What can opera teach us about particle physics?

A new opera film set inside the largest particle accelerator on earth explores science through an artistic lens. Will this unlikely partnership help answer existential questions?

|
Martial Trezzini/AP/File
In this Thursday, March 22, 2007 file photo two engineers works to assemble one of the layers of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particule accelerator, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Deep within the bowels of the largest machine on earth – CERN’s particle accelerator the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – scientists search for answers to the biggest mysteries of space and time on the smallest scale. They also host dance opera performances.

Art and science have struck a balance and found a shared appreciation for beauty in the upcoming film “Symmetry.” Set within the 16-mile long Large Hadron Collider, “Symmetry” combines opera and dance to explore discoveries in the field of particle physics.

“I would like to think that at the base there is a similar impulse, that all of us are trying to answer [existential] questions: What are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?” John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN, said in a teaser for the opera.

“Symmetry” was written and directed by Ruben van Leer and choreographed by Lukas Timulak.

"I didn't want to make a documentary to explain or understand modern physics in general, but rather interpret the complex material this institution is presenting," Van Leer said.

The opera, lead by Timulak and soprano Claron McFadden, portrays a physicist’s search for the smallest particle in the universe while focusing on the philosophical side of physics.

The film will be released as CERN scientists prepare for their second attempt to use the LHC to recreate the temperature of the universe billionths of a second after the Big Bang. The last time that the experiment was run in 2012, the Higgs boson was observed for the first time. This time physicists are looking for results that will shake up the Standard Model of particle physics.

"The data so far has confirmed that our theory is really really good, which is frustrating because we know it's not,” Tara Shears, a particle physics professor from the University of Liverpool, told BBC News. "We know it can't explain a lot of the Universe. So instead of trying to test the truth of this theory, what we really want to do now is break it - to show where it stops reflecting reality. That's the only way we're going to make progress."

The full length version of “Symmetry” will be screened at the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam on March 14 as part of the Cinedans Film Festival dedicated to dance on film and the NewScientist CERN Festival.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to What can opera teach us about particle physics?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0310/What-can-opera-teach-us-about-particle-physics
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe