Gateway Film Center Columbus, OH
Dr. John F. Beacom
Professor and Director, Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, Ohio State University
Particle Fever— The Large Hadron Collider
Program Description
A Q&A with a panel of Ohio State University experts in particle physics, some of whom actually worked on the Large Hadron Collider.
Presented At
Gateway Film Center Columbus, OH
Film Synopsis
As the Large Hadron Collider is about to be launched for the first time, physicists are on the cusp of the greatest scientific discovery of all time—or perhaps their greatest failure.
Particle Fever follows six brilliant scientists during the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, marking the start of the biggest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet, pushing the edge of human innovation. As they seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe, 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries joined forces in pursuit of a single goal: to recreate conditions that existed just moments after the Big Bang and find the Higgs boson, potentially explaining the origin of all matter. But our heroes confront an even bigger challenge: have we reached our limit in understanding why we exist?
About the Speaker
Dr. John F. Beacom is a professor and the director of the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics at Ohio State University. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1997. After spending three years as the Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech, he then worked at Fermilab in the Theoretical Astrophysics Group, before joining the faculty at OSU in 2004. His main research interests lie at the intersection of the fields of astrophysics, particle physics, and nuclear physics, concerning mostly neutrinos and the weak interactions.