CERN at 70: how the Higgs hunt elevated particle physics to Hollywood status

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God, it was it was one of the

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most exciting days of my life

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by far.

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He's out there in terms of all of

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the best experiences

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That's doctor Archinti Arana recounting her time at

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CERN at the time of the announcement of

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the discovery

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of the Higgs boson.

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Welcome along to the Physics World Stories podcast.

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I'm Andrew Lester. And today, we'll be talking

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to 2 of the people who've been working

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in communications

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at CERN as it celebrates its 70th birth.

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Later, we'll hear from James Gillies on how

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his role of head of comms at CERN

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gave him the opportunity

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to meet filmmakers,

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actors, and be at the heart of things

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with some of the most amazing particle physics

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stories

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of recent history. But first, let's get back

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to doctor

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Achinthia Rao.

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I was working in the CMS communications group

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at the time, and we knew the CMS

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result.

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We didn't know the ATLAS result. The ATLAS

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researchers didn't know the CMS result. I think

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the only person who knew both sets of

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results,

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maybe their respective spokespersons

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and

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Rolf Heuer, who is the the director general

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of CERN at the time.

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So we were preparing our public communications

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because we had to have

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something on our website that described the research

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and the results

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in terms that could be understood by people

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who aren't experts.

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And we had also translated that statement into

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about 20 languages within the collaboration itself.

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So I was there working on the site,

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putting up the latest figures that we're getting

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as more data was still, you know, being

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crunched at the last minute, and figures were

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being updated for aesthetic reasons, for accuracy reasons,

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all of this stuff, running up and down

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2 floors between my office to the spokesperson's

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office to get

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have him send me the latest figures and

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whatnot. It was really exciting. I was at

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CERN until

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very late that night. I think I left

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it left,

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quarter past midnight or something to go home.

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I think I caught the last tram available

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to go back home.

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Barely slept, got in the next

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morning, bright and early for the for the

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seminar. The seminar was starting outrageously

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early

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because it was jointly organized by the,

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ICHEP conference, the International Conference of High Energy

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Physics that was taking place in Melbourne. They

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wanted to present the results at the conference,

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but they also didn't want the results to

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be presented away from CERN because all of

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CERN's big discoveries had been announced at CERN.

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So there was this hybrid nature of the

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conference where in Melbourne, there was this auditorium

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full of people that were watching the live

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stream coming out of and we had an

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auditorium full of people who were there as

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well.

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And journalists in the next room, press conference,

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whatnot. So

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Yeah. I was in the I was in

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the room next to where the announcement was

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happening, preparing our website for going live. That

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was the room where the press conference was

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held. I mean,

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all of this is known to the world.

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It was just

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it was so

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fascinating, and there was this huge sense of

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relief.

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Often the talks happen,

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often the applause, after having the people who

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ended up winning the Nobel Prize, Peter Higgs

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and and,

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Francois Englert speak.

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You had the press conference with the spokespersons

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of the experiments, the directors, the leading the

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heads of the accelerator divisions and so forth.

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We went out for lunch and it was

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just the most

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release

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that you could feel

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rippling across the entire laboratory.

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I don't remember what I ate. I think

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it was pizzas or something, but

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we just all went and sat down and

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had this massive sense of release, not relief,

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just this

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this bent up excitement that had come to

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a head on day

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and then that just that relaxation that wow.

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This is done. This is monumental. Soak it

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in.

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This is a special day

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for humanity, for our for for us as

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a species having discovered this.

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I don't think I got much work done

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the rest of the day, I'll be honest.

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I can imagine. But, yeah, it was it

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was such a lovely day. There's just smiles

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all around. Like, everywhere you look, you know,

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you usually see people smiling, and you don't

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always see people smiling all the time at

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a laboratory environment where people are always thinking

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about their work and there's lots going on

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and stuff. There were just smiles everywhere and

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just this general sense of joy, it was

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beautiful.

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For a few years between 2010

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and 2021,

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I worked,

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as a science communicator in various capacities at

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CERN,

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which was which was also very enjoyable.

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So how did that come about? How did

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you end up at CERN?

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Entirely

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serendipitously.

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There was no,

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intention, and sometimes things just end up working

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out for you, and I was really, really

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fortunate that it did. I was doing a

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master's in science journalism at City University London

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at the time, and 2010, if you remember,

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was the year that the, Large Hadron Collider

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had been switched on.

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Well, it had its proper sort of physics

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collisions taking place because they had tried to

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switch it on in 2,008, and there was

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a slight incident with

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a very small amount of resistance building up

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in one of the connections

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around the the ring of the accelerator,

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which caused buildup of heat and then caused

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like an explosive leak of gases.

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So they spent about a year or so

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repairing it. In 2010, March was the was

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the moment when they switched it back on,

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and they had collisions and stuff. And so

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we were a group of science journalism students,

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and we were really excited by this. And

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we were in London at the time, so

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we got in touch with CERN and said,

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can we just come

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as journalism assigned to journalism students and and

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sort of learn about the work that you

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do? So we just went as tourists effectively

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on a on a guided tour of CERN,

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where in fact, a large part of the

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tour was organized by James Gillies,

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who was head of communications at CERN at

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the time.

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And over the course of the day, we

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met loads of people, and one of them,

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Dave Barney, who was

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in charge of communications and outreach for CMS

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at the time.

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He for CMS is one of the 4

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big,

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particle physics experiments that are based at the

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Large Hadron Collider. And he just happened to

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mention that they were looking for a science

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writer and that any of us interested should

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apply, so I did, and I was very

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fortunate to have been chosen.

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And then I stayed with CMS for seven

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and a half years, and then I moved

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to the central communications

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team for the last 3 years that I

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was at. Okay. And during that time, there

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was a discovery? There was a very interesting

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discovery. I think it happened to capture,

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attention from all around the globe. This was,

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of course, the discovery of the Higgs boson,

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which your listeners might be familiar with.

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And, yeah, I was really fortunate to be

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there and sort of, you know, not being

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a physicist myself, have the great privilege of

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sticking my face up to the glass

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and observing everything that was happening. I was

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embedded within the lab as the discovery was

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unfolding, and it was it's a very exciting

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time. Yeah. But what did you see then

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when you got your face pressed up against

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the glass? Well, one of the things that

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was very

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new for me to learn when I first

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moved to CERN was

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was

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the duration that it takes for you to

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attain a discovery.

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This isn't something where you put 2 sort

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of

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different droplets of chemicals into a test tube

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and it goes a certain color and you

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know you found something new. This is statistical

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accumulation of a large amount of data

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and through the examination of that data that

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is gathered over years, you might end up

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seeing a signal that corresponds to a prediction

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that has been made in theory.

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So

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one of the things I learned was that

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it takes these things take time. So I

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joined in 2010 about 6 months after they

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had started recording collisions at

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the at the Large Hadron Collider. I was

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working on CMS.

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CMS and ATLAS were the 2 big detectors

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that eventually found the Higgs boson,

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and

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I could see the interest building. At the

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time, there were loads of different Higgs analysis

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groups that were all devoted

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to Higgs searches.

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Since then, obviously, some of those Higgs analysis

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groups have evolved to Higgs measurements now that

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we know that the particle exists. But back

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then, it was just this excitement of searching

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for the Higgs boson and looking for signals

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and sort of recognizing that things would take

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time, but how can we get there faster?

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How can we get there more efficiently?

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And this was a combination of

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the teams performing

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the experimental teams performing better than they'd expected

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with their detectors

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because initially when they had been conceptualized,

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there were certain limitations around how quickly they

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could they could record data, how much data

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they could record, how long would it take

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to analyze the data and so forth. And

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these were the boundaries that the researchers were

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really really really keen on pushing

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and at the same time the accelerator

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which, you know, most powerful accelerator in the

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world, but it's still a prototype.

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Like, there isn't one that you've built before,

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tested it, perfected it, and then built the

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actual one. Your main

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piece of equipment is your is the prototype

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as well. So the accelerator engineers were learning

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just how to crank up the performance of

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the machine

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in order to deliver even more collisions per

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second.

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And then the experiments had to respond to

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that by saying, oh, if you're giving us

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more collisions per second, we have to have

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the capacity to process more collisions per second

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because it's sort of like, you know, looking

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at multiple,

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things happening in a photograph. If you want

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to capture each of the multiple things, you

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really need to slow down the the photograph,

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the the rate at which you're taking photographs

275
00:09:24,009 --> 00:09:25,850
and take lots of them. If you just

276
00:09:25,850 --> 00:09:28,169
take one long exposure photograph, you'll see all

277
00:09:28,169 --> 00:09:29,514
of the things happening at once and you

278
00:09:29,514 --> 00:09:30,575
won't be able to tell

279
00:09:30,955 --> 00:09:32,634
pull up the pull the images apart to

280
00:09:32,634 --> 00:09:34,794
identify each of the individual signals that you're

281
00:09:34,794 --> 00:09:35,570
trying to study.

282
00:09:36,450 --> 00:09:37,970
So, yeah, you can give the accelerator can

283
00:09:37,970 --> 00:09:39,730
give all the collisions they want to. Can

284
00:09:39,730 --> 00:09:42,470
the can the can the experiments and detectors

285
00:09:42,690 --> 00:09:44,235
respond to it? So it was all this

286
00:09:44,235 --> 00:09:46,014
work that was happening, and there were some

287
00:09:46,554 --> 00:09:48,075
sort of early signs in,

288
00:09:49,434 --> 00:09:50,174
in 2011

289
00:09:51,199 --> 00:09:53,679
where both CMS and ATLAS began to see

290
00:09:53,679 --> 00:09:55,299
an excess in their data

291
00:09:56,480 --> 00:09:58,085
that happened to be in the same range.

292
00:09:58,085 --> 00:09:59,605
That's when you start getting excited. I mean,

293
00:09:59,605 --> 00:10:01,285
these excesses can go away even if they're

294
00:10:01,285 --> 00:10:03,144
in the same range. Nature is nothing,

295
00:10:04,325 --> 00:10:06,559
if not, you know, playful at time. Like,

296
00:10:06,559 --> 00:10:09,200
you could just statistically end up seeing excesses

297
00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:11,040
in the same place in your data that

298
00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:12,179
correspond to a signal,

299
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:13,940
and then they can evaporate.

300
00:10:14,764 --> 00:10:16,524
But they happen to see something exciting, and

301
00:10:16,524 --> 00:10:18,924
that was when people at CERN, you know,

302
00:10:18,924 --> 00:10:21,004
the experimental team really began to get you

303
00:10:21,004 --> 00:10:23,004
could you could sense the excitement ramping up.

304
00:10:23,004 --> 00:10:25,220
You could sense the feelings of we might

305
00:10:25,220 --> 00:10:26,840
have something after about,

306
00:10:27,299 --> 00:10:29,860
what, 60 years of waiting, we might have

307
00:10:29,860 --> 00:10:32,899
something. But were there, like, conversations happening in

308
00:10:32,899 --> 00:10:33,559
the cafeteria

309
00:10:34,144 --> 00:10:35,745
Or was it literally you could see people

310
00:10:35,745 --> 00:10:36,965
getting used to it?

311
00:10:38,865 --> 00:10:40,784
So part of being part of being that

312
00:10:40,784 --> 00:10:42,705
sort of non physicist with my face pressed

313
00:10:42,705 --> 00:10:44,470
up against the glass being embedded in the

314
00:10:44,470 --> 00:10:45,990
organization was the fact that I could attend

315
00:10:45,990 --> 00:10:46,570
the meetings

316
00:10:47,110 --> 00:10:48,889
where they were presenting these things internally.

317
00:10:49,429 --> 00:10:49,929
Now,

318
00:10:50,684 --> 00:10:52,785
listeners might not entirely know how

319
00:10:53,565 --> 00:10:55,725
the the the entire structure of the experiments

320
00:10:55,725 --> 00:10:56,625
at CERN is,

321
00:10:58,320 --> 00:10:59,860
but CMS and ATLAS,

322
00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:02,740
the 2 so called general purpose detectors,

323
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,705
are designed entirely differently. They're looking to study

324
00:11:06,705 --> 00:11:08,085
the same physics signatures,

325
00:11:08,465 --> 00:11:08,965
but

326
00:11:09,504 --> 00:11:11,024
the last thing you want to do is

327
00:11:11,024 --> 00:11:13,425
build build an identical detector and put it

328
00:11:13,425 --> 00:11:14,865
in 2 places. So if you see a

329
00:11:14,865 --> 00:11:15,365
signal,

330
00:11:15,940 --> 00:11:17,539
well, you don't know if it's nature showing

331
00:11:17,539 --> 00:11:19,240
you something new or it's just

332
00:11:19,620 --> 00:11:22,179
an anomaly in the same hardware that's now

333
00:11:22,179 --> 00:11:24,855
in 2 locations. So CMS and Atlas, completely

334
00:11:24,855 --> 00:11:27,674
different designs operated by entirely independent teams.

335
00:11:29,254 --> 00:11:31,095
They don't share their data with them on

336
00:11:31,254 --> 00:11:33,040
with each other until they've seen something, and

337
00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:35,200
there's always competition because CMS wants to get

338
00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:37,200
to a new measurement first. Atlas wants to

339
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:39,360
get to a even more accurate measurement after

340
00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:40,745
that or something like that. You know? There's

341
00:11:40,745 --> 00:11:41,965
this constant tussle.

342
00:11:42,585 --> 00:11:43,085
So

343
00:11:43,865 --> 00:11:45,884
in that sense, you had

344
00:11:46,664 --> 00:11:48,024
when I was in these meetings, they were

345
00:11:48,024 --> 00:11:50,889
internal meetings, it was CMS meetings, and they're

346
00:11:50,889 --> 00:11:53,129
very procedural, like, it takes a really long

347
00:11:53,129 --> 00:11:54,970
time to get to the point where you

348
00:11:54,970 --> 00:11:56,269
can say we found something.

349
00:11:56,809 --> 00:11:59,149
Each analysis group has to discuss,

350
00:11:59,705 --> 00:12:01,705
are we able to separate the signal of

351
00:12:01,705 --> 00:12:03,625
2 photons that might have emerged from the

352
00:12:03,625 --> 00:12:04,445
same interaction

353
00:12:04,985 --> 00:12:07,065
from sort of random photons that are produced

354
00:12:07,065 --> 00:12:10,040
or photons coming from different interactions that might

355
00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:11,820
not be corresponding to the Higgs.

356
00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:14,139
How good is your detector at isolating

357
00:12:15,424 --> 00:12:18,065
electrons and muons and sort of joining them

358
00:12:18,065 --> 00:12:20,004
up to the point at which the collision

359
00:12:20,144 --> 00:12:20,884
took place?

360
00:12:21,985 --> 00:12:24,144
All of these things require study because once

361
00:12:24,144 --> 00:12:27,360
again, the detectors are prototyped as well. So

362
00:12:27,660 --> 00:12:29,100
the 1st few months were a lot of

363
00:12:29,100 --> 00:12:31,120
understanding how your machine works, rediscovering

364
00:12:32,134 --> 00:12:33,675
signals of the standard model

365
00:12:34,375 --> 00:12:36,455
that had been found over 60 years. You're

366
00:12:36,455 --> 00:12:38,215
trying to rediscover everything in the space of

367
00:12:38,215 --> 00:12:39,495
6 months and said, right, we can see

368
00:12:39,495 --> 00:12:40,634
all the predicted

369
00:12:40,959 --> 00:12:42,879
signatures, the particles that had been discovered over

370
00:12:42,879 --> 00:12:44,240
the course of half a decade we found

371
00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:45,379
back in half a year.

