Particle Fever

The documentary Particle Fever has a trailer out. The trailer telescopes events from several years into two minutes, for drama's sake. That's irritating by itself, but the repeated claims people make about how much this is going to change things is very offputting. Maybe it's a fine documentary, but hype makes me very itchy.

It quotes a man who spent most of his career on this single project.

After my degree, I spent mine on several different, mostly related, projects; experiments with hundreds and sometimes thousands of colleagues. There were a few whose contributions exceeded a percent. I was not one of those few.

I had other things that grew to higher priority--that's a good reason, but not the whole. But I can imagine--better than imagine, I saw it now and then--the "I've dedicated my life to this, so it better not fail" attitude. Surrounded by like-minded people, it can be hard to remember that the money to pay for all this is a "grant", not something earned. And when you're reminded of this (by editorials, budget cuts, and whatnot), it's tempting to exagerate the benefits. It's the center of your life, so it's obviously a big deal, right? And given two equally good projects, the best salesman wins.

Most of the scientists I knew had lives outside the lab; families (rarely large), hobbies (skiing is inexplicably popular), some were religious too. One also managed a farmette and owned some rental properties, another wrote an NYT bestselling novel. (I have a ways to go yet on that.)