When?
Malfunction my ass. They knew they couldn't achieve what they wanted to with the piddly ass system they built, so they pushed it past its operating limits, hoping that they could get away with it without anyone noticing. Everyone involved is too eat up with eurocentrist pride to see the forest for the trees and the wasted tax dollars therein.
Repairs on track for Large Hadron Collider
Summary
Cern announced the completion of the LHC's above-ground repair work. And work is still going on below ground to connect the 53 reinstalled magnets.
Topics
The final replacement magnet for the Large Hadron Collider has been lowered into the giant particle accelerator's tunnel.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) announced the completion of the LHC's above-ground repair work on Thursday. Work is still going on below ground to connect the 53 reinstalled magnets, which are used in the scientific project to guide particles around a 27km tunnel under the Alps. The LHC fires two high-speed particles streams around the tunnel in opposite directions, smashing them together at certain points in order to learn more about scientific mysteries such as the nature of matter.
The LHC went offline in September 2008, when a faulty electrical connection between two of its magnets caused a malfunction in the cooling system that keeps the machine below -271°C. That malfunction subsequently led to a helium leak. By Cern's latest reckoning, the system will be turned on again in late September 2009.
"This is an important milestone in the repair process," Steve Myers, Cern's director for accelerators and technology, said in a statement. "It gets us close to where we were before the incident, and allows us to concentrate our efforts on installing the systems that will ensure a similar incident won't happen again."
The magnet that was lowered underground on Thursday was a quadrupole: one of the magnets that focuses the particle stream, rather than one of the dipole magnets that keep the stream on course.
Of the 53 magnets that were affected by the malfunction, 16 were refurbished and put back into the tunnel, while 37 were replaced by spares. The replaced magnets will themselves be refurbished to provide spares for the future.
Apart from the repair itself, the LHC is also gaining systems to monitor its functioning, in order to avoid a repeat of the September incident. Extra pressure valves are also being installed to make any helium releases less disastrous to the project. The incident occurred only days after the LHC was turned on for the first time.
This article was originally posted on ZDNet UK.
Talkback Most Recent of 5 Talkback(s)
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Spiritusindomit@...2nd May 2009 -
conspiracy theory
they are closer to the fringe of the trans universe then they think.
Last time they fired the thing up a vertex
was created that interfered with the earths
weather system.. then it melted down due to
an inverse tunneling effect.....
they are actually afraid of creating a black
hole............ ha ha ha
not of this world2nd May 2009 -
RE: Repairs on track for Large Hadron Collider
Never send a human to do a Mars Phoenix Lander's job! They already have the proven math on hand. This just like the little boys that wanna crash their toys to see what happens.
El Condor3rd May 2009 -
a bunch of useful comments today
I wonder which one of you ever saw the operational specs of the LHC. As far as I know it broke down way before it reached the full operational capacity. In such an extreme field it might happen to anyone. How many space shuttles managed to blow up ? As for the tax dollars spent, I suspect it was Euros instead.
Lastly: at least in Europe they spend some serious money on basic physics research, as opposed to the USA nowadays.
-- all in good humor --
dcdavy4th May 2009 -
When will they step back and consider all risks?
Now two very different models are showing mini black-holes
to be stable...so why potentially produce them?
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,483477,00.html
http://www.scientificconcerns.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=776
Mr E.1st Jul 2009
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