# Tales From The Industry XXVIII – Angels, Demons, and Antimatter

So, apparently there is physics in the upcoming huge film Angels and Demons (and presumably the book). Lots of it. I did not know that until recently. So imagine my surprise a few months ago when I got a message from a producer (Natalie Artin of Prometheus Pictures) of a documentary about it, asking if I’d like to contribute, talking about aspects of the physics.

They wanted me to talk about anti-matter. This is as a result of finding a blog post of mine over on Correlations, entitled “Not Science Fiction”, which starts:

Anti-matter. Seeing the previous word, you immediately glance back at the title, right? Strangely, it has been 80 years since the discovery of anti-matter, and we use it routinely in our technology. Nevertheless, anti-matter is still thought of as something from science fiction (and mostly bad science fiction at that).

It all goes back to one of my favourite theoretical physicists, Paul Dirac, and you might like how he found it (roughly). He essentially did it by […]

I agreed to talk, if I could focus on one of the main issues of my post: That anti-matter is not weird stuff of science fiction, but actual routine science…. so routine that it is used commonly in medical diagnosis, for example. The “P” in PET scans stands for “positron”. The positron is the anti-electron. (The “E” does not stand for “electron”…. the thing that we use in all our electronic devices, as you might have guessed, but “emission”.) The science-fictiony sounding thing that they are evil twins that annihilate in an explosion is….. true. The trick is to introduce an agent into your body that produces positrons. They meet the electrons that are already inside you (all your atoms have them and you’re made of atoms, remember?). The “explosion” is simply a burst of high energy light (gamma rays). Actually it is two photons (particles of light), which the scanner detects and uses to reconstruct the location of the meeting point (that’s the “T” – “tomography”). Do this with a lot of positron-producing (by a kind of radioactivity called $$\beta$$-decay) fluid flowing around your body (the radiotracer) and it’ll allow an informative image of the interior of your body, showing concentrations of the fluid (which correlates well with things like cancerous growths and so forth).

So I agreed to talk on anti-matter, on condition that I mostly focus on that rather than the whacky speculative or outlandish stuff (since if they want that they’ll no doubt get someone like Michio Kaku to do that anyway). (I don’t mind doing some of that type of thing too – carefully – but this time I wanted to make sure that someone brought out the everyday aspects of anti-matter, for it is an often-overlooked aspect.) I would also talk a bit about some of the things going on in particle physics currently.

I offered something more. Rather than have me sit in my office talking about this in the abstract, why not come to an actual hospital and see and film an actual PET? That would be a really nice complement to the other stuff they’d have on film concerning the rest of the movie (they went to CERN to the LHC, the particle accelerator – apparently it has a role – and to the Vatican, and interviewed people like Tom Hanks (this is as close as I’ll come to appearing in a movie with Tom Hanks… huh…), and hopefully (depending how they use the material) ground aspects of the film in reality nicely.

They liked this, and so I went into location-seeking mode and started reaching out to some of my friends and colleagues on all three USC campuses (the University Park one, Health Sciences, and also Children’s Hospital), and within 24 hours had some good leads. (Thanks Barbara, Justin, )(Some of my facebook friends will now understand the status update “Clifford is looking for a PET”. The various guesses: a small furry animal, a scarily submissive date, an old classic computer, etc, were not right. Promised I’d explain didn’t I?)

So it was all set up, and the shoot went rather well. I was given the option of using either the human scanner, or one of the smaller ones that they use for scanning animal subjects in research. I chose the former, attempting to avoid the obvious confusion that will arise – I’m trying to explain that PET does not stand for “pet”, but showing a machine designed to image small furry animals. Confusing!!!! (For those who have commented: To the left is evidence that I don’t always wear a blue shirt when doing this sort of thing.)