372
00:12:45,919 --> 00:12:47,539
And then in those internal meetings,

373
00:12:48,884 --> 00:12:50,485
there was just a sense of, you know,

374
00:12:50,485 --> 00:12:50,985
occasionally

375
00:12:51,445 --> 00:12:52,985
excitement, occasionally frustration,

376
00:12:53,925 --> 00:12:54,425
occasionally

377
00:12:55,205 --> 00:12:57,445
very heated discussions. Why can't we do this

378
00:12:57,445 --> 00:12:59,950
better? People won't accept it if we publish

379
00:12:59,950 --> 00:13:02,429
something with the these these values. We need

380
00:13:02,429 --> 00:13:04,590
to really tweak the statistics here and this,

381
00:13:04,590 --> 00:13:05,889
that, and the other. And

382
00:13:07,274 --> 00:13:10,154
when you're in a massive collaboration with 2

383
00:13:10,154 --> 00:13:11,995
and a half 1000 people signing every research

384
00:13:11,995 --> 00:13:13,754
paper, there are lots of people with diverse

385
00:13:13,754 --> 00:13:14,254
expertises.

386
00:13:15,199 --> 00:13:17,360
And all of those expertises have to combine

387
00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:19,279
together in order for you to achieve something.

388
00:13:19,279 --> 00:13:21,279
And so those meetings are very exciting. But,

389
00:13:21,279 --> 00:13:23,059
you know, the last sort of 6 months,

390
00:13:23,664 --> 00:13:25,904
that was where you could sense, right, something

391
00:13:25,904 --> 00:13:26,644
is happening.

392
00:13:27,904 --> 00:13:28,404
Okay.

393
00:13:28,784 --> 00:13:30,324
The reason it was discovered

394
00:13:30,784 --> 00:13:31,524
is because

395
00:13:32,330 --> 00:13:35,050
they tweaked it. They tweaked the Large Hadron

396
00:13:35,050 --> 00:13:36,670
Collider. They tweaked the detectors

397
00:13:37,210 --> 00:13:38,750
to a point where they were going

398
00:13:39,129 --> 00:13:40,975
to detect it. It was always there.

399
00:13:41,434 --> 00:13:44,235
The particles were always being created or is

400
00:13:44,235 --> 00:13:48,254
it particular Well, they they improved the performance

401
00:13:48,315 --> 00:13:50,529
in order to find it sooner than one

402
00:13:50,529 --> 00:13:52,389
would have expected at the start.

403
00:13:52,929 --> 00:13:55,089
They they didn't have to fine tune it

404
00:13:55,089 --> 00:13:57,490
in order to produce it itself, but they

405
00:13:57,490 --> 00:13:58,149
had to

406
00:13:58,664 --> 00:14:00,985
increase the rate at which you would produce

407
00:14:00,985 --> 00:14:02,504
them so that you will see the signal

408
00:14:02,504 --> 00:14:04,284
sooner. So what happens at

409
00:14:05,225 --> 00:14:07,160
at a particle accelerator, and you'll have to

410
00:14:07,160 --> 00:14:10,040
forgive me for both simplifying this for you

411
00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:12,279
and for myself largely because my understanding of

412
00:14:12,279 --> 00:14:12,940
it is

413
00:14:13,559 --> 00:14:15,320
as that of a of a layperson from

414
00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:17,674
the outside, but what happens is when you

415
00:14:17,674 --> 00:14:20,235
collide 2 protons together it's the components of

416
00:14:20,235 --> 00:14:22,315
the protons, the quarks, and the gluons within

417
00:14:22,315 --> 00:14:24,074
that interact that are the ones that are

418
00:14:24,074 --> 00:14:24,894
actually colliding

419
00:14:25,620 --> 00:14:26,360
And because

420
00:14:27,220 --> 00:14:29,379
you could have any combination of these things

421
00:14:29,379 --> 00:14:31,700
colliding, you cannot predict the exact energy at

422
00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:33,139
which the collision takes place. So you have

423
00:14:33,139 --> 00:14:35,154
a center of mass energy, but then

424
00:14:35,555 --> 00:14:36,295
you could have

425
00:14:36,995 --> 00:14:38,835
2 bottom quarks interacting, you could have an

426
00:14:38,835 --> 00:14:40,274
up and a down and there's also different

427
00:14:40,274 --> 00:14:41,575
combinations that can happen.

428
00:14:41,955 --> 00:14:44,129
You can have gluons fusing together to form

429
00:14:44,129 --> 00:14:45,970
a Higgs boson as well, all of this

430
00:14:45,970 --> 00:14:48,850
can happen. So when we talk about tweaking

431
00:14:48,850 --> 00:14:49,509
the performance

432
00:14:49,809 --> 00:14:51,829
what you want to do as an accelerator

433
00:14:52,049 --> 00:14:52,549
engineer

434
00:14:53,125 --> 00:14:56,004
is to squeeze the bunches of protons as

435
00:14:56,004 --> 00:14:57,384
tightly as you can

436
00:14:58,004 --> 00:14:59,684
so that you can increase the amount of

437
00:14:59,684 --> 00:15:01,684
them smashing into each other when the 2

438
00:15:01,684 --> 00:15:02,840
bunches cross.

439
00:15:03,220 --> 00:15:04,980
So you have a couple of 1,000 bunches

440
00:15:04,980 --> 00:15:07,799
of protons. Each bunch has a 100,000,000,000

441
00:15:08,259 --> 00:15:09,240
protons in it.

442
00:15:09,754 --> 00:15:11,615
They're all sort of flying around the accelerator.

443
00:15:11,754 --> 00:15:13,514
And when they pass through the detectors, they're

444
00:15:13,514 --> 00:15:15,535
squeezed together into tight bunches

445
00:15:16,235 --> 00:15:18,809
so that when the bunches cross, a handful

446
00:15:19,110 --> 00:15:20,949
will hit each other. And it's really a

447
00:15:20,949 --> 00:15:22,889
small amount because when you have a 100,000,000,000,

448
00:15:24,549 --> 00:15:26,709
150,000,000,000 particles in each bunch, at least you

449
00:15:26,709 --> 00:15:27,610
had at the time,

450
00:15:28,054 --> 00:15:28,795
That's one

451
00:15:29,175 --> 00:15:30,875
with 11 zeros after it.

452
00:15:32,134 --> 00:15:34,394
And then about 30 will hit each other.

453
00:15:34,615 --> 00:15:36,409
So it's a very tiny amounts. You wanna

454
00:15:36,409 --> 00:15:37,929
squeeze that to the point where those are

455
00:15:37,929 --> 00:15:38,429
colliding.

456
00:15:39,370 --> 00:15:40,909
And if that number increases,

457
00:15:41,370 --> 00:15:43,370
then the detectors have to start taking those

458
00:15:43,370 --> 00:15:43,870
multiple

459
00:15:44,214 --> 00:15:46,534
rapid photographs so that they can capture each

460
00:15:46,534 --> 00:15:49,654
of the 30, 40, 50 simultaneous collisions that

461
00:15:49,654 --> 00:15:50,554
are taking place.

462
00:15:50,934 --> 00:15:52,214
So that's what you mean in terms of

463
00:15:52,214 --> 00:15:54,519
improving the the performance so that by having

464
00:15:54,519 --> 00:15:56,759
more collisions per second, you can gather more

465
00:15:56,759 --> 00:15:57,259
data,

466
00:15:58,039 --> 00:16:00,120
which is a challenge in itself because where

467
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:01,879
do you store the data? So data storage

468
00:16:01,879 --> 00:16:03,259
becomes a challenge. Data

469
00:16:03,705 --> 00:16:05,865
transfer becomes a challenge. There's lots of challenges

470
00:16:05,865 --> 00:16:07,644
associated with it. So you had to have

471
00:16:07,945 --> 00:16:10,664
technology, computing abilities, the way in which you

472
00:16:10,664 --> 00:16:13,639
write the software to record each collision?

473
00:16:14,500 --> 00:16:16,659
How can you minimize the amount of storage

474
00:16:16,659 --> 00:16:18,500
data you need to capture all the necessary

475
00:16:18,500 --> 00:16:20,840
information? You need to tweak your computing

476
00:16:21,565 --> 00:16:23,325
capabilities as well. So all of this was

477
00:16:23,325 --> 00:16:24,845
happening. All of these tweaks were being done.

478
00:16:24,845 --> 00:16:26,465
These improvements were being done

479
00:16:26,845 --> 00:16:29,345
in order for both CMS and Atlas to

480
00:16:29,799 --> 00:16:31,500
see the Higgs before the other.

481
00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:32,940
Okay.

482
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:35,100
And so then we get to this moment,

483
00:16:35,559 --> 00:16:38,139
sort of 6 months out Yeah. And

484
00:16:38,845 --> 00:16:40,365
are you allowed to talk about it with

485
00:16:40,365 --> 00:16:41,345
people at that moment?

486
00:16:41,965 --> 00:16:44,605
So that that's a good good question. So

487
00:16:44,605 --> 00:16:47,504
what happened in December 2011

488
00:16:48,230 --> 00:16:48,730
was

489
00:16:49,509 --> 00:16:51,590
okay. So the thing is every year, CERN

490
00:16:51,590 --> 00:16:53,370
organizes an end of year seminar.

491
00:16:54,230 --> 00:16:56,169
This is where all the big research research

492
00:16:56,355 --> 00:16:58,195
collaborations are brought together. Usually, I mean, the

493
00:16:58,195 --> 00:16:59,394
last few years, it has been it just

494
00:16:59,394 --> 00:17:01,075
focused on the Large Hadron Collider, which is

495
00:17:01,075 --> 00:17:01,735
a flagship

496
00:17:03,235 --> 00:17:04,695
machine, at at CERN.

497
00:17:05,140 --> 00:17:06,980
So they bring together all the research collaborations

498
00:17:06,980 --> 00:17:08,740
to come and present their results to the

499
00:17:08,740 --> 00:17:11,380
CERN council, to the member states, to all

500
00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:12,835
of the researchers around the lab.

501
00:17:14,034 --> 00:17:15,174
And that was when

502
00:17:15,554 --> 00:17:16,694
December 2011,

503
00:17:17,075 --> 00:17:19,335
6 months before this the actual discovery,

504
00:17:20,034 --> 00:17:22,375
was when CMS and ATLAS both showed

505
00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:25,680
bumps in the data, signs that there's something

506
00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:26,180
there.

507
00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:28,900
And this was meant to be an internal

508
00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:31,804
seminar sort of delivered to the community.

509
00:17:32,105 --> 00:17:32,605
Right?

510
00:17:33,065 --> 00:17:35,544
And because CERN I know today we're all

511
00:17:35,544 --> 00:17:38,265
used to Zoom and webinars and online seminars

512
00:17:38,265 --> 00:17:40,279
and stuff, but CERN has been doing video

513
00:17:40,279 --> 00:17:42,200
conferencing since the nineties, which it has had

514
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:44,039
to do because of the distributed nature of

515
00:17:44,039 --> 00:17:46,759
researchers who are participating in the endeavor from

516
00:17:46,759 --> 00:17:47,819
all across the globe.

517
00:17:48,515 --> 00:17:49,015
So

518
00:17:49,474 --> 00:17:51,474
they had set up a a live stream.

519
00:17:51,474 --> 00:17:52,835
They used to live stream it onto the

520
00:17:52,835 --> 00:17:53,335
website

521
00:17:54,835 --> 00:17:57,049
so that other members of the research community,

522
00:17:57,049 --> 00:17:58,809
you know, those who are located in Asia

523
00:17:58,809 --> 00:18:00,730
and the rest of Europe and in in

524
00:18:00,730 --> 00:18:03,769
the Americas could all participate in it and

525
00:18:03,769 --> 00:18:05,744
and just sort of see the results, see

526
00:18:05,744 --> 00:18:06,644
the the research.

527
00:18:07,265 --> 00:18:09,025
And CERN has had this tradition of openness,

528
00:18:09,025 --> 00:18:11,765
so that was never behind, like, an authentication

529
00:18:11,825 --> 00:18:13,025
wall. You do not have to be a

530
00:18:13,025 --> 00:18:14,419
member of CERN to see it. You do

531
00:18:14,419 --> 00:18:15,779
not have to log in to see it.

532
00:18:15,779 --> 00:18:18,019
Anyone could go and see these web webinars

533
00:18:18,019 --> 00:18:18,919
as they were happening.

534
00:18:19,859 --> 00:18:21,000
And it so happened

535
00:18:21,755 --> 00:18:23,454
that word had gotten out

536
00:18:23,914 --> 00:18:25,835
that CMS and Atlas had started to see

537
00:18:25,835 --> 00:18:26,335
something.

538
00:18:27,994 --> 00:18:29,914
And so all of this was targeting the

539
00:18:29,914 --> 00:18:30,414
community

540
00:18:30,789 --> 00:18:33,109
of, you know, a few 1,000, tens of

541
00:18:33,109 --> 00:18:35,350
1,000, couple of, you know, 20,000 or so

542
00:18:35,350 --> 00:18:35,850
people

543
00:18:36,630 --> 00:18:38,309
of whom a handful would actually watch the

544
00:18:38,309 --> 00:18:40,330
thing live, several would be at certain, etcetera.

545
00:18:41,095 --> 00:18:41,595
Suddenly,

546
00:18:42,455 --> 00:18:44,695
the infrastructure was overwhelmed by the number of

547
00:18:44,695 --> 00:18:46,154
people who were tuning in,

548
00:18:46,535 --> 00:18:48,375
and the web stream actually went down. I

549
00:18:48,375 --> 00:18:49,575
was in India at the time. I was

550
00:18:49,575 --> 00:18:50,474
visiting family,

551
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:52,440
and I was trying to watch it from

552
00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:52,940
my

553
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:56,039
ancestral hometown on a very poor 3 g

554
00:18:56,039 --> 00:18:57,480
network at the time, and I was getting

555
00:18:57,480 --> 00:18:58,779
really excited by it.

556
00:19:00,184 --> 00:19:01,325
So from then on

557
00:19:02,184 --> 00:19:03,945
could you talk about it, you could talk

558
00:19:03,945 --> 00:19:05,465
about the fact that there were bumps in

559
00:19:05,465 --> 00:19:07,085
the data for both collaborations,

560
00:19:08,089 --> 00:19:10,250
What what more could you say? You can't

561
00:19:10,250 --> 00:19:12,250
really say we have started doing this analysis

562
00:19:12,250 --> 00:19:14,410
with these things. You can't you can't openly

563
00:19:14,410 --> 00:19:16,509
share what specifics you're working on.

564
00:19:17,394 --> 00:19:19,414
And so the analysis proceeded,

565
00:19:20,115 --> 00:19:22,195
Atlas were doing their analysis, ACM was doing

566
00:19:22,195 --> 00:19:22,934
their analysis,

567
00:19:23,634 --> 00:19:26,460
and come sort of April, May, that's when

568
00:19:26,460 --> 00:19:27,359
you start realizing,

569
00:19:28,220 --> 00:19:28,960
the data

570
00:19:29,579 --> 00:19:31,180
are building up to the point where we

571
00:19:31,180 --> 00:19:32,720
might have statistically

572
00:19:33,259 --> 00:19:33,759
significant

573
00:19:34,140 --> 00:19:34,640
bumps

574
00:19:35,205 --> 00:19:35,945
in the data.

