Particle Fever (2013)

As the Large Hadron Collider is about to be launched for the first time, physicists are on the cusp of the greatest scientific discovery of all time -- or perhaps their greatest failure.

Director:

Mark Levinson

Stars:

David Kaplan, Fabiola Gianotti, Sherwood Boehlert

6 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
David Kaplan	...	Himself - Theoretical Physicist, John Hopkins University
Fabiola Gianotti	...	Herself - Project Leader Atlas Experiment
Sherwood Boehlert	...	Himself - Representative, New York (archive footage)
Joel Hefley	...	Himself - Representative, Colorado (archive footage)
Savas Dimopoulos	...	Himself - Theoretical Physicist, Stanford University
Nima Arkani-Hamed	...	Himself - Theoretical Physicist, Princeton University
Monica Dunford	...	Herself - Postdoc Student, Atlas Experiment
Martin Aleksa	...	Himself - Run Coordinator, Atlas Experiment
Lyn Evans	...	Himself - LHC Project Director
Mike Lamont	...	Himself - Head of Collider Operations, LHC
Peter Jenni	...	Himself - Founding Leader, Atlas Experiment
Riccardo Barbieri	...	Himself - Theoretical Physicist, University of Pisa
Peter Higgs	...	Himself - Theoretical Physicist
Rolph-Dieter Heuer	...	Himself - Director General, CERN
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Asmina Arvanitaki	...	Herself

Storyline

As the Large Hadron Collider is about to be launched for the first time, physicists are on the cusp of the greatest scientific discovery of all time -- or perhaps their greatest failure.

---

Plot Keywords:

ends with biographical notes | physicist | 125 gev | cave drawing | dante alighieri quotation | 

---

Taglines:

With One Switch, Everything Changes

---

Genres:

Documentary

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 September 2014 (Netherlands)

Also Known As:

La fièvre des particules

Filming Locations:

Geneva, Canton de Genève, Switzerland

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$42,968, 9 March 2014, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$869,838, 29 June 2014

Company Credits

Production Co:

Particle Fever, Anthos Media

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Goofs

Two Republican congressman speak against funding for the construction of the Superconducting Super Colider in Texas. This gives the false impression that it was Republicans who ended the project. The 1993 Congress had Democrat majorities in both the House and the Senate. Additionally, the President at that time was a Democrat. The leader of the effort to end funding for the project in the House was Democrat Jim Slattery. Voting to end the funding was bipartisan.

---

Quotes

David Kaplan: Basic science for big breakthroughs needs to occur at a level where you're not asking "What is the economic gain?" You're asking "What do we not know, and where can we make progress?"

---

Connections

References Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

User Reviews

A little high on build up, but short on balanced presentation

Since real science gets very little public exposure in any positive way, anticipation was high that this would help deliver that. While it made a credible attempt, I was rather disappointed at the lack of balanced credit. To the average public citizen it came across as largely the work of a few visionaries and one particular experiment - ATLAS. There were several others who did major yeoman like efforts and that is why I gave it only 6 stars. The human stories were particularly good, perseverance despite the adversity, it could have easily done it without the expletives as well. While it is a documentary and did a fantastic job of chronologically growing with the major real life characters, it failed to acknowledge numerous labs and institutions, along the way who were much more than mere influencers. But definitely worthwhile, hope the next generation of the story raises the bar.