A screening of the documentary “Particle Fever” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Studio C! theater in Okemos.
The film follows six different scientists, including MSU professors, and their involvement with the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most expensive experiment that has ever been done.
Ten thousand scientists from more than 100 countries across the globe teamed up to recreate conditions that were present moments after the Big Bang to find the Higgs boson, often referred to in media as the “God particle.”
Joey Huston, a professor in the physics and astronomy department, is one of the MSU professors involved with ATLAS, one of the two general-purpose detectors of the Large Hadron Collider. He worked on the design and construction of the Tile Calorimeter, of which 32 10-ton modules were constructed and tested at MSU between 1998 and 2008.
The modules were transported to CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Switzerland, in 2008 to be assembled into the final ATLAS detector. Huston said the underground accelerator collides beams of protons against each other at the highest amount of energy ever achieved.
“One question it’s built to answer is the origin of mass,” he said. “Why do certain particles have the masses they do?”
The film gives audiences a glimpse into this scientific breakthrough as it happened. The documentary shows incredible moments, such as the inside of the ATLAS control room as the first beams circulated.
Huston said it also successfully conveys the excitement the scientists felt, and currently feel, to work on the experiment.
“MSU has had a large group involved in the last 20 years of the experiment and will continue to for the next 20 years,” he said. “Even after I and others retire, new scientists will come on board.”
Susan Woods, director of the East Lansing Film Festival and a member of the East Lansing City Council, said attendees do not need to be physicists or a scientist to understand or enjoy the film.
“It’s the greatest experiment to ever happen in the entire world — and we were a part of it,” Woods said.
Tickets for the screening can be purchased from the Studio C! website and cost $7 for students and $10 for the general public.
