Professor Welsch delivers captivating “Hollywood Physics” keynote at the Braga Science Film Fest
QUASAR Group leader Professor Carsten P Welsch delivered this year’s keynote talk on 22 November 2025 as part of the renowned Braga Science Film Fest, engaging an online audience with a dynamic blend of cinema, cutting-edge accelerator science, and real-world research impact. His presentation on “Hollywood Physics” triggered enthusiastic questions from a captivated audience of students, educators, researchers, and science-curious members of the public.
The Braga Science Film Fest celebrates the fusion of artistic storytelling and scientific discovery. Each year, the festival brings together filmmakers, researchers, educators, and the general public from around the world to explore how science influences society and how cinema can illuminate complex scientific ideas. In 2025, it attracted almost 2,000 submissions for the science film competition. Within this setting, Prof. Welsch’s keynote served as a perfect bridge between entertainment and scientific reality.
Drawing on scenes from popular franchises such as The Flash and Iron Man, Professor Welsch guided the audience through a cinematic journey into the physics that underpins Hollywood’s most imaginative creations. His talk featured superheroes, particle accelerators, and technologies inspired by fiction. At the same time, his talk went far beyond entertainment as he highlighted a wide range of current accelerator R&D projects in his Group, including the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), innovations for medical accelerators, antimatter research at CERN, and micro-accelerators and other next-generation technologies.
His talk was praised for its clarity, energy, and ability to highlight the relevance of accelerator science in everyday life, from cancer treatment to materials science and fundamental discoveries about our universe. The keynote concluded with a powerful message: accelerator research drives progress not “only” in physics, but across medicine, technology, and society, and collaboration remains key to accelerating innovation.
More information about the Braga Science Film Fest and Professor Welsch’s talk can be found on https://bragasciencefilmfest.com/.