Live media briefing on the science of ‘Angels & Demons’ features CERN and Fermilab physicists

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CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer, Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman and Fermilab physicist Boris Kayser answer questions about antimatter, the Large Hadron Collider and particle physics research

The U.S. National Science Foundation invites you to join a live media briefing on the science behind the motion picture Angels & Demons on May 19 at 1:00 p.m. EDT (12 noon CDT; 7:00 p.m. CEST).  This blockbuster film, which gives particle physics a moment on the red carpet, hits movie screens around the world this week. The briefing will feature three world-renowned physicists from the European particle physics laboratory CERN and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Based on Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, Angels & Demons focuses on a plot to destroy the Vatican using a small amount of antimatter. That antimatter is made using the Large Hadron Collider and is stolen from CERN.  Parts of the movie were filmed at CERN.

The briefing, a live video teleconference, will feature Rolf Heuer, director-general at CERN, Leon Lederman, Nobel laureate and director emeritus at Fermilab, and Boris Kayser, Fermilab physicist and chair of the American Physics Society’s Division of Particles and Fields. To watch and ask questions during the briefing, visit the Science 360 Web site (http://www.science360.gov/live/). Journalists should send an email to lisajoy@nsf.gov to obtain a call-in number and passcode. Anyone can submit questions any time to webcast@nsf.gov.

This media briefing is part of a larger worldwide event: “Angels & Demons Lecture Nights: the Science Revealed.”  More information about the series, including a list of lectures and local contacts, is available at www.uslhc.us/Angels_Demons.

* U.S. participation in the Large Hadron Collider project is supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

* CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

* Fermilab is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the nation and helps ensure U.S. world leadership across a broad range of scientific disciplines.