[News-releases] Canadian Scientists to Organize "Angels and Demons" Science-behind-the-Movie Lectures

[Tim Meyer]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CANADIAN SCIENTISTS TO ORGANIZE "ANGELS AND DEMONS" SCIENCE-BEHIND-THE-MOVIE
LECTURES

This May, Sony Pictures will release "Angels and Demons," an action-packed
thriller based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel that focuses on an apparent
plot to destroy the Vatican using a small amount of antimatter. In the book
and the movie, that antimatter gets stolen from CERN, the world's largest
scientific laboratory.

Starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard, parts of the movie were
actually filmed at the ATLAS experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. It's
not every day that a major motion picture places particle physics in the
spotlight and this will be a unique opportunity to share the science behind
the movie, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and the excitement of particle
physics.

Along these lines, TRIUMF and Canadian ATLAS/LHC collaborators will join
forces with our American and international colleagues to organize "Angels
and Demons" public lecture nights at universities or other venues across the
country when the movie premieres in mid-May 2009. 

The lectures will focus on the science behind the movie, the Large Hadron
Collider, and particle physics in general. The physics at the heart of
"Angels and Demons"--the potential destruction of the Vatican by a small
chunk of antimatter--highlights what happens when matter and antimatter
meet. This in turn calls attention to the fact that the absence of
practically any antimatter in the universe is crucial to our existence. To
understand that absence is one of the big questions addressed particle
physics. Public lectures will discuss the challenge of the missing
antimatter, possible solutions, and how experiments in both the intensity
and energy frontiers will explore these mysteries.

More information on the international lecture series will become available
on the US LHC Web site (http://www.uslhc.us/Angels_Demons).    

Information on Canadian involvement in the LHC and ATLAS is available from
the ATLAS-Canada web site (http://www.atlas-canada.ca/).   

For further information on events in Canada, contact:
	Robert McPherson (UVic/IPP, rmcphers at uvic.ca) OR
	Tim Meyer (TRIUMF, tmeyer at triumf.ca)

For further information on the lecture night in general contact 
	Elizabeth Clements (Fermilab, lizzie at fnal.gov) OR
	Katie Yurkewicz (US LHC Outreach, katie.yurkewicz at cern.ch)   

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Timothy I. Meyer, Ph.D.
Head, Strategic Planning and Communications
TRIUMF
4004 Wesbrook Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 2A3
Tel: 604-222-7674
E-mail: tmeyer at triumf.ca
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