575
00:19:37,205 --> 00:19:40,325
But another fascinating complete this this completely fascinated

576
00:19:40,325 --> 00:19:42,485
me when I was there. Another fascinating thing

577
00:19:42,485 --> 00:19:44,345
that researchers do in

578
00:19:45,910 --> 00:19:47,910
in particle physics is they do something that

579
00:19:47,910 --> 00:19:49,769
is known as a blind analysis.

580
00:19:50,150 --> 00:19:52,090
They should call it blinds analysis,

581
00:19:52,995 --> 00:19:55,475
but essentially you draw blinds over the data

582
00:19:55,475 --> 00:19:56,835
or the region of the data that you're

583
00:19:56,835 --> 00:19:58,355
interested in. So you have a spread of

584
00:19:58,355 --> 00:20:00,515
data. You have you're essentially stacking up a

585
00:20:00,515 --> 00:20:01,015
histogram.

586
00:20:01,630 --> 00:20:03,950
So on your x axis, the horizontal axis,

587
00:20:03,950 --> 00:20:06,350
you have mass range, and on the y

588
00:20:06,350 --> 00:20:07,870
axis, you have number of data points that

589
00:20:07,870 --> 00:20:09,825
you have collected at each mass range. So

590
00:20:09,825 --> 00:20:11,984
the mass range that you're interested in, that's

591
00:20:11,984 --> 00:20:13,605
the one that is covered in blinds,

592
00:20:13,904 --> 00:20:15,744
you can't see it, so you apply all

593
00:20:15,744 --> 00:20:17,744
of your analysis to the regions lying on

594
00:20:17,744 --> 00:20:18,565
either side

595
00:20:19,130 --> 00:20:20,349
of that mass range

596
00:20:20,970 --> 00:20:22,569
and you do all of your tweaks of

597
00:20:22,569 --> 00:20:23,390
your performance,

598
00:20:24,650 --> 00:20:27,434
your analysis methods, all of those tweaks happen

599
00:20:27,494 --> 00:20:29,755
not in the range that you're interested in.

600
00:20:29,815 --> 00:20:30,875
And when you're satisfied

601
00:20:31,894 --> 00:20:34,875
with the analysis in the outlying ranges,

602
00:20:35,410 --> 00:20:38,450
you then apply that analysis to the blinded

603
00:20:38,450 --> 00:20:39,750
region. It's called the unblinding.

604
00:20:41,009 --> 00:20:42,869
And then whatever you get, you get.

605
00:20:43,634 --> 00:20:45,735
You cannot unblind it, see that the statistical

606
00:20:45,795 --> 00:20:47,394
significance has dropped, and then say, oh, back

607
00:20:47,394 --> 00:20:48,994
to the drawing board. You you you just

608
00:20:48,994 --> 00:20:50,375
need fresh data at that point.

609
00:20:50,835 --> 00:20:53,669
So once you have confidence as a researcher

610
00:20:53,669 --> 00:20:55,509
and you as, you know, there's approval processes

611
00:20:55,509 --> 00:20:56,950
that you have to go through at at

612
00:20:56,950 --> 00:20:59,269
each of the collaborations that can take days

613
00:20:59,269 --> 00:21:00,329
weeks to get there.

614
00:21:01,005 --> 00:21:03,164
You apply you do your analysis on either

615
00:21:03,164 --> 00:21:05,505
side of your interested data,

616
00:21:05,884 --> 00:21:07,325
and then you apply it to the data

617
00:21:07,325 --> 00:21:08,065
of interest.

618
00:21:08,559 --> 00:21:10,179
That's called an unblinding process.

619
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:12,500
So I went and filmed that

620
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:15,545
for CMS. I went and filmed that, and

621
00:21:15,625 --> 00:21:17,384
this research is done by people from all

622
00:21:17,384 --> 00:21:18,984
around the world, and we had a a

623
00:21:18,984 --> 00:21:21,465
young, student from China. She was a I

624
00:21:21,465 --> 00:21:22,744
think she was a doctoral student at the

625
00:21:22,744 --> 00:21:24,440
time. I can't remember now. But she was

626
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:25,980
the one who was presenting the unblinding,

627
00:21:26,839 --> 00:21:28,519
and she got really excited because this was

628
00:21:28,519 --> 00:21:29,480
a point in which, you know, this is

629
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:31,480
a 2 photon signature of the Higgs boson.

630
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:34,105
So the Higgs boson produced and then transforms

631
00:21:34,105 --> 00:21:36,444
into 2 particles of light, 2 photons,

632
00:21:37,304 --> 00:21:39,304
collect lots of data to see whether the

633
00:21:39,304 --> 00:21:41,404
photons are resonating at a certain

634
00:21:41,730 --> 00:21:43,029
energy, at a certain mass

635
00:21:43,490 --> 00:21:44,849
that then tells you there's Higgs. So then

636
00:21:44,849 --> 00:21:46,450
she did the unblinding and showed this sort

637
00:21:46,450 --> 00:21:49,250
of 2010 data, 2011 data, 2012 data, 6

638
00:21:49,250 --> 00:21:51,375
months worth, and you could see

639
00:21:52,154 --> 00:21:53,755
the room get getting to the point where

640
00:21:53,755 --> 00:21:56,234
saying we've we've found something. And I filmed

641
00:21:56,234 --> 00:21:57,674
this, and I put out a short film

642
00:21:57,674 --> 00:21:59,355
on this on the CMS website. I had

643
00:21:59,355 --> 00:22:00,015
no filming

644
00:22:00,859 --> 00:22:02,700
abilities at the time, I was just there

645
00:22:02,700 --> 00:22:04,460
to capture the moment as it was happening.

646
00:22:04,460 --> 00:22:06,220
So it's not the best film, but you

647
00:22:06,220 --> 00:22:07,740
can get an insight into what it was

648
00:22:07,740 --> 00:22:09,519
like on that day and the excitement around

649
00:22:09,714 --> 00:22:10,295
the laboratory.

650
00:22:10,914 --> 00:22:13,234
And we went from there to within within

651
00:22:13,234 --> 00:22:15,634
handful of weeks from getting to that point

652
00:22:15,634 --> 00:22:17,474
to saying we found it we found we

653
00:22:17,474 --> 00:22:19,369
found something new. We will, of course, post

654
00:22:19,369 --> 00:22:21,289
a link to that video on the physics

655
00:22:21,289 --> 00:22:22,029
world website,

656
00:22:22,329 --> 00:22:25,390
physics world dot com. We had been discussing

657
00:22:25,450 --> 00:22:27,450
for a long time how to tell the

658
00:22:27,450 --> 00:22:27,950
world

659
00:22:28,585 --> 00:22:30,904
the story of how particle physics research is

660
00:22:30,904 --> 00:22:31,404
done.

661
00:22:31,865 --> 00:22:33,325
That it isn't a question of

662
00:22:33,704 --> 00:22:34,684
you build the accelerator,

663
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:36,099
you plug it

664
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:38,420
in to the French grid, essentially,

665
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:41,680
press a switch, flip a switch, and then

666
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:43,359
boom, collisions take place, you found a Higgs

667
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:44,595
boson. No. It isn't an instantaneous

668
00:22:45,134 --> 00:22:47,774
thing. It is a process that takes lots

669
00:22:47,774 --> 00:22:50,014
of time, that is very procedural, that involves

670
00:22:50,014 --> 00:22:52,250
a lot of heated discussions, that involves lots

671
00:22:52,250 --> 00:22:54,430
of people having to all agree on something

672
00:22:54,570 --> 00:22:55,070
that

673
00:22:55,769 --> 00:22:57,369
there are so many of these nuances that

674
00:22:57,369 --> 00:22:59,070
could be missed from people making

675
00:22:59,775 --> 00:23:01,535
having a different understanding of the of the

676
00:23:01,535 --> 00:23:03,775
scientific process when it comes to particle physics

677
00:23:03,775 --> 00:23:05,934
research. So our objective, this was a discussion

678
00:23:05,934 --> 00:23:07,214
that we had in the communications team. It

679
00:23:07,214 --> 00:23:08,933
wasn't just me deciding to go and film.

680
00:23:08,933 --> 00:23:11,524
We had a discussion in the comms team.

681
00:23:11,524 --> 00:23:14,114
We had to get permission from the collaboration

682
00:23:14,114 --> 00:23:16,944
board chairs and the and, the spokes person

683
00:23:16,944 --> 00:23:18,544
of the collaboration to go and film it

684
00:23:18,544 --> 00:23:19,765
because they were worried about

685
00:23:20,384 --> 00:23:22,144
what are these leaks and all of this.

686
00:23:22,144 --> 00:23:24,085
So we couldn't get the CERN communications

687
00:23:24,384 --> 00:23:24,884
team

688
00:23:25,289 --> 00:23:27,049
to film it because they are not a

689
00:23:27,049 --> 00:23:28,730
in coach neutral party at that, I mean,

690
00:23:28,730 --> 00:23:29,950
at that point. They're

691
00:23:30,730 --> 00:23:32,865
or they're they you know, we didn't we

692
00:23:32,865 --> 00:23:34,545
didn't have control over what would happen. So

693
00:23:34,545 --> 00:23:36,164
the collaborations operate separately.

694
00:23:37,664 --> 00:23:39,684
So I had to go to the communications

695
00:23:39,744 --> 00:23:41,230
team and say, I need advice on how

696
00:23:41,230 --> 00:23:42,349
to film. Can you please give me the

697
00:23:42,349 --> 00:23:44,029
cameras and the setup and stuff? And then

698
00:23:44,029 --> 00:23:45,410
I had to go and film it myself,

699
00:23:46,670 --> 00:23:48,529
because we couldn't involve anyone outside.

700
00:23:48,945 --> 00:23:50,725
So the idea was not

701
00:23:51,265 --> 00:23:53,585
necessarily from my fascination. I was just fascinated

702
00:23:53,585 --> 00:23:55,184
to be there, but we wanted to share

703
00:23:55,184 --> 00:23:56,965
the process of scientific

704
00:23:57,424 --> 00:23:57,924
research

705
00:23:58,740 --> 00:24:01,240
at the energy frontier in particle physics

706
00:24:01,859 --> 00:24:03,380
to people who might not be familiar with

707
00:24:03,380 --> 00:24:04,920
it. We just wanted to tell a story.

708
00:24:05,059 --> 00:24:07,164
And tell a story they did. We'll hear

709
00:24:07,164 --> 00:24:09,964
more from Acentia later in the podcast. But

710
00:24:09,964 --> 00:24:11,964
on the Physics World website, you'll find a

711
00:24:11,964 --> 00:24:13,585
feature by James Gillies,

712
00:24:14,150 --> 00:24:17,289
the former head of communications at CERN, entitled

713
00:24:17,590 --> 00:24:18,730
angels and demons,

714
00:24:19,269 --> 00:24:21,289
Tom Hanks and Peter Higgs,

715
00:24:21,724 --> 00:24:22,545
how CIRM

716
00:24:22,924 --> 00:24:25,025
sold its story to the world.

717
00:24:25,724 --> 00:24:27,664
And here is James Gillies.

718
00:24:28,205 --> 00:24:30,285
I worked there for a very long time.

719
00:24:30,285 --> 00:24:32,039
First month in 1986 when I was a

720
00:24:32,039 --> 00:24:32,859
graduate student.

721
00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:36,200
Worked in research for 8 years before leaving

722
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:37,579
the field completely and

723
00:24:39,265 --> 00:24:40,545
going to Paris actually for a couple of

724
00:24:40,545 --> 00:24:41,745
years. And then I worked went back to

725
00:24:41,745 --> 00:24:43,684
CERN in 95 and worked in comms,

726
00:24:44,384 --> 00:24:46,225
ever since then. And what were you doing

727
00:24:46,225 --> 00:24:46,805
in Paris?

728
00:24:47,859 --> 00:24:49,539
I worked for British Council for 2 years.

729
00:24:49,539 --> 00:24:51,299
Essentially, I I ate for my country. It

730
00:24:51,299 --> 00:24:52,819
was, it was a strange it was a

731
00:24:52,819 --> 00:24:54,900
great job, actually, but I was I was

732
00:24:54,900 --> 00:24:56,945
expected to take people out for lunch, working

733
00:24:56,945 --> 00:24:58,945
lunches, of course, and and I was expected

734
00:24:58,945 --> 00:25:01,445
to be taken out for lunch as well.

735
00:25:02,144 --> 00:25:03,904
And, sort of a measure of your success

736
00:25:03,904 --> 00:25:05,585
was how many invitations you got to go

737
00:25:05,585 --> 00:25:06,869
for lunch with people.

738
00:25:07,330 --> 00:25:08,769
So, yeah, I got paid to eat in

739
00:25:08,769 --> 00:25:10,369
Paris for 2 years. And is that the

740
00:25:10,369 --> 00:25:12,529
sort of transition from physics to sort of

741
00:25:12,529 --> 00:25:14,289
communications? When I was a physicist, I was

742
00:25:14,289 --> 00:25:15,654
the kind of physicist who who the press

743
00:25:15,654 --> 00:25:17,115
office would use.

744
00:25:17,815 --> 00:25:19,295
So, yeah, media would come and they want

745
00:25:19,295 --> 00:25:20,615
to talk to a physicist, and they would

746
00:25:20,615 --> 00:25:21,515
talk to me.

747
00:25:22,375 --> 00:25:23,815
So they knew me. So when they were

748
00:25:23,815 --> 00:25:26,039
hiring, they they they contacted me and say,

749
00:25:26,039 --> 00:25:27,319
you know, there's this job coming up. We

750
00:25:27,319 --> 00:25:28,759
might be interested. But yeah. So I just

751
00:25:28,759 --> 00:25:30,759
thought that that looks good. It's an opportunity

752
00:25:30,759 --> 00:25:33,960
to use my background, my education, doing something

753
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:34,460
that

754
00:25:34,855 --> 00:25:36,775
I like and that I think I'm reasonably

755
00:25:36,775 --> 00:25:37,494
good at. So,

756
00:25:38,855 --> 00:25:40,295
so, yeah, so I applied to them and

757
00:25:40,295 --> 00:25:41,195
went back there.

758
00:25:41,710 --> 00:25:43,710
Brilliant. I mean, I mean, I assume that

759
00:25:43,710 --> 00:25:46,430
your skill at eating food with people came

760
00:25:46,430 --> 00:25:48,509
in handy when you had dinner with, Ron

761
00:25:48,509 --> 00:25:50,130
Howard, Tom Hanks, and Islet.

762
00:25:50,705 --> 00:25:51,825
He came a couple of times. I remember

763
00:25:51,825 --> 00:25:54,144
once we we we had lunch with with

764
00:25:54,144 --> 00:25:54,644
him,

765
00:25:55,184 --> 00:25:56,865
in a very nice restaurant, and it was

766
00:25:56,865 --> 00:25:59,490
very expensive. It's in 20 minutes and taxpayers'

767
00:25:59,490 --> 00:26:00,309
money on this.

768
00:26:02,049 --> 00:26:03,990
But, and then the second time, it was,

769
00:26:04,369 --> 00:26:06,309
yeah, it was it was it was very

770
00:26:06,369 --> 00:26:07,349
interesting, actually.

771
00:26:07,694 --> 00:26:09,774
I mean, it was the when they when

772
00:26:09,774 --> 00:26:11,875
they came to launch the film,

773
00:26:12,494 --> 00:26:15,315
it was around the time that Bernie Madoff

774
00:26:15,375 --> 00:26:17,049
made off with a lot of people's money.

