The Ghost Particle

First broadcast in somewhat different form by the BBC in 2004 under the title Project Poltergeist, the NOVA episode The Ghost Particle adds new material to the story of physicists John Bahcall and Ray Davis' tenacious search for nature's most elusive fundamental particle: the neutrino. It's easy to see why colleagues scoffed when the pair attempted to detect the presence of a few neutrinos by closely monitoring trillions of atoms in a gigantic vat of cleaning fluid (the explanation for this procedure will fascinate anyone with even a modicum of interest in particle physics); one skeptic observed that finding a needle in a haystack would be simple by comparison. And sure enough, Bahcall and Davis came up empty. But this is an uplifting story of professional vindication, as Bahcall and Davis waited 30 years to see their "foolish" endeavor evolve into one of modern science's most pivotal discoveries (the clues in solving the mystery of the neutrino would eventually come from the world's deepest nickel mine in northern Canada and a giant tank of ultra-pure water inside a Japanese mountain). Combining interviews, on location footage, and computer animation, The Ghost Particle is both an epic-scale scientific mystery and a human interest story (as Davis entered the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, he learned that he would be a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for physics). DVD extras include printable materials for educators. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Shannon)