Particle Fever (2014) is a fascinating documentary film that follows six scientists working to see if the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will produce evidence of the Higgs boson, commonly referred to as the "God particle." Although safe for all ages, the subject matter of Particle Fever makes this movie most appropriate for high school students and older. The science presented is top-notch, with complicated physics explained in language that everyone should be able to understand.
Vocabulary terms and names: beam, Big Bang, black hole, cosmological constant, data, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), experimental physics, François Englert, Higgs boson, high-energy collision, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), laws of nature, magnets, mathematics, matter, Meyrin (Switzerland), multiverse (meta-universe), parameter, particle, Peter W. Higgs, physics, proton, quark, scientific breakthrough, Standard Model of particle physics, structure, supersymmetry (SUSY), symmetries, theoretical physics, universe.
Questions: (1) Where is the LHC located? (2) When was construction of the LHC first planned? (3) What type of conditions are recreated in the LHC? (4) What are scientists working at the LHC trying to understand? (5) What role do quarks play in particle formation? (6) Describe the research being done on each LHC project: Alice, Atlas, CMS, and LHCb. (7) Compare and contrast the supersymmetry and multiverse theories. (8) What is predicted to happen, if new particles are not discovered following the discovery of the Higgs boson? (9) Who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013? (10) When was it announced that the Higgs boson was found? (11) Do you believe that governments should invest in projects such as the LHC? Why or why not?
Creators and stars: Andrea Miller, Andy Cohen, Anthos Media, Asmina Arvanitaki, Carla Solomon, Claudia Marcelloni, Claudia Raschke-Robinson, David Kaplan, Fabiola Gianotti, Gerry Ohrstrom, Jacques Fichet, Mark Levinson, Martin Aleksa, Monica Dunford, Mike Lamont, Natalia Toro, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Robert Miller, Savas Dimopoulos, Thomas Campbell Jackson, Walter Murch.
Click here to view the official movie poster. Click here to purchase the film.
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