775
00:26:18,009 --> 00:26:19,470
And so, you know,

776
00:26:19,850 --> 00:26:20,350
basically

777
00:26:20,809 --> 00:26:22,490
a kind of pyramid scheme. This guy was

778
00:26:22,490 --> 00:26:24,890
was persuading wealthy people to to invest his

779
00:26:24,890 --> 00:26:26,830
money with him and it all just disappeared.

780
00:26:27,744 --> 00:26:29,664
That was, that was a big subject of

781
00:26:29,664 --> 00:26:31,984
the conversation. So, you know, the people around

782
00:26:31,984 --> 00:26:34,710
the table had not gone for it, but,

783
00:26:34,710 --> 00:26:37,029
of course, they knew many people who'd, who'd

784
00:26:37,029 --> 00:26:37,529
invested

785
00:26:38,549 --> 00:26:40,569
a lot of money in in in that

786
00:26:40,630 --> 00:26:42,765
and lost it all. At this point in

787
00:26:42,765 --> 00:26:44,684
the conversation, James and I had a little

788
00:26:44,684 --> 00:26:46,865
detour into nominative determinism.

789
00:26:47,565 --> 00:26:49,724
How could you not when made off made

790
00:26:49,724 --> 00:26:51,184
off with people's money?

791
00:26:51,869 --> 00:26:53,950
But I'll save you from that conversation that

792
00:26:53,950 --> 00:26:56,750
the reason Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, and Eilat

793
00:26:56,750 --> 00:26:59,309
Zurer were gathering at CERN was to make

794
00:26:59,309 --> 00:27:01,169
the film Angels and Demons,

795
00:27:01,605 --> 00:27:02,105
the

796
00:27:02,404 --> 00:27:03,625
2009 movie

797
00:27:03,924 --> 00:27:06,724
directed by Ron Howard based on Dan Brown's

798
00:27:06,724 --> 00:27:09,600
book of the same name. As something of

799
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:11,440
a film nerd myself, I wondered what it

800
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,740
was like to meet Ron Howard. I really

801
00:27:15,759 --> 00:27:16,259
liked

802
00:27:16,559 --> 00:27:17,059
him.

803
00:27:17,544 --> 00:27:19,224
You know, I thought that I think he

804
00:27:19,224 --> 00:27:20,904
makes good films. I don't I I have

805
00:27:20,904 --> 00:27:22,505
no idea whether this is true or not,

806
00:27:22,505 --> 00:27:24,105
but but the feeling I got is that

807
00:27:24,105 --> 00:27:25,164
he seems to alternate,

808
00:27:25,589 --> 00:27:28,069
you know, the the kind of more highbrow

809
00:27:28,069 --> 00:27:28,569
films

810
00:27:29,190 --> 00:27:30,250
like Frost Nixon

811
00:27:30,950 --> 00:27:32,569
with with box office,

812
00:27:33,404 --> 00:27:35,484
you know, big box office films like Angels

813
00:27:35,484 --> 00:27:37,404
and Demons. So I I think that he

814
00:27:37,404 --> 00:27:39,565
kinda likes to make the more intellectual films,

815
00:27:39,565 --> 00:27:41,565
but, but he makes the big box office

816
00:27:41,565 --> 00:27:42,065
to

817
00:27:42,470 --> 00:27:43,669
to allow him to do that. As I

818
00:27:43,669 --> 00:27:45,929
said, that that's a theory, that's just my

819
00:27:46,150 --> 00:27:47,109
theory but it's it's,

820
00:27:47,829 --> 00:27:49,450
it was kind of the impression I got.

821
00:27:49,909 --> 00:27:50,809
And he was

822
00:27:51,375 --> 00:27:54,015
very much aware that the the science of

823
00:27:54,015 --> 00:27:55,555
the book didn't hold up,

824
00:27:56,494 --> 00:27:58,095
but he was also very keen that we

825
00:27:58,095 --> 00:28:00,619
didn't go around saying that because he didn't

826
00:28:00,619 --> 00:28:02,859
want to be any perception of the of

827
00:28:02,859 --> 00:28:04,559
the movie being trashed by CERN.

828
00:28:04,859 --> 00:28:06,380
I mean, that was never that was never

829
00:28:06,380 --> 00:28:07,980
our our idea at all. I mean, when

830
00:28:07,980 --> 00:28:09,295
when they came and said, can we will

831
00:28:09,295 --> 00:28:11,634
you help us? We thought, here's an opportunity

832
00:28:11,855 --> 00:28:12,515
at least

833
00:28:12,974 --> 00:28:15,375
to to finesse the bad science and and

834
00:28:15,375 --> 00:28:17,400
and allow him to make the film. And

835
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,240
there's there's no way that that he was

836
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:20,519
not gonna make the film. You know, there

837
00:28:20,519 --> 00:28:23,320
was that wasn't an option. And, and we

838
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:24,059
felt that,

839
00:28:24,914 --> 00:28:26,914
ignoring it was was not a very good

840
00:28:26,914 --> 00:28:29,154
idea either or or then if we were

841
00:28:29,154 --> 00:28:30,514
asked about it saying, well, the science is

842
00:28:30,514 --> 00:28:32,150
a load of rubbish, isn't it? Wasn't a

843
00:28:32,150 --> 00:28:33,990
good idea either. We we thought as we

844
00:28:33,990 --> 00:28:35,670
did with the book that here's an opportunity

845
00:28:35,670 --> 00:28:38,170
actually to talk about the reality of antimatter

846
00:28:38,230 --> 00:28:38,730
research.

847
00:28:39,845 --> 00:28:41,365
And I was very impressed that that they,

848
00:28:41,365 --> 00:28:41,845
you know, they

849
00:28:42,805 --> 00:28:44,244
the structure of the film is very different

850
00:28:44,244 --> 00:28:46,244
from the structure of the book. So in

851
00:28:46,244 --> 00:28:48,759
the film, all the certain sequence happens before

852
00:28:48,759 --> 00:28:49,819
the opening credits.

853
00:28:50,599 --> 00:28:52,539
That's it. And and you're immediately

854
00:28:52,839 --> 00:28:54,759
off in Rome with the the ticking bomb

855
00:28:54,759 --> 00:28:56,794
story. There's there's this thing, but they know

856
00:28:56,794 --> 00:28:58,154
it's there, and they're trying to catch it

857
00:28:58,154 --> 00:28:58,654
before

858
00:28:59,194 --> 00:29:00,494
before it goes off. Right?

859
00:29:00,954 --> 00:29:02,734
Whereas the book is about half at certain.

860
00:29:03,329 --> 00:29:05,250
So I remember when when my boss gave

861
00:29:05,250 --> 00:29:07,190
it to me and said read this,

862
00:29:08,130 --> 00:29:09,429
you know, my boss was,

863
00:29:11,055 --> 00:29:12,355
he majored in English,

864
00:29:12,734 --> 00:29:15,154
and he came to CERN to teach technical

865
00:29:15,214 --> 00:29:17,315
English to, to scientists.

866
00:29:17,990 --> 00:29:19,990
And he had a knack for for comms

867
00:29:19,990 --> 00:29:21,750
and and media work, so he evolved into

868
00:29:21,750 --> 00:29:22,410
that area.

869
00:29:23,349 --> 00:29:23,849
But

870
00:29:24,309 --> 00:29:25,994
in my opinion, you know,

871
00:29:27,595 --> 00:29:28,575
angels and demons

872
00:29:29,275 --> 00:29:31,275
looks like it's written by somebody who who

873
00:29:31,275 --> 00:29:33,355
used to teach creative writing because he all

874
00:29:33,355 --> 00:29:34,714
the tricks of the trade are in there

875
00:29:34,714 --> 00:29:37,500
and they're absolutely transparent. You see all of

876
00:29:37,500 --> 00:29:39,099
the you see what he's doing, so it's

877
00:29:39,099 --> 00:29:39,599
not

878
00:29:40,140 --> 00:29:42,755
brilliantly written to my mind. And Neil just

879
00:29:42,755 --> 00:29:44,055
said I can't read this,

880
00:29:45,555 --> 00:29:47,075
but, you know, I'm your boss so you've

881
00:29:47,075 --> 00:29:48,755
got to. So so I I read it

882
00:29:48,755 --> 00:29:51,059
and the first part was painful because every

883
00:29:51,059 --> 00:29:52,339
page you're looking at and you think no

884
00:29:52,339 --> 00:29:53,940
no no no that's wrong that's wrong that's

885
00:29:53,940 --> 00:29:56,200
wrong that's wrong all the stuff that's done.

886
00:29:56,660 --> 00:29:58,420
When I got past halfway and I didn't

887
00:29:58,420 --> 00:30:00,914
know all the about, you know, art in

888
00:30:00,914 --> 00:30:02,275
Rome and all the churches and things that

889
00:30:02,275 --> 00:30:04,035
have been described in Rome, I couldn't put

890
00:30:04,035 --> 00:30:06,035
it down. I mean, he's a he he

891
00:30:06,035 --> 00:30:07,414
may not be the most

892
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,240
skillful writer, but Dan Brown, but he tells

893
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:11,859
a very good story actually.

894
00:30:12,559 --> 00:30:14,400
And, and I think that's what Ron Howard

895
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,480
recognized, and and he told that story very

896
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:17,460
well on screen.

897
00:30:18,295 --> 00:30:21,654
Another prestigious and frequent visitor to CERN was

898
00:30:21,654 --> 00:30:22,714
Charles Jenks,

899
00:30:23,095 --> 00:30:24,234
a cultural theorist,

900
00:30:24,535 --> 00:30:27,680
architectural historian, and a theorist of postmodernism.

901
00:30:28,220 --> 00:30:29,019
He was somebody,

902
00:30:30,299 --> 00:30:32,160
who I I got to know

903
00:30:32,859 --> 00:30:34,940
reason reasonably well because he came a lot

904
00:30:34,940 --> 00:30:37,215
to CERN. And the first time he came,

905
00:30:39,434 --> 00:30:39,994
there was,

906
00:30:40,475 --> 00:30:41,674
it's a long time ago now, but there

907
00:30:41,674 --> 00:30:44,369
was this this young physicist who was was

908
00:30:44,369 --> 00:30:45,330
trying to make a bit of a name

909
00:30:45,330 --> 00:30:47,650
for himself as a communicator of science, and

910
00:30:47,650 --> 00:30:48,230
he got

911
00:30:48,609 --> 00:30:49,910
an award from the,

912
00:30:50,529 --> 00:30:52,115
I guess it was coming whether it was

913
00:30:52,115 --> 00:30:52,615
PPARC,

914
00:30:53,075 --> 00:30:55,335
the research council for physics at the time,

915
00:30:56,994 --> 00:30:59,154
to come to CERN with well known people

916
00:30:59,154 --> 00:31:00,134
and make podcasts.

917
00:31:01,869 --> 00:31:02,849
So he brought

918
00:31:04,269 --> 00:31:06,269
he brought all kinds of people including Charles

919
00:31:06,269 --> 00:31:09,044
Jenks and this was this was his name

920
00:31:09,044 --> 00:31:10,325
was Brian Cox. You might have heard of

921
00:31:10,325 --> 00:31:12,724
him since, but, but that was one of

922
00:31:12,724 --> 00:31:14,004
the things that he did early on in

923
00:31:14,004 --> 00:31:15,144
his in his career.

924
00:31:16,409 --> 00:31:18,089
And he brought Charles Jones. And Charles came

925
00:31:18,089 --> 00:31:19,789
on many occasions, and,

926
00:31:21,289 --> 00:31:24,490
and he he thought deeply about anything he

927
00:31:24,490 --> 00:31:24,990
did.

928
00:31:25,674 --> 00:31:27,214
And he he said to me,

929
00:31:27,914 --> 00:31:29,994
I'd really like Peter Higgs to see my

930
00:31:29,994 --> 00:31:32,255
garden. Now Charles Jenks' garden

931
00:31:32,940 --> 00:31:33,679
is spectacular.

932
00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:36,220
It they have a a large gar well,

933
00:31:36,220 --> 00:31:37,359
had a large garden

934
00:31:37,819 --> 00:31:40,240
at a house in, in Southern Scotland,

935
00:31:40,825 --> 00:31:42,845
and it's called the garden of cosmic speculation.

936
00:31:43,865 --> 00:31:45,384
So in it, you find,

937
00:31:46,105 --> 00:31:46,765
you find

938
00:31:47,304 --> 00:31:49,339
mounds that have double helices on them, you

939
00:31:49,339 --> 00:31:51,740
find soliton waves running through the ground, you

940
00:31:51,740 --> 00:31:52,240
find,

941
00:31:53,420 --> 00:31:55,900
a sculpture of particle tracks above a river

942
00:31:55,900 --> 00:31:58,205
so that when the sun is shining you

943
00:31:58,205 --> 00:32:00,225
see the the shadow of the particle tracks,

944
00:32:00,365 --> 00:32:02,045
which is kind of analogous to to how

945
00:32:02,045 --> 00:32:02,705
you would

946
00:32:03,085 --> 00:32:04,525
take do physics with with,

947
00:32:05,390 --> 00:32:06,990
bubble chambers in the past and things like

948
00:32:06,990 --> 00:32:07,970
this. So it's just

949
00:32:08,349 --> 00:32:10,690
full of science. There's a there's a,

950
00:32:11,549 --> 00:32:13,654
there's a big bang waterfall. You know, it's

951
00:32:13,654 --> 00:32:15,515
it's an amazing, amazing place,

952
00:32:15,974 --> 00:32:17,654
and he wanted Peter Higgs to go there.

953
00:32:17,654 --> 00:32:19,494
So, you know, I was able to organize

954
00:32:19,494 --> 00:32:21,494
that. So that was a a wonderful thing

955
00:32:21,494 --> 00:32:22,955
too. So I I took Peter,

956
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:26,039
with with somebody else from from the press

957
00:32:26,039 --> 00:32:27,339
office at Edinburgh University

958
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:29,180
and my boss, Rolf Hoyer,

959
00:32:29,799 --> 00:32:31,339
to to Jenks' house,

960
00:32:31,799 --> 00:32:33,099
in Dumfries and Galloway.

961
00:32:33,704 --> 00:32:35,625
And he also he he came up with

962
00:32:35,625 --> 00:32:38,365
this design we have we we we

963
00:32:39,144 --> 00:32:39,644
inherited,

964
00:32:40,345 --> 00:32:42,329
the the the globe of science innovation. It's

965
00:32:42,329 --> 00:32:44,329
this round wooden structure at CERN from we

966
00:32:44,329 --> 00:32:46,169
we inherited it from the Swiss government. It

967
00:32:46,169 --> 00:32:48,250
was a pavilion for the Swiss National Exhibition

968
00:32:48,250 --> 00:32:49,069
in 2002.

969
00:32:49,974 --> 00:32:50,214
And,

970
00:32:51,894 --> 00:32:52,794
and he thought,

971
00:32:53,894 --> 00:32:54,375
that you could

972
00:32:55,894 --> 00:32:57,335
he he was famous for for making land

973
00:32:57,335 --> 00:32:58,694
forms, so he thought you could make land

974
00:32:58,694 --> 00:33:00,369
forms in the form of question marks around

975
00:33:00,369 --> 00:33:00,869
it.

976
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:03,009
And his idea was that this this idea

977
00:33:03,009 --> 00:33:05,090
of the cosmic ouroboros, so that's the serpent

978
00:33:05,090 --> 00:33:06,424
that's biting its own tail.

