Higgs on the Big Screen Alexandra Witze Savours a Behind-The-Scenes Look at Physics’S Most Famous Arrival

Engineers work to reconfigure CERN’s ATLAS detector, one of two experiments to co-discover the Higgs boson.

PARTICLE PHYSICS Higgs on the big screen Alexandra Witze savours a behind-the-scenes look at physics’s most famous arrival.

ow could there possibly be anything Another key figure is CERN’s Fabiola possible Higgs masses against one another, fresh to say about the Higgs boson, Gianotti, the former would-be philosopher each representing one possible explanation the subatomic particle whose 2012 who became spokeswoman for one of the two — either that the multiverse exists, or that Hdiscovery sparked a Nobel prize, a slew of major Higgs-hunting experiments in 2009. every particle in the Universe has a shadowy popular books, an exhibition and even a A parallel storyline follows a handful of ‘supersymmetric’ partner. This strategy pro- zombie movie and a rap song? Remarkably, theoretical physicists waiting for the results. vides tension but overemphasizes the possi-

physicist-turned-filmmaker Mark Levinson The most eloquent is David Kaplan, the bility that a particular Higgs mass supports MARCELLONI/CERN CLAUDIA pulls it off in a documentary about the Higgs physicist who produced the film. It is Kaplan the multiverse idea. It might have been better shot where the particle was discovered. who handles the explainers on the Higgs to play up the competition between the two It is hard to get distinctive footage when during an academic lecture that efficiently main LHC instrument teams. This drama is camera crews have been crawling over the dispenses scientific background. And it is not apparent in Particle Fever, even in the cli- Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Kaplan who films himself driving in the mactic scene in which Gianotti and her coun- Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near middle of the night to a party in Prince- terpart on the second experiment unveil the Geneva, Switzerland, for years. Levinson’s ton, New Jersey, to watch the unveiling of Higgs discovery at an unforgettable seminar. edge is that he filmed on and off between the particle, missing a highway exit in his That is a quibble, however. The sense of 2008, when the LHC launched, and 2012. The excitement. But Nima Arkani-Hamed steals scientific drive is palpable throughout the Particle Fever team shot almost everything the show on several levels. Slightly distracted film, and even the coverage of the discovery that counted: from the champagne-popping and ever garbed in a red-and-black striped seminar is fresh. Rather than chase the CERN celebrations at the first beam of circulating rugby shirt, he talks about his family escap- director around the auditorium where the protons, to the dirty and disfigured wrecks ing revolutionary Iran, and the solace that announcement was made, Levinson shows of the superconducting magnets that blew a physics provided. Pacing late at night at the us Savas Dimopolous, a theorist at Stanford week later, crippling the machine for months. Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, University in California, trying to talk his way The film’s other fresh take is its choice of Arkani-Hamed is a kind of physics every- past the guards at the auditorium door to be protagonists. You won’t hear much about the man, standing in for all the scientists strain- present for the historic moment. We see Dun- superstar researchers. Rather, the characters ing to catch the news from the LHC. ford huddled in front of a computer screen, are everyday experimentalists and theoreti- The film’s only stumble is a segment involv- eyes fixed on the video feed as Gianotti cians caught up in the race to discovery. One ing controversial ideas about whether many announces that the Higgs has been found. of the most endearing is Monica Dunford, a universes might co-exist — the multiverse. And we see a baby erupt into tears in the talkative US postdoc who is forever throwing As data start to flow back from the LHC, tan- hallway outside the CERN auditorium — on a hard hat and taking a wrench to bits of talizing hints of the like the Higgs itself, a noisy newborn and a Particle Fever ■ the LHC that are not working. Hearing that Higgs emerge, but DIRECTED BY MARK bringer of joy. one of the machine’s detectors is five sto- the particle’s mass LEVINSON reys tall is one thing — watching Dunford’s is initially unclear. On limited cinema release Alexandra Witze is a correspondent for face light up as she takes it all in is another. The film pits two from 5 March 2014. Nature in Boulder, Colorado.