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Large Hadron Collider delayed again by vacuum leaks

Tom Espiner ZDNet UK | July 21, 2009 6:29 AM PDT

Summary

The restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back further, following the discovery of vacuum leaks in two sectors of the experiment.

An engineer works on closing up LHC sectors

The restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back further, following the discovery of vacuum leaks in two sectors of the experiment.

The world's largest particle collider is now unlikely to restart before mid-November, according to a Cern press statement. The project had been expected to start again in October.

To repair the leaks, which are from the helium circuit into the insulating vacuum, sectors 8-1 and 2-3 will have to be warmed from 80K to room temperature. Adjacent sub-sectors will act as 'floats', while the remainder of the surrounding sectors will be kept at 80K, Cern said in the statement. The repair work will not have an impact on the vacuum in the beam pipe.

The LHC experiment, which is designed to answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter, had to be halted nine days after it became fully operational last September, due to a leak of liquid helium. To be super-conductive, the experiment is cooled using liquid helium.

Cern has pushed back the restart a number of times, as repair work has continued. To begin with, scientists said the LHC experiment would restart in April 2009.

In May, Cern told ZDNet UK that the restarted experiment could run through the winter to make up some of the lost time. Normally, running the experiments through the alpine winter is prohibitively expensive, due to high electricity costs. However, as the experiment has not been running since last September, Cern would have the budget to cover energy costs over the winter.

This article was originally posted on ZDNet UK.
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Good thing the Europions paid for it
Roger Ramjet 22nd Jul 2009
Our own supercollider is now home to mushroom farmers . . .
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I love those arguments
rpmyers1 21st Jul 2009
I need to find the link again, but someone did the calculations, "what if a black hole was created and ended up in the middle of the earth?"

It took several billion years before it became dangerous. IIRC, the time for the earth's destruction was longer than it would take for the sun to become a red giant, engulfing earth.

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Hes messing with you..
Been_Done_Before 21st Jul 2009
lol
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I know
rpmyers1 21st Jul 2009
Hence the "I love these arguments" rather than "you're an idiot"
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Well, thats one concept, there are others.
No_Ax_to_Grind 21st Jul 2009
Like, once the black hole begins to gain mass its all over.


Naw, just pulling your leg. I am beginning to think they will never get it fully operational.
working. LOL

I plan to keep maxing out my credit cards and living the high life. I think i can stretch it for another 2 years.

LOL
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beat me to it
gnesterenko 21st Jul 2009
I thought the same thing when I read it. They won't get it started till then and then boom.
Nah really though, this isn't the way we are going to go, people. My money is on the West US Supervolcano blotting out the sun for 2 years and killing most plant life on the planet.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."
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It's weird how the dates are coming together.
No_Ax_to_Grind 21st Jul 2009
Not that I put much stock in it but...
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The idea of the experiment is interesting, but if it keeps breaking, they will have paid for two of them before it is working right.
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Talked with gawd and he said...
No_Ax_to_Grind 21st Jul 2009
It's none of your danged businees how I created matter. Keep mucking about and, 2012 is right around the corner...
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Reminds me of armageddon... "We are sitting on a rocket with 1 million moving parts....built by the lowest bidder..."

My guess is it will never work..... by the time they get the other parts working... other sections will have falling apart for not being used ... and the cycle will repeat
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Good thing the Europions paid for it
Roger Ramjet 22nd Jul 2009
Our own supercollider is now home to mushroom farmers . . .

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