979
00:33:06,904 --> 00:33:09,065
And, and the idea of this was that

980
00:33:09,065 --> 00:33:11,384
as you as you went in the points

981
00:33:11,384 --> 00:33:13,644
of the question marks, you would find

982
00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:18,500
artworks or exhibits representing the human scale. And

983
00:33:18,500 --> 00:33:19,940
as you walked around the question mark in

984
00:33:19,940 --> 00:33:21,700
one one direction, you get to larger and

985
00:33:21,700 --> 00:33:23,784
larger scales. In the other direction, you get

986
00:33:23,784 --> 00:33:25,544
to smaller and smaller scales, and when they

987
00:33:25,544 --> 00:33:27,244
meet is the top of the question marks,

988
00:33:27,384 --> 00:33:28,825
and it's what we don't know, and it's

989
00:33:28,825 --> 00:33:30,585
where the the science of the extremely large

990
00:33:30,585 --> 00:33:32,365
and the science of the extremely small

991
00:33:32,730 --> 00:33:33,230
meet.

992
00:33:33,929 --> 00:33:35,690
So you go in through the human scale,

993
00:33:35,690 --> 00:33:37,210
and as you go out through the other,

994
00:33:37,210 --> 00:33:38,970
say, side having seen whatever there is on

995
00:33:38,970 --> 00:33:39,950
offer in the globe,

996
00:33:40,325 --> 00:33:42,345
you would go to visit the ATLAS experiment,

997
00:33:42,404 --> 00:33:43,684
which is one of the places where we're

998
00:33:43,684 --> 00:33:45,525
trying to answer those questions. So it was

999
00:33:45,525 --> 00:33:48,244
just a wonderfully clever thing. And, as I

1000
00:33:48,244 --> 00:33:49,605
as I said, we we were unable to

1001
00:33:49,605 --> 00:33:50,230
fund it. So

1002
00:33:50,869 --> 00:33:52,710
so it didn't, didn't see the light of

1003
00:33:52,710 --> 00:33:54,329
day, which was a which was a pity.

1004
00:33:55,109 --> 00:33:56,549
And that now, of course, we have we

1005
00:33:56,549 --> 00:33:59,369
have a a Renzo Piano building there because,

1006
00:34:00,855 --> 00:34:03,734
Fabiola Gianotti, currently, was able to fund that.

1007
00:34:03,734 --> 00:34:05,734
So we have a a really good visitor

1008
00:34:05,734 --> 00:34:06,875
center in that now.

1009
00:34:08,429 --> 00:34:10,849
But it wasn't always film stars and celebrated

1010
00:34:10,989 --> 00:34:11,489
icons.

1011
00:34:11,789 --> 00:34:14,844
At times, the story surrounding CERN were a

1012
00:34:14,844 --> 00:34:15,664
little more,

1013
00:34:16,204 --> 00:34:17,184
shall we say,

1014
00:34:17,565 --> 00:34:18,065
odd.

1015
00:34:18,605 --> 00:34:20,764
There was, as you may well remember, in

1016
00:34:20,764 --> 00:34:22,204
the run up to the switch on of

1017
00:34:22,204 --> 00:34:23,505
the Large Hadron Collider,

1018
00:34:24,179 --> 00:34:25,079
some noise

1019
00:34:25,460 --> 00:34:26,599
on social media

1020
00:34:26,900 --> 00:34:28,840
and in some areas of the press

1021
00:34:29,539 --> 00:34:30,519
that perhaps

1022
00:34:31,140 --> 00:34:31,960
doing so

1023
00:34:32,420 --> 00:34:33,320
might destroy

1024
00:34:33,764 --> 00:34:36,724
the world. We'd seen what happened before. I

1025
00:34:36,724 --> 00:34:38,565
mean, one of the main protagonists of this

1026
00:34:38,565 --> 00:34:41,525
was this guy from Hawaii, and he'd, he'd

1027
00:34:41,525 --> 00:34:42,025
also

1028
00:34:42,699 --> 00:34:43,199
attacked,

1029
00:34:44,380 --> 00:34:45,920
US machines and and,

1030
00:34:46,539 --> 00:34:49,199
including the relativistic heavy ion collider.

1031
00:34:49,825 --> 00:34:51,905
So we'd seen what happened there. They they

1032
00:34:51,905 --> 00:34:54,065
they actually did delayed the startup, if I'm

1033
00:34:54,065 --> 00:34:56,144
correctly, and and did a did a safety

1034
00:34:56,144 --> 00:34:56,644
assessment.

1035
00:34:57,559 --> 00:34:59,480
So we'd seen that it happened. So we

1036
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:01,260
we we we did that

1037
00:35:01,559 --> 00:35:02,059
ourselves,

1038
00:35:03,914 --> 00:35:06,155
before anything happened and our approach was always

1039
00:35:06,155 --> 00:35:07,214
to be absolutely

1040
00:35:07,675 --> 00:35:09,295
transparent about this.

1041
00:35:09,994 --> 00:35:10,494
So

1042
00:35:12,010 --> 00:35:15,210
so there were there were theorists, several theorists,

1043
00:35:15,210 --> 00:35:17,849
who were were writing material. I was working

1044
00:35:17,849 --> 00:35:18,510
with them

1045
00:35:18,965 --> 00:35:20,405
to make sure that it was accessible to

1046
00:35:20,405 --> 00:35:22,005
the audiences we were trying to reach. We

1047
00:35:22,005 --> 00:35:23,545
made all of the safety reports

1048
00:35:24,244 --> 00:35:24,744
absolutely,

1049
00:35:25,764 --> 00:35:28,324
open to anybody to look at who wanted

1050
00:35:28,324 --> 00:35:28,824
to.

1051
00:35:29,829 --> 00:35:31,289
And, of course, yeah, they

1052
00:35:31,750 --> 00:35:33,130
all boil down to,

1053
00:35:33,829 --> 00:35:35,670
we are not doing anything in this machine

1054
00:35:35,670 --> 00:35:37,369
that doesn't happen in nature already.

1055
00:35:38,014 --> 00:35:39,614
So if all of these horrible things could

1056
00:35:39,614 --> 00:35:40,114
happen,

1057
00:35:41,295 --> 00:35:42,494
you know, they would have they would be

1058
00:35:42,494 --> 00:35:43,954
happening in nature already,

1059
00:35:44,255 --> 00:35:45,954
and that that's not the case.

1060
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:47,400
And,

1061
00:35:48,119 --> 00:35:49,559
yeah, I was I was very impressed with

1062
00:35:49,559 --> 00:35:52,059
my management at the time that allowed me,

1063
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,394
to write this this lateral thought piece for

1064
00:35:55,394 --> 00:35:57,954
Physics World, back then. And that was that

1065
00:35:57,954 --> 00:36:00,594
was inspired by, I just had saw on

1066
00:36:00,594 --> 00:36:01,489
a on a

1067
00:36:01,889 --> 00:36:04,690
a blog somewhere somebody who was very pro

1068
00:36:04,690 --> 00:36:06,150
science had said, you know, if they

1069
00:36:07,010 --> 00:36:08,530
if if they if they if they manage

1070
00:36:08,530 --> 00:36:09,750
to shut down the LHC,

1071
00:36:10,085 --> 00:36:11,844
then we better ban wardrobes because I don't

1072
00:36:11,844 --> 00:36:13,384
want my kids ending up in Narnia.

1073
00:36:15,924 --> 00:36:18,005
And so I thought, okay. You could you

1074
00:36:18,005 --> 00:36:18,505
could

1075
00:36:19,510 --> 00:36:20,869
you could figure out. You could do a

1076
00:36:20,869 --> 00:36:23,210
comparative risk there. So you you we know

1077
00:36:23,750 --> 00:36:25,849
yeah. The the idea behind this is that,

1078
00:36:26,684 --> 00:36:29,184
you know, the idea of of 0 probability

1079
00:36:29,404 --> 00:36:31,484
doesn't exist in physics, you know, but I

1080
00:36:31,484 --> 00:36:31,984
could,

1081
00:36:32,684 --> 00:36:34,444
any second now, I could just fall through

1082
00:36:34,444 --> 00:36:36,059
the earth and emerge to the other side.

1083
00:36:36,539 --> 00:36:37,840
It's extremely unlikely

1084
00:36:38,619 --> 00:36:40,539
that quantum mechanics would allow for that to

1085
00:36:40,539 --> 00:36:42,699
happen. It's extremely unlikely to happen, so I'm

1086
00:36:42,699 --> 00:36:44,239
not worrying about it at all.

1087
00:36:45,614 --> 00:36:46,114
And,

1088
00:36:46,655 --> 00:36:48,194
yeah so so we

1089
00:36:48,655 --> 00:36:50,174
we're we're sure that the LHC is safe

1090
00:36:50,174 --> 00:36:51,074
because we observe

1091
00:36:51,454 --> 00:36:52,674
cosmic rays striking

1092
00:36:53,039 --> 00:36:53,779
the atmosphere,

1093
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,199
and we've observed cosmic rays everywhere everywhere we've

1094
00:36:57,199 --> 00:36:58,799
been or sent things in space we see

1095
00:36:58,799 --> 00:37:00,279
them. So they're they're not they don't seem

1096
00:37:00,279 --> 00:37:02,319
to be targeting us. They're just ubiquitous cosmic

1097
00:37:02,319 --> 00:37:04,304
rays are just just zooming through space all

1098
00:37:04,304 --> 00:37:06,864
over the place. And we know how many

1099
00:37:06,864 --> 00:37:08,864
have we know how many we observe hitting

1100
00:37:08,864 --> 00:37:10,304
the earth at l hc energies and above,

1101
00:37:10,304 --> 00:37:11,920
so you can actually figure out

1102
00:37:12,799 --> 00:37:14,980
a limit. That's what physics is about

1103
00:37:15,599 --> 00:37:17,039
because, you know, it doesn't matter how many

1104
00:37:17,039 --> 00:37:19,119
bazillions and bazillions of times these things happen,

1105
00:37:19,119 --> 00:37:21,119
the next one might be different. That's that's

1106
00:37:21,119 --> 00:37:21,905
the nature of

1107
00:37:23,184 --> 00:37:24,864
it. So you can figure that out and,

1108
00:37:25,265 --> 00:37:27,025
and then I thought okay when when is

1109
00:37:27,025 --> 00:37:27,684
the first

1110
00:37:29,409 --> 00:37:31,510
mention in history of something called a wardrobe,

1111
00:37:31,570 --> 00:37:33,010
like a wardrobe? So you figure out when

1112
00:37:33,010 --> 00:37:34,550
they were invented, and then you can,

1113
00:37:35,730 --> 00:37:37,554
figure out how many that there might have

1114
00:37:37,554 --> 00:37:39,394
been. And so you you you do some

1115
00:37:39,394 --> 00:37:41,635
some some simple mathematics. And every now and

1116
00:37:41,635 --> 00:37:43,394
then, I threw in a factor of a1000000

1117
00:37:43,394 --> 00:37:45,059
or so just to make sure that my

1118
00:37:45,059 --> 00:37:46,500
limit was going to be a very, very

1119
00:37:46,500 --> 00:37:47,559
conservative one.

1120
00:37:48,179 --> 00:37:49,780
And, and when by the time you get

1121
00:37:49,780 --> 00:37:51,139
to the end of that, you you figure

1122
00:37:51,139 --> 00:37:53,239
out that that opening a wardrobe door once,

1123
00:37:54,525 --> 00:37:56,224
you're more likely to end up in Narnia

1124
00:37:56,364 --> 00:37:58,864
than running the LHC for 40 years

1125
00:37:59,724 --> 00:38:00,224
creating

1126
00:38:00,525 --> 00:38:02,385
anything we've never seen before.

1127
00:38:03,230 --> 00:38:05,469
That is brilliant. Over that time that you

1128
00:38:05,469 --> 00:38:06,130
were there,

1129
00:38:06,590 --> 00:38:09,010
it, you know, social media became

1130
00:38:09,390 --> 00:38:11,309
more part of the landscape. Well, yeah. I

1131
00:38:11,309 --> 00:38:13,885
mean, it was social media became, full stop.

1132
00:38:13,885 --> 00:38:15,324
I mean, it didn't exist at the beginning

1133
00:38:15,324 --> 00:38:16,125
of this period, and,

1134
00:38:16,844 --> 00:38:18,445
and it it sort of emerged. And we

1135
00:38:18,445 --> 00:38:20,445
didn't know how to do to deal with

1136
00:38:20,445 --> 00:38:20,945
it.

1137
00:38:21,324 --> 00:38:23,710
Yeah. Comms people talk to each other. So

1138
00:38:23,710 --> 00:38:26,110
in Geneva's Geneva's full of people who do

1139
00:38:26,110 --> 00:38:28,849
communications. There are lots of international organizations and

1140
00:38:29,315 --> 00:38:31,394
companies and NGOs. So every now and then,

1141
00:38:31,394 --> 00:38:32,994
they get together and they talk about it,

1142
00:38:32,994 --> 00:38:33,494
and

1143
00:38:33,875 --> 00:38:35,255
we really didn't know

1144
00:38:36,809 --> 00:38:39,049
how to deal with this at all, and

1145
00:38:39,049 --> 00:38:40,730
everybody was sort of floundering. And then I

1146
00:38:40,730 --> 00:38:42,109
remember at one point,

1147
00:38:44,144 --> 00:38:46,545
a guy who who was, in communications for

1148
00:38:46,545 --> 00:38:47,844
the World Economic Forum

1149
00:38:48,785 --> 00:38:50,465
just looked at the perception of the World

1150
00:38:50,465 --> 00:38:53,619
Economic Forum online, and if you googled World

1151
00:38:53,619 --> 00:38:55,539
Economic Forum at the time, you found pictures

1152
00:38:55,539 --> 00:38:57,380
of rioters in Davos and things like this

1153
00:38:57,380 --> 00:38:57,880
and,

1154
00:38:58,579 --> 00:39:00,980
and and people outside a closed fence trying

1155
00:39:00,980 --> 00:39:02,405
to get into some exclusive thing that they

1156
00:39:02,405 --> 00:39:03,864
weren't allowed access to.

1157
00:39:04,485 --> 00:39:06,244
And he thought, well, you know, that's not

1158
00:39:06,244 --> 00:39:07,844
what's going on there. That's not what the

1159
00:39:07,844 --> 00:39:09,864
World Economic Forum is really about.

1160
00:39:10,650 --> 00:39:12,409
And how do we counter this? Well, he

1161
00:39:12,489 --> 00:39:14,089
I remember him saying we we they just

1162
00:39:14,089 --> 00:39:15,609
took the decision. They were going to maximize

1163
00:39:15,609 --> 00:39:16,589
their digital footprint.

1164
00:39:17,325 --> 00:39:18,144
They were just

1165
00:39:18,445 --> 00:39:20,785
gonna open up and dive into social media

1166
00:39:21,244 --> 00:39:23,085
and see what happened, and what happened was

1167
00:39:23,085 --> 00:39:25,184
was extremely positive for them.

1168
00:39:26,210 --> 00:39:28,869
So we got into social media,

1169
00:39:29,570 --> 00:39:31,750
on the day we switched on the LHC

1170
00:39:31,809 --> 00:39:34,369
in 2008. That was CERN's first account. We

1171
00:39:34,369 --> 00:39:36,385
we we got a Twitter account then.

