Fascinating look into the world of science — or more precisely, the lives of scientists — structured around the construction and deployment of the Large Hadron Collider, aka the Largest Experiment in Human History. The goal is to observe the heretofore undetected Higgs Boson particle, the weight of which may help to tell if our universe is built on a seemingly divine "supersymmetry" or if it's merely a random blip in a chaotic multiverse. Director Mark Levinson has scads of rich material: theorists vs. experimentalists, media hype, mechanical disasters, wunderkinds and wise old heads — and he presents it with clarity, skill, and the sort of passion often reserved for more "artistic" achievements. (Beethoven's Ninth shows up only after we are reminded that musical harmonies are a function of mathematics.) The real star is the scientific community, and it comes off not as a smug Olympian sect, handing down judgments to a blinkered, bullheaded humanity; but rather, as a group of remarkable people committed to a fundamentally human endeavor, probing into the dark and seeking the light of truth. (2013) — Matthew Lickona
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