CERN People - THE SHRINKING FIELD

You'd be forgiven for thinking that young physicists working at the most prestigious science laboratory in the world wouldn’t have to worry about their careers, particularly after all the fuss around the Higgs Boson – but you'd be wrong. There are very few jobs available in particle physics, thanks to funding cuts for research around the world, and thousands of PhD students and post-doctoral researchers at CERN are looking for jobs at the same time. Although they all could get jobs at banks, in consulting, or in private industry that would pay much more than what they make now, most want to stay in research – and worry that they may not have that option.

"CERN People" is a new series of short films that goes behind the headlines of some of the biggest physics breakthroughs of our time, introducing the public to a handful of engaging young scientists at the world’s largest research center – home to the Large Hadron Collider and birthplace of the worldwide web!

We have been filming during the most exciting years for particle physics in a generation. Our aim is to give the general public, who have a broad sense of what CERN is, a more personal sense of who particle physicists are and what they actually do.

We have had great access to three CERN experiments: ALPHA, CMS, and some of ATLAS. We were there when the Higgs results were coming together, and when a groundbreaking anti-matter paper was accepted for publication. We captured the emotion of these moments in real time -- and such moments in physics are rare. They get headlines and public attention for a few days; our aim is to hold onto it and make the public want to know more, with a series of intimate, intelligent short films that open the door onto the real work of experimental particle physics.

Our focus is primarily on younger physicists -- not the people who speak to the cameras when big news is announced, but the ones staying up all night analyzing data, preparing graphs, and tweaking the tools on which big experiment results depend. We talk to them not only about what they do, but why they do it. Perhaps none of them will win the Nobel Prize, even if their work helps others to do so. They will probably never have the first-class lifestyle of their friends who went into the private sector, where mathematical brains like theirs can make millions. And as a rule, they don't care.

About CERN People, Liz Mermin, and Crowhill Films

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Twitter! @CERNPeople

[robhogan]

Everyone of you who can not stay, you will find something great. There are other possibillities out there - Peace

[susanparminter]

I would  work here even as a cleaner or receptionist