1172
00:39:37,244 --> 00:39:39,244
And we were nervous about how we would

1173
00:39:39,244 --> 00:39:40,764
deal with it, what what we would do

1174
00:39:40,764 --> 00:39:41,744
with all of the

1175
00:39:42,300 --> 00:39:44,619
criticism and stuff that bubbles up there. And,

1176
00:39:45,179 --> 00:39:46,800
at first, at least, we didn't

1177
00:39:47,179 --> 00:39:48,900
really have to worry about that because what

1178
00:39:49,019 --> 00:39:50,855
the people who chose to follow us,

1179
00:39:51,494 --> 00:39:52,875
were largely very supportive.

1180
00:39:53,494 --> 00:39:55,414
So if something like that did crop up,

1181
00:39:55,414 --> 00:39:57,574
it was corrected by the community that followed

1182
00:39:57,574 --> 00:39:58,074
us.

1183
00:39:59,039 --> 00:40:00,880
So so yeah. I mean but, so that

1184
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:01,920
was how we started. And,

1185
00:40:03,599 --> 00:40:05,200
and then another thing that the the same

1186
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:06,079
person did was,

1187
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:07,380
he

1188
00:40:08,235 --> 00:40:10,235
sort of published a study. I think it

1189
00:40:10,235 --> 00:40:11,215
was called the triplomacy

1190
00:40:11,515 --> 00:40:13,675
study, which was, yeah, who is the most

1191
00:40:13,675 --> 00:40:14,175
influential

1192
00:40:15,089 --> 00:40:17,569
leader of an leader on on Twitter and

1193
00:40:17,569 --> 00:40:19,889
and who who is the most influential organization

1194
00:40:19,889 --> 00:40:21,730
on Twitter or the most successful organization on

1195
00:40:21,730 --> 00:40:22,125
Twitter.

1196
00:40:22,605 --> 00:40:24,125
And in the early days, we you know,

1197
00:40:24,125 --> 00:40:25,965
our chief exec, our DG was not on

1198
00:40:25,965 --> 00:40:28,125
Twitter, but we were heading that poll for

1199
00:40:28,125 --> 00:40:30,605
the most successful organization on on Twitter for

1200
00:40:30,605 --> 00:40:31,059
a while.

1201
00:40:31,940 --> 00:40:33,539
And again, and that was that came down

1202
00:40:33,539 --> 00:40:35,160
to the fact that we were we were

1203
00:40:35,940 --> 00:40:38,019
we weren't flooding people, but we were being

1204
00:40:38,019 --> 00:40:39,239
timely. We were being

1205
00:40:39,724 --> 00:40:41,805
honest, and we were being very open about

1206
00:40:41,805 --> 00:40:43,085
what we risk what we were doing and

1207
00:40:43,085 --> 00:40:43,585
saying.

1208
00:40:44,204 --> 00:40:44,684
So,

1209
00:40:45,085 --> 00:40:46,445
now, of course, it's it's gone it's gone

1210
00:40:46,445 --> 00:40:48,865
way beyond my competence. I mean, I'm I'm

1211
00:40:49,059 --> 00:40:50,039
well well pre

1212
00:40:50,420 --> 00:40:52,420
social media generation, but we we do it

1213
00:40:52,420 --> 00:40:54,819
now have people whose job is looking after

1214
00:40:54,819 --> 00:40:56,724
social our social media channels these days.

1215
00:40:57,605 --> 00:40:58,905
We didn't in the early days.

1216
00:40:59,204 --> 00:41:01,364
Yeah. Do you still feel like it's changed

1217
00:41:01,364 --> 00:41:02,885
though? Because it feels to me like in

1218
00:41:02,885 --> 00:41:04,565
those early days of Twitter, it was quite

1219
00:41:04,565 --> 00:41:07,190
a positive place and then maybe isn't anymore.

1220
00:41:07,190 --> 00:41:09,349
My my personal feeling is that, you know,

1221
00:41:09,349 --> 00:41:11,449
I I was on Twitter for a while,

1222
00:41:12,630 --> 00:41:14,574
but as soon as I stepped down from

1223
00:41:14,574 --> 00:41:16,015
being head of comms, I got rid of

1224
00:41:16,015 --> 00:41:18,494
my Twitter account because I I am not

1225
00:41:18,494 --> 00:41:20,355
a fan of that. I I can see

1226
00:41:21,055 --> 00:41:23,670
I can see the potential for good in

1227
00:41:23,670 --> 00:41:25,190
social media, and I can see a a

1228
00:41:25,190 --> 00:41:26,789
lot of good does happen on it. But,

1229
00:41:27,910 --> 00:41:29,510
but there's an awful lot that isn't good

1230
00:41:29,510 --> 00:41:31,190
going on there too, in my in my

1231
00:41:31,190 --> 00:41:31,690
opinion.

1232
00:41:33,014 --> 00:41:34,875
But CERN CERN stays there. CERN

1233
00:41:35,255 --> 00:41:37,014
looks at this and CERN has taken the

1234
00:41:37,014 --> 00:41:38,295
the decision to stay there. We've got a

1235
00:41:38,295 --> 00:41:40,795
huge audience there. And, again, our

1236
00:41:41,420 --> 00:41:43,280
audience is largely enthusiastic

1237
00:41:43,579 --> 00:41:43,980
and,

1238
00:41:44,539 --> 00:41:46,160
and so we stay there.

1239
00:41:46,619 --> 00:41:49,885
As Achinta mentioned earlier, after the switch on

1240
00:41:49,965 --> 00:41:52,364
and before finding the Higgs boson, there was

1241
00:41:52,364 --> 00:41:53,025
a discovery

1242
00:41:53,485 --> 00:41:55,885
that something had gone wrong with the Large

1243
00:41:55,885 --> 00:41:57,405
Hadron Collider. There were a lot of people

1244
00:41:57,405 --> 00:41:58,364
who looked at what we did on the

1245
00:41:58,364 --> 00:42:00,110
switch on day and said, CERN was crazy

1246
00:42:00,110 --> 00:42:02,670
to invite all the press and, they're absolutely

1247
00:42:02,670 --> 00:42:04,190
right but what they don't know is we

1248
00:42:04,190 --> 00:42:06,510
didn't invite all the press. The press invited

1249
00:42:06,510 --> 00:42:07,010
themselves

1250
00:42:07,724 --> 00:42:10,285
And so we we didn't have really much

1251
00:42:10,285 --> 00:42:11,885
of a choice because at some point, it

1252
00:42:11,885 --> 00:42:13,565
was very clear that there was if we

1253
00:42:13,565 --> 00:42:16,260
didn't do something, if we didn't formally prepare

1254
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:17,780
and invite people to come,

1255
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:19,199
there will be,

1256
00:42:19,519 --> 00:42:20,099
a lot

1257
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,039
of cameras and journalists outside the fence of

1258
00:42:23,039 --> 00:42:25,140
CERN on the switch on day anyway.

1259
00:42:26,164 --> 00:42:29,045
So so we prepared to invite everybody in,

1260
00:42:29,045 --> 00:42:29,364
and,

1261
00:42:29,925 --> 00:42:31,925
and it was brilliant. The day was just

1262
00:42:31,925 --> 00:42:34,309
fantastic, actually. I mean, we I can't remember

1263
00:42:34,309 --> 00:42:36,469
the exact time, but the, the first attempt

1264
00:42:36,469 --> 00:42:38,469
to get a beam around the machine was

1265
00:42:38,469 --> 00:42:40,090
scheduled very early in the morning.

1266
00:42:40,550 --> 00:42:42,469
So we had everybody in the media center

1267
00:42:42,469 --> 00:42:45,085
right ready for that, and then something happened,

1268
00:42:45,085 --> 00:42:46,125
and they had to put it back by

1269
00:42:46,125 --> 00:42:47,105
a couple of hours.

1270
00:42:47,965 --> 00:42:49,965
We had sched we had flexible schedules planned

1271
00:42:49,965 --> 00:42:51,324
so that we didn't just leave everybody sitting

1272
00:42:51,324 --> 00:42:52,969
in the media center waiting. We we took

1273
00:42:52,969 --> 00:42:55,530
them around to visit the experiments control rooms

1274
00:42:55,530 --> 00:42:58,250
in various different places and meet people, talk

1275
00:42:58,250 --> 00:42:59,769
to people. And then we had them all

1276
00:42:59,769 --> 00:43:01,210
back in the media center, and and they

1277
00:43:01,210 --> 00:43:02,429
got a beam around the machine.

1278
00:43:03,014 --> 00:43:04,054
And by the end of the day, they've

1279
00:43:04,054 --> 00:43:05,654
got a beam around in one direction and

1280
00:43:05,654 --> 00:43:06,954
a beam around in the other direction.

1281
00:43:07,255 --> 00:43:08,694
So that was that. You know, it was,

1282
00:43:09,174 --> 00:43:10,775
you know, you don't just switch on in

1283
00:43:10,775 --> 00:43:12,070
one of these things and start taking data

1284
00:43:12,070 --> 00:43:14,329
straight away. It's a long, long process.

1285
00:43:14,869 --> 00:43:16,710
And usually, something does go wrong. So we

1286
00:43:16,710 --> 00:43:18,150
we were aware that there was a risk.

1287
00:43:18,150 --> 00:43:20,230
It was what went wrong was,

1288
00:43:20,630 --> 00:43:22,594
was worse than I would have liked. I

1289
00:43:22,594 --> 00:43:24,675
would say worse than anybody would have liked.

1290
00:43:24,675 --> 00:43:25,335
It was

1291
00:43:25,635 --> 00:43:26,375
it felt

1292
00:43:26,755 --> 00:43:28,295
awful when it happened.

1293
00:43:29,860 --> 00:43:30,599
I remember,

1294
00:43:33,139 --> 00:43:34,900
you know, around the laboratory, there are these

1295
00:43:34,900 --> 00:43:37,255
screens that are called LHC page 1, which

1296
00:43:37,255 --> 00:43:38,695
tell you what's going on in the machine.

1297
00:43:38,695 --> 00:43:40,454
And, you know, when when machines are running,

1298
00:43:40,454 --> 00:43:41,114
it's just

1299
00:43:41,655 --> 00:43:43,655
second nature if you're at CERN, and you

1300
00:43:43,655 --> 00:43:45,094
see you you look at the screen to

1301
00:43:45,094 --> 00:43:46,510
see what's going on. And,

1302
00:43:46,969 --> 00:43:49,449
on Friday afternoon, there was something that didn't

1303
00:43:49,449 --> 00:43:50,590
look right. And,

1304
00:43:51,690 --> 00:43:54,809
they have meetings at the control center every

1305
00:43:54,809 --> 00:43:55,309
day.

1306
00:43:57,355 --> 00:43:59,355
Normally, somebody from my team would go Monday

1307
00:43:59,355 --> 00:44:01,514
to Friday to to just to be keep

1308
00:44:01,514 --> 00:44:02,875
them in touch with what was going on.

1309
00:44:02,875 --> 00:44:04,315
And on this occasion, I thought I'd better

1310
00:44:04,315 --> 00:44:05,500
go to the Saturday 1.

1311
00:44:06,460 --> 00:44:08,380
And it was very clear then that that,

1312
00:44:08,619 --> 00:44:09,980
we were not gonna be running for a

1313
00:44:09,980 --> 00:44:10,480
while.

1314
00:44:11,659 --> 00:44:14,235
The director general, know, set up task forces

1315
00:44:14,235 --> 00:44:15,914
to go and investigate what was going on,

1316
00:44:15,914 --> 00:44:17,675
and then he saw that I was there

1317
00:44:17,675 --> 00:44:18,875
and he said, oh, you better take care

1318
00:44:18,875 --> 00:44:21,339
of communications. So that just he he let

1319
00:44:21,339 --> 00:44:23,019
me do what what what I wanted to

1320
00:44:23,019 --> 00:44:25,099
do. And so I said, we, you know,

1321
00:44:25,099 --> 00:44:27,179
we we know we're not gonna be running,

1322
00:44:27,179 --> 00:44:28,480
so we we better just

1323
00:44:28,785 --> 00:44:30,224
put out a statement. The world is watching

1324
00:44:30,224 --> 00:44:30,724
us.

1325
00:44:31,105 --> 00:44:32,144
So we were able to put out a

1326
00:44:32,144 --> 00:44:34,305
statement saying that's that something's something's gone wrong.

1327
00:44:34,305 --> 00:44:36,465
There's been some kind of malfunction. We don't

1328
00:44:36,465 --> 00:44:37,905
know the details yet, but we'll keep you

1329
00:44:37,905 --> 00:44:40,519
posted. And, again, we we've followed this this

1330
00:44:40,519 --> 00:44:41,900
process of of being,

1331
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,340
open and transparent with what had gone on.

1332
00:44:48,094 --> 00:44:50,175
And, yeah, it was it was very painful,

1333
00:44:50,175 --> 00:44:52,175
but it was it was also amazing to

1334
00:44:52,175 --> 00:44:52,675
see

1335
00:44:53,510 --> 00:44:54,010
how,

1336
00:44:54,390 --> 00:44:56,470
you know, people just got up, brushed themselves

1337
00:44:56,470 --> 00:44:57,829
down, and thought, okay. We've got a job

1338
00:44:57,829 --> 00:44:59,670
on our hands. There wasn't any attempt to

1339
00:44:59,670 --> 00:45:01,349
say, whose fault was this? Who are we

1340
00:45:01,349 --> 00:45:01,849
gonna

1341
00:45:02,434 --> 00:45:03,954
blame for this? You know? And,

1342
00:45:04,515 --> 00:45:05,494
the the the

1343
00:45:06,434 --> 00:45:07,954
the task at hand was to figure out

1344
00:45:07,954 --> 00:45:08,934
why it had happened,

1345
00:45:09,449 --> 00:45:10,570
what you could do to make sure it

1346
00:45:10,570 --> 00:45:12,250
didn't happen again, and then get get on

1347
00:45:12,250 --> 00:45:13,230
with fixing it.

1348
00:45:13,690 --> 00:45:14,010
And,

1349
00:45:14,969 --> 00:45:17,050
and people again were were very

1350
00:45:17,925 --> 00:45:20,431
yeah. The experts were were were very happy

1351
00:45:20,431 --> 00:45:21,525
to answer questions.

1352
00:45:22,085 --> 00:45:24,264
There was one, the head of the magnets

1353
00:45:24,405 --> 00:45:24,889
group,

1354
00:45:25,609 --> 00:45:28,250
Lucio Rossi, who who, you know, he was

1355
00:45:28,250 --> 00:45:30,889
passionate in Italian, and he he told people

1356
00:45:30,889 --> 00:45:31,789
in great detail

1357
00:45:32,144 --> 00:45:33,744
what had gone wrong, why it had gone

1358
00:45:33,744 --> 00:45:35,684
wrong, what we're gonna do to fix it,

1359
00:45:35,985 --> 00:45:37,824
and and how that gives us confidence that

1360
00:45:37,824 --> 00:45:39,125
that's not gonna happen again.

1361
00:45:39,679 --> 00:45:41,599
And, and he did it with with with

1362
00:45:41,599 --> 00:45:43,599
with with with great emotion as well as

1363
00:45:43,599 --> 00:45:45,440
as with great clarity about what was going

1364
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:45,940
on.

