Tiny, theoretical formulae have been making huge news lately, and not only on Wall Street. Scientists in Switzerland recently turned on the CERN Hadron Collider, a massive “atom smasher” with a 14-mile circumference designed for the express purpose of discovering the sub-atomic building block of the universe, dubbed the “god particle.” Unfortunately, CERN is glitchy and currently offline, which is likely cold comfort for their American counterparts at the Fermilab in Batavia, Ill. They’re the subject of The Atom Smashers, an engaging, smart, and often wryly humorous look at the men and women (and couples) who man the front lines of scientific discovery in an America where science is not only no longer “cool” but is actively being barred from political discourse. Such is the fate of these unsung, genuinely heroic scientists, as they race against time to beat their “competitive collaborators” in Europe while funding cuts and a potential Nobel Prize keep them working around thr clock. Smart like Einstein and cool like Einstein with his tongue sticking out, Clayton Brown’s tight doc may well be the only film you ever see that makes you long to be a particle physicist.
This article appears in October 17 • 2008.