This May will see the world premiere of Angels & 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 is made using the Large Hadron Collider and is stolen from the European particle physics laboratory CERN. Parts of the movie were actually filmed at CERN. It’s not every day that a major motion picture places particle physics in the spotlight, especially one starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. Through a series of public lectures, the particle physics community is using this opportunity to tell the world about the real science of antimatter, the Large Hadron Collider and the excitement of particle physics research.

The Web site is impressive as is the national and local coordination in terms of media outreach. I will be interested to track the initiative as an important case study and to learn about any formal evaluation that takes place.