1365
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:48,900
And so people followed us, and

1366
00:45:49,605 --> 00:45:50,965
there was I think there was even a

1367
00:45:50,965 --> 00:45:52,565
documentary. There was a series called the world's

1368
00:45:52,565 --> 00:45:53,925
greatest fixes, I think on

1369
00:45:54,565 --> 00:45:56,164
I think it was discovery. I'm not sure.

1370
00:45:56,164 --> 00:45:58,440
And, so they they followed us. And, and

1371
00:45:58,599 --> 00:46:00,280
when we did get going, there was this

1372
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,699
great celebration everywhere actually. So I think,

1373
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:04,679
you know, I still got it somewhere. I

1374
00:46:04,679 --> 00:46:05,960
still got all of the the feedback we

1375
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:07,864
got after that switch on day with all

1376
00:46:07,864 --> 00:46:09,945
of these journalists saying that's amazing it's amazing

1377
00:46:09,945 --> 00:46:11,005
that you did that.

1378
00:46:11,305 --> 00:46:12,985
And thank you for doing that because so

1379
00:46:12,985 --> 00:46:13,724
much is

1380
00:46:14,105 --> 00:46:15,864
is done behind closed doors and then presented

1381
00:46:15,864 --> 00:46:17,910
when it's done and done. So people really

1382
00:46:17,910 --> 00:46:19,210
liked to see something

1383
00:46:19,829 --> 00:46:22,469
that was was as difficult, as challenging as

1384
00:46:22,469 --> 00:46:24,309
that, and we were doing it in public.

1385
00:46:24,309 --> 00:46:24,809
So

1386
00:46:25,425 --> 00:46:27,344
so painful though it was, and it cost

1387
00:46:27,344 --> 00:46:29,025
us a year. You know, that year is

1388
00:46:29,025 --> 00:46:30,805
now a long time ago, and and a

1389
00:46:31,184 --> 00:46:32,545
lot of great things have happened with that

1390
00:46:32,545 --> 00:46:34,839
machine, including Higgs discovery and the Nobel Prize

1391
00:46:34,839 --> 00:46:36,760
in the meantime. So so I think it

1392
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:37,639
was it was it was

1393
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:40,539
in the long term,

1394
00:46:41,284 --> 00:46:41,784
it

1395
00:46:42,724 --> 00:46:43,864
allowed us to

1396
00:46:44,324 --> 00:46:44,824
show

1397
00:46:45,364 --> 00:46:47,764
the reality of doing research at the cutting

1398
00:46:47,764 --> 00:46:48,264
edge.

1399
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:50,119
Because I think one of the one of

1400
00:46:50,119 --> 00:46:51,559
the dangers of of the kind of research

1401
00:46:51,559 --> 00:46:53,400
we do is that the discoveries are few

1402
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:55,559
and far between, and so there's a there's

1403
00:46:55,559 --> 00:46:57,015
a risk that you get this this impression

1404
00:46:57,015 --> 00:46:58,775
of particle physics that we just sit around

1405
00:46:58,775 --> 00:47:00,135
twiddling our thumbs for 10 years and then,

1406
00:47:00,135 --> 00:47:01,414
yeah, even make a discovery and then we'll

1407
00:47:01,414 --> 00:47:03,015
twiddle our thumbs for another 10 years. And

1408
00:47:03,015 --> 00:47:04,555
of course, it's not like that at all.

1409
00:47:04,855 --> 00:47:06,750
So I think actually getting the process of

1410
00:47:06,750 --> 00:47:08,690
science across was was, was

1411
00:47:08,989 --> 00:47:12,210
one plus from that episode. You know, without

1412
00:47:12,429 --> 00:47:14,049
without that black hole

1413
00:47:14,355 --> 00:47:16,594
myth going around, without angels and demons, we

1414
00:47:16,594 --> 00:47:18,295
wouldn't have had this the kind of visibility

1415
00:47:18,355 --> 00:47:19,414
that that we had.

1416
00:47:20,275 --> 00:47:22,434
And our our approach to that was okay,

1417
00:47:22,434 --> 00:47:24,539
this is this is happening out there. There's

1418
00:47:24,539 --> 00:47:26,219
nothing we can do about that happening out

1419
00:47:26,219 --> 00:47:27,500
there. So how can we turn it to

1420
00:47:27,500 --> 00:47:28,000
our,

1421
00:47:28,380 --> 00:47:30,079
you know, to our own advantage?

1422
00:47:30,699 --> 00:47:32,559
And I think that our approach of being,

1423
00:47:33,164 --> 00:47:34,605
you know, honest and and,

1424
00:47:35,085 --> 00:47:37,244
about this was great. And it was the

1425
00:47:37,244 --> 00:47:38,605
right one. And one thing that we we

1426
00:47:38,605 --> 00:47:39,105
did,

1427
00:47:40,739 --> 00:47:42,980
you know, we we did hesitate about was,

1428
00:47:42,980 --> 00:47:45,159
you know, are we gonna engage directly

1429
00:47:46,260 --> 00:47:48,835
with this? And, you know, there I've I've

1430
00:47:48,835 --> 00:47:50,195
talked about the guy from Hawaii. There was

1431
00:47:50,195 --> 00:47:50,695
also

1432
00:47:51,155 --> 00:47:53,315
a German professor of nanotechnology who was saying

1433
00:47:53,315 --> 00:47:54,855
you're gonna do dangerous things, and,

1434
00:47:56,019 --> 00:47:57,380
and he said, can I come to CERN?

1435
00:47:57,380 --> 00:47:58,739
And we said, yes. So he came to

1436
00:47:58,739 --> 00:48:00,579
CERN, and he met our scientists, and,

1437
00:48:01,219 --> 00:48:02,579
and he went away. And he said, well,

1438
00:48:02,579 --> 00:48:04,244
you know, I would like to hear from

1439
00:48:04,244 --> 00:48:06,344
somebody who's an expert in general relativity.

1440
00:48:07,605 --> 00:48:08,484
So we got,

1441
00:48:09,525 --> 00:48:11,530
a comment for him from the head of

1442
00:48:11,610 --> 00:48:13,230
the Albert Einstein Institute,

1443
00:48:14,170 --> 00:48:15,150
in Potsdam,

1444
00:48:16,489 --> 00:48:18,650
saying there's nothing to worry about there. So,

1445
00:48:18,650 --> 00:48:20,090
you know, this was a professor in a

1446
00:48:20,090 --> 00:48:21,875
different field who was concerned about what we

1447
00:48:21,875 --> 00:48:23,815
were doing, and we we engaged with him.

1448
00:48:24,515 --> 00:48:26,914
The guy from Hawaii, we took a it

1449
00:48:26,914 --> 00:48:28,515
took a lot longer, and we didn't engage

1450
00:48:28,515 --> 00:48:29,735
directly with him. But,

1451
00:48:30,530 --> 00:48:32,630
the daily show came to CERN

1452
00:48:33,289 --> 00:48:33,789
and,

1453
00:48:35,889 --> 00:48:38,565
interviewed one of our physicists, John Ellis, And,

1454
00:48:39,365 --> 00:48:41,605
John was just brilliant, actually, and and, you

1455
00:48:41,605 --> 00:48:43,045
know, the guy said, what what's the chance

1456
00:48:43,045 --> 00:48:44,565
that the LHC is gonna destroy the universe?

1457
00:48:44,565 --> 00:48:45,785
And John said, 0.

1458
00:48:46,619 --> 00:48:47,500
And they'd asked,

1459
00:48:48,059 --> 00:48:50,320
the guy from Hawaii the same question. And,

1460
00:48:50,539 --> 00:48:52,219
you know, when when I saw what he'd

1461
00:48:52,219 --> 00:48:53,579
said, I thought, why didn't we do this

1462
00:48:53,579 --> 00:48:55,295
ages ago? Because I I think anybody could

1463
00:48:55,295 --> 00:48:56,974
see the floor of his argument. He said,

1464
00:48:56,974 --> 00:48:58,835
you know, when they switch this machine on,

1465
00:48:59,295 --> 00:49:00,894
one of 2 things will happen. Either the

1466
00:49:00,894 --> 00:49:02,655
universe will survive or the universe will be

1467
00:49:02,655 --> 00:49:04,480
destroyed. So the chance is 1 in 2.

1468
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,099
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I was already set. And,

1469
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:09,780
this

1470
00:49:10,079 --> 00:49:12,094
yeah. So that was the kind of

1471
00:49:13,375 --> 00:49:15,855
thinking behind a lot of that hype there

1472
00:49:15,855 --> 00:49:16,355
actually.

1473
00:49:16,734 --> 00:49:17,775
So I think I think, you know, the

1474
00:49:17,775 --> 00:49:19,295
the bottom line there, I think it was

1475
00:49:19,295 --> 00:49:20,994
it was going on. It certainly

1476
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,000
was going to put the spotlight on us,

1477
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:25,200
but I think the way that we dealt

1478
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:26,800
with it managed to make sure that that

1479
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:28,480
spotlight was was was showing us in a

1480
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:29,920
favorable light. So we we we saw it

1481
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:31,585
happening, and we thought we we need to

1482
00:49:31,585 --> 00:49:33,125
engage with this in a way that,

1483
00:49:33,824 --> 00:49:35,984
works for us. So the on the day

1484
00:49:35,984 --> 00:49:38,440
of the discovery, what were you doing? My

1485
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:40,039
job was to go and get the the

1486
00:49:40,039 --> 00:49:41,579
key people for the press conference

1487
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:42,860
from the auditorium

1488
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,320
across to the council chamber. So I was

1489
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,514
shepherding Peter Higgs, and Francois Englert through there.

1490
00:49:48,514 --> 00:49:50,514
And, yeah, it was it was, it was

1491
00:49:50,514 --> 00:49:51,654
an amazing day.

1492
00:49:52,114 --> 00:49:53,554
You know, I found out since that that

1493
00:49:53,554 --> 00:49:54,775
Peter Higgs had seen

1494
00:49:55,140 --> 00:49:56,760
at least one of the results before,

1495
00:49:57,300 --> 00:49:58,599
so he he knew.

1496
00:49:59,940 --> 00:50:02,180
Somebody'd shown it to him. I got an

1497
00:50:02,180 --> 00:50:03,079
email from,

1498
00:50:04,355 --> 00:50:06,195
Jerry Guralnick, I think, so one of the

1499
00:50:06,195 --> 00:50:08,614
American theorists who'd who'd published on this subject

1500
00:50:08,755 --> 00:50:09,894
very shortly after,

1501
00:50:10,514 --> 00:50:13,720
and independently of of Higgs, Brout and Englewood.

1502
00:50:13,720 --> 00:50:15,960
No doubt about that. And they said, can

1503
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:17,480
we come? And of course, we we're not

1504
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:19,480
gonna turn down any physicists wanting to come

1505
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:21,160
to that. So 2 of the Americans came.

1506
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:22,539
Their co author was British,

1507
00:50:23,065 --> 00:50:23,804
Tom Kibble.

1508
00:50:24,905 --> 00:50:26,425
We invited him, but he said no. He

1509
00:50:26,425 --> 00:50:28,184
was gonna go to the event in in

1510
00:50:28,184 --> 00:50:30,925
Whitehall because the research council was was organizing

1511
00:50:30,984 --> 00:50:31,885
something in Whitehall.

1512
00:50:32,869 --> 00:50:34,789
And, and we got in touch with with

1513
00:50:34,789 --> 00:50:36,549
Unglair and Higgs, so they came too. So

1514
00:50:36,549 --> 00:50:38,150
we had all of, you know, 4 of

1515
00:50:38,150 --> 00:50:40,010
the the theorists, the original,

1516
00:50:41,454 --> 00:50:43,375
proponents of the theory in the room for

1517
00:50:43,375 --> 00:50:45,934
the announcements. That was that was great. I

1518
00:50:45,934 --> 00:50:47,534
I think it was the day that Angler

1519
00:50:47,534 --> 00:50:49,375
and Higgs met each other for the first

1520
00:50:49,375 --> 00:50:49,840
time,

1521
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:51,920
sat next to each other in the in

1522
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:54,320
the room. We had a a hiccup the

1523
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:55,059
day before

1524
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,579
because, you know, we we genuinely didn't know

1525
00:50:59,864 --> 00:51:01,625
what was going to be said until very

1526
00:51:01,625 --> 00:51:03,224
soon before, and we knew it was going

1527
00:51:03,224 --> 00:51:05,085
to get very busy for the people involved,

1528
00:51:06,905 --> 00:51:09,085
on the on the day. So we recorded,

1529
00:51:09,929 --> 00:51:12,170
yes, we've got it, and watched these space

1530
00:51:12,170 --> 00:51:13,630
videos with both of them.

1531
00:51:14,809 --> 00:51:16,809
And we we had them both ready to

1532
00:51:16,809 --> 00:51:19,175
go in k you know, depending on what

1533
00:51:19,175 --> 00:51:20,155
was gonna be announced.

1534
00:51:21,014 --> 00:51:21,514
And,

1535
00:51:22,534 --> 00:51:24,375
this is how we discovered a bug in

1536
00:51:24,375 --> 00:51:27,109
in our database that one of my colleagues

1537
00:51:27,109 --> 00:51:28,550
noticed that there was a typo in one

1538
00:51:28,550 --> 00:51:29,289
of the captions.

1539
00:51:30,230 --> 00:51:32,170
And so she she fixed the typo.

1540
00:51:32,474 --> 00:51:34,155
And what she didn't realize is that when

1541
00:51:34,155 --> 00:51:35,375
you edit a video

1542
00:51:36,075 --> 00:51:37,695
back then, when you edited a video,

1543
00:51:38,155 --> 00:51:39,730
it defaulted everything to

1544
00:51:40,210 --> 00:51:42,050
to to default values and that included making

1545
00:51:42,050 --> 00:51:43,030
the video open.

1546
00:51:43,730 --> 00:51:45,889
So one of the discovery videos was visible

1547
00:51:45,889 --> 00:51:48,130
for 5 minutes and that was long enough

1548
00:51:48,130 --> 00:51:49,429
for a lot of journalists

1549
00:51:49,954 --> 00:51:51,954
to phone me and say, is this what

1550
00:51:51,954 --> 00:51:53,954
you're gonna say tomorrow? And and I had

1551
00:51:53,954 --> 00:51:55,075
to say, well, you're just gonna have to

1552
00:51:55,075 --> 00:51:57,235
watch this space and and explain to them

1553
00:51:57,235 --> 00:51:58,135
what we'd done.

1554
00:51:59,230 --> 00:52:00,829
You know, and so this is why this

1555
00:52:00,829 --> 00:52:02,430
is why why you saw this and this

1556
00:52:02,430 --> 00:52:04,269
is there are there are there are yes

1557
00:52:04,269 --> 00:52:06,030
and no videos and we just have to

1558
00:52:06,030 --> 00:52:07,630
see because they were really doing the analysis

1559
00:52:07,630 --> 00:52:08,454
up to the wire.

1560
00:52:09,655 --> 00:52:11,114
So that was that and and,

1561
00:52:12,535 --> 00:52:14,315
you know, Rolf Feuer

1562
00:52:15,630 --> 00:52:17,170
had seen both of the analyses.

1563
00:52:17,789 --> 00:52:19,949
So he he, you know, he was

1564
00:52:20,989 --> 00:52:22,349
he said to me the day before that

1565
00:52:22,349 --> 00:52:24,530
even if they don't feel confident enough,

1566
00:52:24,875 --> 00:52:26,734
I can say I think we've got it

1567
00:52:27,434 --> 00:52:28,734
because he's seen both.

