Physics and Improv Collide

Physicists trying to explain the nature of the universe using the largest particle accelerator ever built are also trying to learn something else: communication skills to help them explain what they’ve learned to the rest of world. And they’re going about it in a unique way, the Wall Street Journal reports—through improv comedy.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research hired improvisational comedy coaches to teach scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider—built in a 17-mile-long tunnel, 330 feet underground along the Franco-Swiss border—to think on their feet. "Improv has got to be more difficult than doing physics. You have to think in milliseconds," one particle physicist says. (More Large Hadron Collider stories.)