This is an excellent portrayal of some of the personalities within the field of science that were involved with bringing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on line and those who were impacted by it's discoveries. Both the personal and career impacts are evident over this multi year effort. I found it entertaining. It's not a course on physics but displays some of the interactions of scientists and the drama with the process of getting the LHC up and running.

The additional material included with the DVD is excellent. I especially enjoyed the interviews with the scientists involved in this documentary.

ENJOY!!!

Very interesting. The story of CERN. The search for the "god particle". It tells of the effort of science to understand the universe and-or other universes. There is an obvious and evident bias against a Creator behind it all, but that is the way most scientists are today. Those who understand otherwise are weeded out by the process of advancement. There is also evidence that those who run these huge "scientific" processes may slant or withhold the unvarnished truth for public relations purposes. They know they have to achieve results which fit within a preconceived parameter in order to continue to be funded and have public support. Like all of the global warming manipulation of data to support a predetermined purpose, the same to some degree is shown in this film. I am sort of surprised that these subtle efforts were not deleted out, but glad they were not. True science, without bias toward the objective of the funders, really barely exists today. This is a very interesting look inside the theoretical vs experimental scientists views and how theory and results often do not match up and how that is handled by the individual minds involved. If you want to learn something do a little investigating on your own into the "goddess in the circle of stars statue" which they show several times in this film. It exhibits the world view behind this endeavor

The film follows the intense excitement amongst physicists leading up to the inauguration of the super particle collider at CERN, Switzerland, perhaps the most complex instrument and experiment that humans have yet conducted. It alternates between an insider's view by those experimental physicists at CERN who were involved in the engineering of this monumental machine for smashing particles together to create a situation as close to the birth of the universe in the Big Bang as possible & their counterpart theoretical physicists (mostly at Princeton) who are posing some of the mind-boggling questions that the CERN experiments would hopefully answer. Those questions: what is the fundamental nature of reality? Which of the various models of subatomic physics developed over the past century is correct? Does the evidence indicate that we live in one universe or that we are part of some inconceivably vast multiverse of infinite alternate universes? What are the limits of the human mind in both posing and answering these questions? The film is so well put together that one's attention is riveted throughout & there is no shortage of humor either in both the scientists who comment on the event nor in the ironic answers that the initial data coming out of these experiments seem to suggest. The film may work at an accessible level for the layman, but I saw it with a physicist friend and even he was impressed. A feast for all inquiring minds that is really not to be missed!

I first saw this on Netflix. A great look behind the scenes of cutting-edge physics.
Beautifully done.

The greatest attribute of this documentary is that it never makes you feel stupid, even if you remember the fact that all of the characters in this movie are particle physicists. People that dedicate themselves to something for 30 to 40 years of their lives are incredibly inspiring, whether they are rocket scientists or are inventing a new kind of sponge. Particle Fever is very inspiring and is shot and produced in a way that you would still be emotionally moved by this story if it were about canning tuna fish. It does not matter. These people are the real deal. Like the white lab-coat scientists you see in the first Jurassic Park, busy interrupting the cellular mitosis and completing the genetic code. My second favorite thing about Particle Fever is that it taught me just enough about what these physicists have been looking for all these years to quench my own curiosity of the subject. I know that I'll never understand the math. But I do understand a lot more about the questions these geniuses are trying to answer. And I was absolutely shocked to find that I had tears rolling down my face when they announced that the Large Hadron Collider had found the Higgs while Mr. Higgs was in the room. A standing ovation for the master who theorized the Higgs four decades before it was proven. Bravo!

This was a *very* interesting movie, if you're into things like physics and the story of the supercollider. :~) I will say that you don't have to be a particle physicist or even a scientist to understand the movie - but it does help if you're a bit of a geek.

It is a good movie. I really didn't learn much (because I already knew most of it) but enjoyed seeing great people and CERN scenery and the enthusiasm of the scientists. The high point of the movie is when the finely tuned beams finally get aligned in all four detectors and data begins to be accumulated. Then they play the anthem of the European Union, Beethoven! And the tears of Peter Higgs when the boson mass is announced! The primary lesson is that it came out in-between the two anticipated values and thus presented another mystery (TBD).

This is a very interesting documentary of the search for the Higgs Boson. The interviews with the different physicists are enlightening, and the photography gives one a feeling for the immensity of the machine that they created to find the boson.