Particle accelerators in popular culture

This book was very popular, a New York Times, bestseller, which introduced the public to an overview of the science of Particle physics.

[1] It provides a brief history of particle physics, starting with the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Democritus, and continuing through Isaac Newton, Roger J. Boscovich, Michael Faraday, and Ernest Rutherford.

Some are lighthearted in tone, such as his fascination with safe-cracking, fondness for topless bars, and ventures into art and samba music.

Others cover more serious material, including his work on the Manhattan Project (during which his first wife Arline Greenbaum died of tuberculosis) and his critique of the science education system in Brazil.

From real science, which includes the mystery of the Higgs particle, to justifications for the cost, and to a thwarted cyber attack, the LHC has received a lot of press.

CERN published a "Science and Fiction" page interviewing Sawyer and physicists about the book and the TV series based on it.

It won the 1980 Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards,[10][11] This novel involves using time travel to avert ecological disasters.

The Iron Man 2 features a makeshift particle accelerator used by Tony Stark to create a new chemical element, more biologically inert than the palladium used in the arc reactor.

The movie version of the book has footage filmed on-site at one of the experiments at the LHC; the director, Ron Howard, met with CERN experts in an effort to make the science in the story more accurate.

[13] Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines features a particle accelerator that traps the metallic T-X Terminatrix in its powerful electromagnetic field, buying time for the protagonists to get a head start in their escape.

In Terra Nova the rift in spacetime that allows time travel is a natural phenomenon discovered by scientists working at Fermilab.

It can also be used to produce so called "nuclear pasta" - a dense matter believed to exist naturally within neutron stars.

A huge underground particle accelerator known as the Loop is both a major plot point in, and a key element of the lore behind, this 2017 alternate history RPG table top game.