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Movie Review : Particle Fever (2013)


The scientific process is impenetrable by the common of mortals. I don't care if you're browsing sites like these all day, if you like scientific facts and vulgarization, it still doesn't mean you understand how to do science. But I'm thankful that we have people who do. These people are doing a ridiculously unsexy job, buried in labs or facing a blackboard all day, but they are important. They keep the world moving and (hopefully) keep us dreaming of the exciting possibilities of the future. PARTICLE FEVER is a documentary about scrawny men and women trying to break the model of our understanding of things. I'm not sure if I've understood the scope of what they are actually doing, but I sure understood the struggle of the process. Because there is more than one layer to a good documentary. 

The Large Hadron Collider is the largest and most complex experimental facility ever built by men, Its sole purpose is to prove or disprove the existence of a theoretical particle Higgs Boson, which is at the heart of our understanding of the universe. In other words, it was built to try and recreate the Big Bang at a microscoping level, and see if it happened the way we thought it did. It's a major investment of time and resources for all of humanity, so there was a lot of pressure for the world renowned team of scientists to get it right and to ''wow'' the international community with what they would potentially discover. Lots of work. Lots of years invested, but with science the only thing you know is that you can't ever know for sure, right? 

Socrates said something along the lines of: ''I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.'' This affirmation is at the very base of the very notion of scientific doubt. The theoretical physicists interviewed in PARTICLE FEVER all have their career on the line with the potential discovery of the Higgs boson. Depending on its theoretical weight, it would prove or disprove the existence of the multiverse and potentially invalidate the work of physicist to tried to prove something called supersymmetry for all their career. If PARTICLE FEVER accomplishes anything clearly, it's to remind you that doubt is your ally and that being wrong is, to a certain degree, inevitable. Call it a Greater Truth.

I'll admit, it's kind of awesome that this machine exists.

My favourite part of PARTICLE FEVER happened during theoretical physicist David Kaplan's (colloquially known as ''my boy'' during the viewing) public presentation of the project. An economist in the crowd raised his hand and asked (I'm paraphrasing here): ''I'm an economist, what will be the economic upside of what you're doing?''

What a shitty question to ask. First of all, if he's an economist, wouldn't it be HIS job to find out? Why would a theoretical physicist have to worry about being profitable? This is the short-sightedness scientists have to deal with nowadays. Everything you do has to make money. The team of scientists operating the Large Hadron Collider is trying to find the master particle from which the universe is made of, have a little perspective. The possibilities are infinite if you actually let the fucking guys discover it before talking money. Imagine if whoever discovered pennicilin had been told : ''why cure people? It's not very profitable, buddy. Can't you make up a temporary fix the patient has to buy over and over again?''

David Kaplan has a killer answer for the idiot economist, but I'll leave you the pleasure of finding out.

PARTICLE FEVER is more than your run-of-the-mill scientific documentary. It's a film about what it is to be a scientist in the 21st century and how progress sometimes clash with human nature. There is a beautiful scene at the end, where my boy Kaplan drives back from Princeton at sunrise after the official announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson, admitting it pretty much threw every theoretical model he made to the garbage, but showing enthusiasm and faith because there is a lot of work ahead and obviously that's what he lives for. The Work. PARTICLE FEVER is not one of these Nova-like documentaries with an stern, one-dimensional approach and a disincarnate voice, it's wrapped in human sensibility and subjectivity, which makes is a lot more appealing and easier to break down. I can't say I understood everything, but I understood the struggle and I think that was the point.


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