Why high-energy particle physics?
HEP provides an atypical setting for a fiction thriller, but Alpert views it as the perfect vehicle to introduce people to some of the real-life science theories and technological advances that he reports on as an editor of Scientific American. Many of the science fiction attractions of the past have become the doable science of the present. “I think there is a huge increase in interest in [high-energy physics],” Alpert said. “Look at all the people who are interested in the LHC. I recently was at the World Science Festival. It was packed. And most of these people were not scientists. They don’t understand the math. I don’t understand the math. When I edit articles for Scientific American, I don’t put the math in, but people like the excitement of science. I think people key in on that.” Unfortunately, a small segment of those people–especially mainstream media—key in on the excitement of far-fetched hypothesis of physics-powered catastrophes such as the lawsuit alleging the LHC start
