Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Largest Particle Collider in the World is Broken

The world is safe for about two more months. The largest partial collider in the world is broken, and it will take them about that long to fix it. While most do not actually believe that the Large Hadron Collider will bring about the end of the world (Berman Post: Large Hadron Collider Turned on) there are a few that do. Others chose to make a joke out of it such as the HasTheLargeHadronColliderDestroyedTheWorldYet.com website. (Berman Post: HasTheLargeHadronColliderDestroyedTheWorldYet.com) and the HasTheLHCDestroyedTheEarth.com (Berman Post: HasTheLHCDestroyedTheEarth.com). Regardless, it will be about two months before we will be able to find out just what effect the Large Hadron Collider will have on our understanding of the universe, and/or life as we know it on earth.


http://news.wired.com
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWITZERLAND_PARTICLE_COLLIDER?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-09-20-08-18-53

"The world's largest atom smasher - which was launched with great fanfare earlier this month - has been damaged worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said Saturday.
...
"It's too early to say precisely what happened, but it seems to be a faulty electrical connection between two magnets that stopped superconducting, melted and led to a mechanical failure and let the helium out," Gillies told The Associated Press.

Gillies said the sector that was damaged will have to be warmed up well above the absolute zero temperature used for operations so that repairs can be made - a time-consuming process.
"

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