1568
00:52:29,594 --> 00:52:31,674
But as it was they were able to

1569
00:52:31,674 --> 00:52:34,255
to make the discovery announcement themselves.

1570
00:52:35,610 --> 00:52:38,030
That's brilliant. Do you feel like

1571
00:52:39,610 --> 00:52:40,170
there is

1572
00:52:41,050 --> 00:52:42,670
are there going to be opportunities

1573
00:52:43,394 --> 00:52:46,535
at CERN or other places for particle physics

1574
00:52:46,595 --> 00:52:49,255
to make a splash that big again?

1575
00:52:49,635 --> 00:52:51,155
Well, that was a particularly big one but

1576
00:52:51,155 --> 00:52:52,275
you know, there are there's there's

1577
00:52:53,250 --> 00:52:54,469
and and what's what's

1578
00:52:56,530 --> 00:52:58,050
one of the things that's changed is that

1579
00:52:58,050 --> 00:52:59,489
a lot of the the the kind of

1580
00:52:59,489 --> 00:53:01,465
science that would have made little ripples in

1581
00:53:01,465 --> 00:53:03,305
the past is making much bigger splash these

1582
00:53:03,305 --> 00:53:05,704
days. So, you know, the the discoveries of

1583
00:53:05,704 --> 00:53:05,865
of,

1584
00:53:06,585 --> 00:53:09,429
pentaquarks, tetraquarks, and things has has actually been

1585
00:53:09,429 --> 00:53:11,269
covered very extensively, much more than it would

1586
00:53:11,269 --> 00:53:13,109
have been before. So I think that that

1587
00:53:13,109 --> 00:53:13,690
that helped

1588
00:53:14,230 --> 00:53:16,364
build up a a taste for the kind

1589
00:53:16,364 --> 00:53:17,804
of things that we're doing even if they're

1590
00:53:17,804 --> 00:53:18,545
smaller stories.

1591
00:53:18,844 --> 00:53:21,005
And, you know, gravitational waves was huge as

1592
00:53:21,005 --> 00:53:22,765
well. It's not particle physics, but it's it's

1593
00:53:22,765 --> 00:53:24,864
basic science, and that was huge too.

1594
00:53:25,210 --> 00:53:26,670
Who knows? I mean, there are

1595
00:53:27,050 --> 00:53:28,429
there's a lot to be discovered.

1596
00:53:28,969 --> 00:53:30,889
Back in the startup time, people there were

1597
00:53:30,889 --> 00:53:33,210
people who genuinely thought that we would discover

1598
00:53:33,210 --> 00:53:34,670
supersymmetry very quickly,

1599
00:53:35,574 --> 00:53:37,434
and this is a a theory that

1600
00:53:38,375 --> 00:53:40,554
could account for dark matter.

1601
00:53:42,214 --> 00:53:43,654
So that would have been huge. I mean,

1602
00:53:43,654 --> 00:53:45,920
it would have been as huge from a

1603
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,159
physics perspective, if not more so than the

1604
00:53:48,159 --> 00:53:50,019
discovery of the Higgs, really.

1605
00:53:51,894 --> 00:53:53,914
And we still yeah. There's still

1606
00:53:55,574 --> 00:53:57,414
something going on that we don't understand. You

1607
00:53:57,414 --> 00:53:58,474
know, if if if,

1608
00:54:00,190 --> 00:54:01,869
you know, if if you interpret the the

1609
00:54:01,869 --> 00:54:03,489
the data, then the most likely

1610
00:54:04,269 --> 00:54:06,929
reading is that about 5% of the universe

1611
00:54:06,989 --> 00:54:09,065
is is is matter,

1612
00:54:10,005 --> 00:54:11,525
is visible matter, and the rest of it

1613
00:54:11,525 --> 00:54:13,125
is stuff that we can't see. There are

1614
00:54:13,125 --> 00:54:15,445
other interpretations that something going on with gravity.

1615
00:54:15,445 --> 00:54:16,344
But either way,

1616
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:17,340
when

1617
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:19,800
when that when we make steps into that

1618
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:21,500
95% that we don't know,

1619
00:54:22,599 --> 00:54:24,119
it's gonna be a huge result from a

1620
00:54:24,119 --> 00:54:26,105
physics perspective. So I I think there is

1621
00:54:26,505 --> 00:54:28,284
I think there is the chance for

1622
00:54:28,664 --> 00:54:30,344
equally big stories coming up in the future,

1623
00:54:30,344 --> 00:54:31,244
but but it's

1624
00:54:32,025 --> 00:54:34,059
could be a while. You never know. Yeah.

1625
00:54:34,059 --> 00:54:36,219
Nature nature nature's in control here, not us.

1626
00:54:36,219 --> 00:54:38,539
So When speaking to Achintiya Rao, I'd asked

1627
00:54:38,539 --> 00:54:41,260
a similar question. Could there be anything that

1628
00:54:41,260 --> 00:54:44,094
CERN could do that would inspire the public

1629
00:54:44,094 --> 00:54:46,255
in the way that the discovery of the

1630
00:54:46,255 --> 00:54:48,574
Higgs boson has? I'll be honest. I don't

1631
00:54:48,574 --> 00:54:51,454
think it's necessarily their role to inspire the

1632
00:54:51,454 --> 00:54:53,460
public. I think their role is to do

1633
00:54:53,460 --> 00:54:54,039
the research

1634
00:54:54,660 --> 00:54:55,559
that they have

1635
00:54:56,099 --> 00:54:57,559
argued the case for.

1636
00:54:57,940 --> 00:54:59,079
So you need to,

1637
00:54:59,514 --> 00:55:00,175
you know,

1638
00:55:00,554 --> 00:55:03,434
a multinational endeavor like CERN, which has got

1639
00:55:03,434 --> 00:55:04,954
member states from all around the world, all

1640
00:55:04,954 --> 00:55:06,255
around the globe at this point.

1641
00:55:08,139 --> 00:55:09,339
You don't do it unless you have a

1642
00:55:09,339 --> 00:55:11,099
very solid case for the research that you're

1643
00:55:11,099 --> 00:55:12,320
performing. So SON's

1644
00:55:13,179 --> 00:55:15,394
primary role is to do the research. But

1645
00:55:15,635 --> 00:55:17,155
in terms of how to excite people once

1646
00:55:17,155 --> 00:55:18,454
again, well, I mean,

1647
00:55:19,635 --> 00:55:20,934
I I I don't know.

1648
00:55:21,795 --> 00:55:23,315
There might be discoveries that are on the

1649
00:55:23,315 --> 00:55:25,059
horizon, but what we

1650
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:27,599
have learned from the past is that these

1651
00:55:27,599 --> 00:55:29,699
things don't happen every single day.

1652
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:32,000
They can take years, they can take decades

1653
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:33,860
for us to achieve something as monumental.

1654
00:55:35,265 --> 00:55:37,425
And the important thing to remind people is

1655
00:55:37,425 --> 00:55:40,325
that the Large Hadron Collider was not built

1656
00:55:40,625 --> 00:55:42,164
to discover the Higgs boson.

1657
00:55:43,099 --> 00:55:45,180
It was discovered to find the Higgs boson

1658
00:55:45,180 --> 00:55:47,340
as a first step if the Higgs boson

1659
00:55:47,340 --> 00:55:47,840
existed,

1660
00:55:48,460 --> 00:55:49,840
and that was it. It was

1661
00:55:50,324 --> 00:55:52,324
almost the Higgs boson was the the lowest

1662
00:55:52,324 --> 00:55:54,565
hanging fruit on this hypothetical tree. And if

1663
00:55:54,565 --> 00:55:55,925
you found the Higgs is right right, we

1664
00:55:55,925 --> 00:55:57,304
are on the right track, but

1665
00:55:57,739 --> 00:55:58,960
there's much more to do.

1666
00:55:59,739 --> 00:56:01,820
Something else that's quite cool is the fact

1667
00:56:01,820 --> 00:56:02,719
that historically,

1668
00:56:03,180 --> 00:56:05,840
every single particle that researchers have found

1669
00:56:06,204 --> 00:56:08,125
has become a tool in itself for further

1670
00:56:08,125 --> 00:56:10,625
understanding for the studies. So there is

1671
00:56:11,164 --> 00:56:12,304
muons were discovered

1672
00:56:13,820 --> 00:56:15,579
through cosmic rays and then we started using

1673
00:56:15,579 --> 00:56:18,000
muons in in discovering other particles and then

1674
00:56:18,380 --> 00:56:20,380
this has proceeded. The Higgs boson was found

1675
00:56:20,380 --> 00:56:23,224
through its interactions with w bosons and other

1676
00:56:23,224 --> 00:56:24,925
bosons that were found more recently.

1677
00:56:26,905 --> 00:56:28,585
So the hope is that the Higgs boson

1678
00:56:28,585 --> 00:56:30,980
becomes a tool in our continued exploration of

1679
00:56:31,059 --> 00:56:33,300
the universe and its origins and its very

1680
00:56:33,300 --> 00:56:34,359
fundamental structure.

1681
00:56:35,699 --> 00:56:37,239
There are lots of unanswered questions

1682
00:56:37,699 --> 00:56:40,760
for particle physicists to potentially inspire the inspire

1683
00:56:40,944 --> 00:56:42,244
future generations with.

1684
00:56:42,864 --> 00:56:45,025
We don't know what dark matter is, and

1685
00:56:45,025 --> 00:56:46,625
we know that there has to be some

1686
00:56:46,625 --> 00:56:47,984
dark matter out there. And it has to

1687
00:56:47,984 --> 00:56:49,905
have a material component. It has to interact

1688
00:56:49,905 --> 00:56:51,929
with some of the forces in some ways

1689
00:56:53,109 --> 00:56:55,190
with gravity for sure, but we are trying

1690
00:56:55,190 --> 00:56:58,230
to find the researchers as a species are

1691
00:56:58,230 --> 00:56:59,609
trying to find that particle

1692
00:57:00,224 --> 00:57:02,464
that might be associated with it. Would we

1693
00:57:02,464 --> 00:57:04,545
find it? Fingers crossed, but there are no

1694
00:57:04,545 --> 00:57:05,684
guarantees with nature.

1695
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:10,360
What about gravity, which sits very far apart

1696
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:11,579
from particle physics?

1697
00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:13,960
There are 4 known forces in the universe

1698
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:14,460
and

1699
00:57:15,184 --> 00:57:17,105
theoretically, we can unify 3 of them, but

1700
00:57:17,105 --> 00:57:19,184
gravity sits far apart. Gravity is the weakest

1701
00:57:19,184 --> 00:57:21,764
force. Gravity is the in some ways, very

1702
00:57:21,984 --> 00:57:24,859
less understood because we haven't found a particle

1703
00:57:24,859 --> 00:57:26,799
associated with it. Maybe there isn't one,

1704
00:57:27,260 --> 00:57:28,780
but if you want to unify it with

1705
00:57:28,780 --> 00:57:30,780
the rest of the particle physics, we're looking

1706
00:57:30,780 --> 00:57:32,239
for gravitons. There are

1707
00:57:32,744 --> 00:57:35,224
lots of unanswered research questions still out there.

1708
00:57:35,224 --> 00:57:37,065
And even when you look at something as

1709
00:57:37,065 --> 00:57:39,224
astonishing like supersymmetry and people are starting to

1710
00:57:39,224 --> 00:57:40,780
say, oh, it hasn't found anything yet. Well,

1711
00:57:40,860 --> 00:57:42,640
supersymmetry has got lots of different

1712
00:57:43,260 --> 00:57:45,340
models and we've only ruled out the simplest

1713
00:57:45,340 --> 00:57:45,840
ones.

1714
00:57:46,460 --> 00:57:48,539
The more interesting ones that can still answer

1715
00:57:48,539 --> 00:57:50,315
the questions haven't even been explored yet. We

1716
00:57:50,315 --> 00:57:52,554
haven't even accumulated enough data to do it

1717
00:57:52,554 --> 00:57:53,295
yet. So

1718
00:57:54,074 --> 00:57:55,275
there are loads of questions, but in terms

1719
00:57:55,275 --> 00:57:56,635
of how can they inspire the next the

1720
00:57:56,635 --> 00:57:58,409
the future after the Higgs boson, the honest

1721
00:57:58,409 --> 00:58:00,409
answer is I don't know. I think the

1722
00:58:00,409 --> 00:58:00,909
ongoing

1723
00:58:01,289 --> 00:58:01,789
work

1724
00:58:02,250 --> 00:58:03,710
itself is inspiring

1725
00:58:04,010 --> 00:58:05,150
in different ways.

1726
00:58:05,664 --> 00:58:07,344
This is a place where at the height

1727
00:58:07,344 --> 00:58:09,425
of the cold war, researchers from across the

1728
00:58:09,425 --> 00:58:11,585
iron curtain would come and work with researchers

1729
00:58:11,585 --> 00:58:12,804
from the western world.

1730
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:15,960
This is a place that today brings together

1731
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:17,480
countries that do not look at each other

1732
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:19,819
diplomatically eye to eye, but have researchers sharing

1733
00:58:20,039 --> 00:58:20,539
offices.

1734
00:58:21,255 --> 00:58:22,934
There is inspiration there to be found in

1735
00:58:22,934 --> 00:58:24,694
a world that is in increasing turmoil of

1736
00:58:24,694 --> 00:58:26,375
how can we do things together for the

1737
00:58:26,375 --> 00:58:27,674
benefit of all of humanity.

1738
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:31,599
Research at CERN is fundamentally grounded on peaceful

1739
00:58:31,599 --> 00:58:33,679
research. There are no military applications. It's it's

1740
00:58:33,679 --> 00:58:35,380
forbidden in the convention of CERN.

1741
00:58:35,875 --> 00:58:37,714
It's an open space where anyone can go

1742
00:58:37,714 --> 00:58:40,355
to. They get hundreds of thousands of people

1743
00:58:40,355 --> 00:58:41,655
wanting to visit the lab.

1744
00:58:42,275 --> 00:58:44,135
The machines that they're building, pushing

1745
00:58:44,489 --> 00:58:47,070
technology to its frontiers, pushing researchers frontiers,

1746
00:58:47,530 --> 00:58:49,369
I think all of these are inspiring things

1747
00:58:49,369 --> 00:58:51,789
in in their own way. And while discoveries

1748
00:58:52,010 --> 00:58:55,135
capture attention, big discoveries capture big attention,

1749
00:58:55,835 --> 00:58:58,474
I think the work of an organization like

1750
00:58:58,474 --> 00:59:00,474
CERN is inspiring in and of itself. I'd

1751
00:59:00,474 --> 00:59:02,460
like to thank Achintya and James for talking

1752
00:59:02,460 --> 00:59:04,059
to me for this episode of the Physics

1753
00:59:04,059 --> 00:59:06,380
World Stories podcast. And don't forget, you can

1754
00:59:06,380 --> 00:59:09,739
find James Gillies' article, angels and demons, Tom

1755
00:59:09,739 --> 00:59:13,005
Hanks, and Peter Higgs, how CERN sold its

1756
00:59:13,005 --> 00:59:14,144
story to the world

1757
00:59:14,445 --> 00:59:17,164
on the physics world website, physics world dot

1758
00:59:17,164 --> 00:59:19,405
com. We'll be back next month with something

1759
00:59:19,405 --> 00:59:21,550
else from this wonderful world of physics, And

1760
00:59:21,550 --> 00:59:22,210
thank you very much

1761
00:59:22,989 --> 00:59:23,730
for listening.