the world wide web was developed to support communication about it. the 20 year project to build the Large Hadron Collider, the biggest and most expensive project in the history of the planet, was necessary to support it. 10,000 scientists from 100 countries came together for the one goal of recreating conditions as they existed just before the big bang. even though the film did a fine enough job of attempting to bring this big science down to the level of normal human beings, i still don't get it. i don't quite get why we want to know. but the film shows that scientists WANT TO KNOW. the excitement with which they discuss theoretical and experimental physics is contagious. the machine, located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, sped particles in two different circular directions and when they reached a fast enough level, it collided them. watching the faces of the scientists who have made this their life work, seeing the anxious anticipation as they awaited the collision, hearing the eruption of JOY when it happened and then following up with what it all means was riveting, even without totally understanding the meaning. it was this project that identified the long elusive Higgs Bosen sub atomic particle, the GOD particle, for which Peter Higgs ultimately won a Nobel Prize. The accelerator is shut down now for 2 years, but when it reopens, it will accelerate even faster and provide infinitely more data, which the scientists will use to further determine the origins of our universe and maybe the future of it as well. as one scientist put it: this film shows what it must have been like when thomas edison lit that light bulb for the very first time.
it was the most fascinating film i've seen for really not understanding much at all about the topic.
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