The Atom Smashers
Clayton Brown & Monica Ross
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Plot Summary
Physicists at Fermilab, the world's most powerful particle accelerator laboratory, are closing in on one of the universe's best-kept secrets: why everything has mass. With the Tevatron, a four-mile underground particle accelerator, the scientists smash matter together at nearly the speed of light to find a particle theorized forty years ago by Scottish scientist Peter Higgs. Scour the subatomic world for the Higgs. Will the discovery happen?
Customer Reviews
The Atom Smashers
This is a fine and rare documentary film. It accomplishes two things with great clarity. It gives us s look inside the world of contemporary physicists, as one of the interviewees says, the "being of the physicist." But through interviews and a string of interesting animations and videos ranging over the last half century, the film bridges the gap between our ordinary experience and the high level sub-atomic physics the tevatron at the Fermi Lab is used to pursue.
We learn about the nature of science, the methods, the tools, the aims, the successes and failures. We learn about the lives of working scientists. We live in a world that is constantly understood in terms of what we collectively know about nature. But most of us have little understanding of what it is like to be one of those who furnish the rest of us with that knowledge. Here we enter into those lives. We share all the anxieties of the between race between labs in the U. S and in Europe in the search for the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle that is responsible for all the mass in the universe.
We share in excitement and disappointments, and the detailed process of "collaborative competition" between the different labs and physicists. We also see how much the lives of scientists and their research are influenced by the uncertainties of the political processes of government. Cuts to Fermi Lab reveal a serious decline in U.S commitment to basic science and the lack of concern about how the U.S. will keep up with other countries. So, there is an important political aspect this film. But there is a good balance between the politics, the science and the sociology of science.
Not Your Usual Science Doc, Better
Entertaining, charming and poignant. The Atom Smashers does a wonderful job of explaining complicated particle physics through interviews, animations and in-depth portraits of the colorful people advancing American science. Reveals how politics can both hinder and support our understanding of the universe-- an extremely relevant perspective in our current political (and global) climate.
Unique and Excellent Film
This is one of the most interesting science documentaries I have seen. The story raises questions about the value of high energy physics research to society while following the lives of scientists in a race to discover the Higgs boson.