The producers (Timothy Crehan, Gary Simson) and other crew, (Jayme Roy, Hilary Stewart, and Ian Eastman) were a lot of fun to work with. Here they are:

The director of the scanning center we used, Peter Conti was very helpful, as was Carol McCann, one of the staff. In fact, I ventured another idea to the filmmakers. Form talking with him, Peter seemed to me a very clear and personable sort of guy, so why not have him talk about aspects of the machine on camera to me, rather than have me explain the machine on camera to the audience? Seemed more honest and natural to me (and give the audience a rest from seeing my mug all the time for the segment.) So that is what we did. Here he is being miked up by Hilary, in the middle of preparing for a take, and a shot of the command centre’s computers (where the images show up) (Click for larger view.):

I’ve no idea how much of this they will use – if any! – but I was informed that the film, “Angels & Demons: Decoded”, is on the History Channel on Sunday night at 8:00pm. Enjoy!

-cvj

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### 16 Responses to Tales From The Industry XXVIII – Angels, Demons, and Antimatter

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2. Elliot says:

You know when this was going on I had the idea that you were having a PET scan and was concerned that you had a medical issue. Glad to learn this was the reason.

So when are we having lunch with Ron and Tom?

e.

3. Rob Knop says:

I read “Angels and Demons” a while back. (I went on a Dan Brown kick for three books.) I remember being unimpressed with the physics in the book, but I don’t remember why. I remember being much more unimpressed with his computer technology in “Digital Fortress.” That’s where I got the impression that Dan Brown’s research methodology was “hey, find me a bunch of technical terms I can spew out maybe not even in the right context so that people will think I know what I’m talking about!”

4. Clifford says:

Eliot – it never occurred to me that it would have triggered worry that I was ill! So sorry about that. Thanks for the concern.

Rob – I see. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with it in the film…

-cvj

5. PJ Eby says:

(I hadn’t read this article yet, so I didn’t know about the segment. My wife Leslie just happened to channel-surf to it shortly before you came on, and called me in to see it.)

(And yes, I’m that Eby you know from Montserrat. Long time no see!)

6. Clifford says:

Whoa!! Hi! Gosh…. There you are! (Email on its way.)

-cvj

7. Plato says:

For Rob,

Considering Second Life, I would think this would fit in with part of the scenario of this “other culture” that was written about?:) Creatively anyway.

Clifford,

Your readers may find some comparative work in relation on research to “Angels and Demons” as well for consideration.

Best,

8. Eleanor says:

If I remember correctly, in Angels and Demons there is a passage which starts decently enough talking about how particles are detected by the tracks they leave and then concludes with the “Z particle” being the lightest ever discovered. It left the distinct impression that Dan Brown had chatted to some physicists but not really bothered about what they had said. But is was the parachuting with a piece of tarpaulin that really exasperated me. Honestly!

9. Heather says:

My friends and I saw you on that last week! Two of them manage movie theaters, so we love watching the “behind the scenes” shows (especially since the History Channel tends to do a better job than most). It was definitely cool to see someone that I “knew” (at least through the blogosphere). Great job and way to keep popularizing science!

10. Clifford says:

Thanks Heather! Look out for some more of that sort of thing, but this time all about the physics behind recent developments in a certain very popular TV show, name beginning with the letter L…

Cheers,

-cvj

11. Elliot says:

I saw A and D this weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn’t let any scientific details interfere with my willing suspension of disbelief.

Fun stuff to be sure.

e.

12. Clifford says:

Oh…A positive recommendation (about the film) from someone whose opinion on this sort of thing I trust. I may well go along after all. Was already planning to wait for it to come to HBO…

Cheers,

-cvj

13. Dan Brown writes great books, but both the science and history is extremely dubious. For a brief commentary and relevant links see

web page

14. Plato says:

Clifford,

I know you tend to see the scientific side to benefit, I thought I might interject with a “little more” explanation, without loosing sight of the scientific pursuits you project here.

More Thoughts on Angel and Demons

Best,

15. Pingback: Blog Series: Physics
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