Particle Fever

The video above is a trailer of an upcoming documentary about CERN and the discovery of the Higgs particle. This documentary looks wonderful and important. CERN has triumphed again at outreach and is simply leagues ahead of basically everyone else in science when it comes to this sort of thing. If anyone is surprised or wonders how CERN is able to get such a relatively large sum of science funding (though only relative to other science funding) then don't be. This sort of thing matters and makes a difference. People care about CERN because they know about CERN and they know about CERN because documentaries like this are made, made well, marketed well and received well.

The documentary itself will be released March 5, in New York, and hopefully will be viewable in most major locations, eventually, after that.

My only gripe is that it is coming 18 months after the Higgs discovery. I know that part of the motivation for this is that people want to make sure the science is definitely true before disseminating it, otherwise things can become confusing for the less engaged viewer. However, in July 2012 those guys were reasonably sure that they'd found something. This research is owned as much by the public as it is by the researchers. CERN did do a great job on that day by holding press releases, announcing the discovery live, with live web-streams, and with public level discussions, at the moment, of what the implications were. And, of course, this is all great, and I love CERN for it. But maybe it can be done even better.

Here's (potentially) how...

This documentary will probably be reasonably widely viewed. It looks like it is potentially headed for some major awards and it is being reviewed very favourably by a bunch of major newspapers and film critics.

Imagine if the film had been released, and widely viewed, immediately prior to the discovery's announcement, and the climax of the film was all the researchers, scientists, students, engineers, and everyone involved in this experiment waiting, full of anticipation, not knowing the result. The viewer now has a reasonable understanding of what the researchers were looking for and how they were hoping to find it. Now everyone is waiting, full of anticipation, not knowing the result. Then, we cut to the actual, live, not even the majority of the scientists know the result, announcement of the detection. The general viewer will now share in this discovery, that their taxes paid for (and who's future taxes will pay for future experiments) in the moment.

That's not just great for science outreach, it is genuinely good theatre for everyone involved (even if there isn't a detection). But most importantly it allows this sharing of not just the result, but the acquisition of the result. The public feels like they were there, like they took part, like it is also their discovery. And, to bring back the bottom line, when funding is next being decided, they want to be able to contribute to, and participate in, more discoveries like this.

Instead, people could tune in to the discovery, and see the researchers and scientists, etc, and their excitement, without being able to share in it.

Having said all of that, 18 months isn't that long. So, when the documentary is released, go watch it, and remember that this stuff happened less than two years ago. This is the present.

Twitter: @just_shaun

Cosmological perturbations post-Planck (conference)

Helsinki, as it looked when the Planck data was released, less than three months ago. (Image credit: Samuel Flender's facbook photos)

Hello people reading this (present and distant future). Next week, we're hosting a conference here in Helsinki. On balance, I enjoyed covering the last conference I attended (it was demanding, but rewarding). So, I'll cover this one too. This means, each day I'll try to write a summary of what I found interesting during the day's talks.

The last conference was very observationally based. It was hosted by ESA and was the first scientific conference after ESA released data (measured by the Planck satellite) on the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. The conference next week will be quite different. Next week, we'll mostly be theorists. Of course, there really isn't a cold, hard, dividing line between a "theorist" and an "observer", but nonetheless, this conference will be much more focussed on what the measurements from Planck (and other past and future experiments) mean for the universe and its laws. Whereas that last conference also focussed on what it is Planck actually measured (and how they measured it).

This is quite exciting. Planck's release was something of a bombshell, even if this was just because it seemed to strongly confirm the simplest cosmological model that was designed to fit all the previous data. People weren't (aren't?) so content with that model, and were hoping/expecting for something new that might show us where to look to replace it. However, even if theorists aren't, it seems that Planck is content with the model.

The theoretical cosmology community has now had three months, a quarter of a year, to digest these results. So this conference will be interesting, even just at the very least to see how the community is dealing with the shell-shock from March. However, it will be more interesting to see what models look good, which don't, and where people have adjusted their attentions from and to in this three month period. Should we still be interested in exotic particles potentially being present in the early universe? What about "monopoles" and "domain walls"? What inflationary models are still appealing and which are on their way out? Why is everyone suddenly talking about primordial magnetic fields? If the universe is a little asymmetric, what caused the asymmetry?

That's the sort of thing to be looking out for next week!

Take a look at the programme for the conference. Whether you are a member of the general public or another cosmologist, if there is anything you see that you are interested in let me know and I'll make sure to pay particular attention to that talk and summarise it here afterwards. Absent from reader's suggestions I will write about the things I generally find interesting, anything that might have some sort of human interest value and things that get a lot of discussion (either during the talk, or afterwards). The more you interact (whether you are an expert or a member of the public), the closer to what you find interesting my blogging will be.

TEDx CERN

If you live in Helsinki come to our live webcast of the event. We will feed you.

I had intended to write today's post on anomalies in cosmology. Unfortunately, I have suffered a crisis of confidence and have decided to postpone such a post for the future. I now have both a bunch of notes on the topic, left over from the Planck conference and a half-written post, left over from the weekend. The topic is a bit controversial and when I publish some thoughts on it I want to be very careful and precise so as not to accidentally annoy anyone.

Instead, I will tell you quickly about a really cool event that is taking place this Friday.

CERN is hosting a TED-x event. What is that? Well, a TED-x event is similar to a TED event, except that it isn't organised by TED itself. It is only endorsed by TED. What is TED? OK, well, TED is an organisation that organises a set of conferences around the world. The theme of the conferences is "ideas worth spreading" and speakers are given quite short time slots (typically less then twenty minutes) to express these ideas. Consequently the talks are often very fascinating as the speakers are forced to only say what really matters, leaving all the superfluous details aside. At the main TED events the speakers are also almost universally very good at giving talks, so the quality is high.

George Smoot, the host of the webcast/show. He has also been awarded one of the most illustrious honours any scientist can, a Nobel Prize guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory.

In fact, the TED realm of YouTube is one of the most dangerous black-holes of procrastination you can find. The shortness of the talks, combined with how interesting and intellectually stimulating they are is like the perfect storm of procrastination conditions. They don't last long enough for you to think that watching just one more is a problem. They are interesting, so you don't get bored. And they stimulate your mind so you don't even feel like you're using your time poorly (always my biggest procrastination danger). Then, half the day has gone.

Anyway, I have been making an analogy between science and sports in my mind for a long time now, and first wrote about it here more than a year ago. I really think that there is the potential for fundamental research to be as popular in today's society as sports is. Seriously! You might wonder why, if this is true, science isn't as popular as sports. Football matches fill out arenas and tennis players earn millions each year, entirely from the private sector throwing money at them to do nothing that is even remotely productive, yet even the highest profile fundamental research event of 2012, the discovery of the Higgs particle, was only front page news for a day.