96 - The Making of Particle Fever (Ft. David Kaplan)

About this episode

David Kaplan discusses the excitement and curiosity in the physics community leading up to the Large Hadron Collider's activation, as captured in his documentary Particle Fever.

In the years leading up to the Large Hadron Collider turning on, the physics community was buzzing with curiosity and excitement about what they were about to discover. These moments were captured in the documentary Particle Fever, created by the particle physicist David Kaplan. On today's episode, he recounts these historic years from the perspective of both physicist and filmmaker. For ad-free episodes and exclusive ask-us-anything segments, join us for just $3 a month on Patreon: https://p...

People in this episode

Hosts: Dan Hooper, Shalma Wegsman

Guest: David Kaplan

Topics covered

• particle physics
• documentary
• Large Hadron Collider
• scientific discovery
• filmmaking

Keywords

• Large Hadron Collider
• Particle Fever
• David Kaplan
• physics
• documentary
• scientific discovery
• filmmaking

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Large Hadron Collider

Books & works: Particle Fever

More episodes of Why This Universe?

• 98 - An Improbable Quantum Ghost Story (Ft. David Kaplan) · January 19, 2026 · 41 min
• 97 - The Schrödinger Equation: The Heart of Quantum Mechanics · December 22, 2025 · 30 min
• 95 - Would Aliens Have the Same Physics? (Ft. Daniel Whiteson) · November 4, 2025 · 43 min
• 38 - The Nobel Prize's Greatest Misses (2025 Update) · October 13, 2025 · 34 min
• 94 - Inside the Hubble Tension (Ft. Adam Riess) · September 29, 2025 · 32 min
• 93 - The Moment Dark Energy Appeared (Ft. Adam Riess) · September 15, 2025 · 40 min