grasp by the new experiment on the block: the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
"There is enough physics there for the people that are interested to find out what the Higgs boson is and how the Tevatron works," says co-director Clayton Brown, a lecturer at Northwestern University. "But for those people who say, 'I flunked high school physics' there is enough character building, politics and culture to engage them."
In between long hours analyzing data and fixing four-story detectors, you see physicists engaging in athletic and musical hobbies and struggling with questions about how to balance a career and family.
While the larger story of the film draws on the quest for scientific discovery and America’s turbulent relationship with science funding, the characters demonstrate the similarities among the passionate in all careers.
"I think most people don’t tend to associate the words passion and obsession with physicists or scientists in general," Brown says. "They think of them as very dry. It has been really great to show the rest of the world that physicists are just as passionate or obsessed about what they are working on as musicians or poets."
The Chicago-based 137films acquired 110 hours of interviews during 3½ years of filming at Fermilab, in Washington DC, London, and New York. Footage of CERN was borrowed from a director working on a documentary there. The film has received international attention from several film and science festivals.
Although none of the crew has a scientific background, they say they are fascinated by science's ability to explain "who we are, what we do, and why we are here."
The documentary poses questions for the public to consider.
"We hope viewers will come away from this asking themselves: Should we continue to do this type of work? And it looks like the dominance is shifting overseas, is that something we should be concerned about?," Brown says. "Those questions are too important for us to answer for the viewer."
Preview
The Atom Smashers
Fermilab 'ghosts' hint at new particles
- Fermilab...a New Documentary Film
"Fermilab documentary offers inside look" A new documentary about the people and science of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is now available on YouTube. by Andre Salles February 12, 2013 Symmetry When Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross were commissioned...
- Higgs Boson Announcement...the Drama Is Not Effective
"Physicists to Make Major 'God Particle' Announcement Next Week" by Jeanna Bryner December 8th, 2011 LiveScience Scientists at the Swiss lab that hosts the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), will announce their...
- Standard Physics Model Is On The Line
"End of Higgs Search Will Confirm or Refute the Standard Model of Physics 'Within Months'" by Alexis Madrigal July 24th, 2011 The Atlantic The number one particle on physicists most-wanted list, the Higgs boson, has played a key role in our...
- "the Atom Smashers"--eccentric
Now I know why they ran this so late last night. "The Atom Smashers" was a study of eccentric physicists and the race to discover the Higgs Boson--overall somewhat boring. It is a small world of theoretical physicists and the question here, especially...
- "the Atom Smashers"--tonight On Pbs
Fermilab Wow, a back to back science offering from PBS. Tonight on Independent Lens is a program called "The Atom Smashers". "The Atom Smashers" And co-director Clayton Brown's blog the atom smasher "Review: The Atom Smashers" by Duran October...