LHC delayed 2 months---incident on 19 September

[Martin]

A mechanical failure resulted in a large helium leak around midday Friday (yesterday) in sector 34. The mechanical failure is presumed due to a bad electrical connection between two magnets. The magnets carry high current, so if a part of the circuit loses superconductivity and develops resistance, it can quickly heat and blow.

 

CERN press release:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR09.08E.html

 

 

The repair is expected to be quick (a few days at most.) What will take time, and will cause at least a two month delay, is that sector 34 will have to be warmed up first (to permit opening for repair) and then cooled down again---to restore superconductivity. It is the warming up and cooling down that takes time.

 

I would guess that collisions will be put off until next year---hopefully early in the year, perhaps right after the winter break.

 

This is sad and frustrating news, but it is remarkable how well the engineering has gone in general, and how little delay there has been, given the complexity of the project.

[throng]

A mechanical failure resulted in a large helium leak around midday Friday (yesterday) in sector 34. The mechanical failure is presumed due to a bad electrical connection between two magnets. The magnets carry high current, so if a part of the circuit loses superconductivity and develops resistance, it can quickly heat and blow.

 

CERN press release:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR09.08E.html

 

 

The repair is expected to be quick (a few days at most.) What will take time, and will cause at least a two month delay, is that sector 34 will have to be warmed up first (to permit opening for repair) and then cooled down again---to restore superconductivity. It is the warming up and cooling down that takes time.

 

I would guess that collisions will be put off until next year---hopefully early in the year, perhaps right after the winter break.

 

This is sad and frustrating news, but it is remarkable how well the engineering has gone in general, and how little delay there has been, given the complexity of the project.

 

 

 

G'day, I'm pretty interested in the collider. Its just a high tech, high speed, head on collision to smash things and catalogue the bits. Kind of primative in that way, but smashes are pretty exciting.

 

I guess any valuable findings would be top secret.

 

In finding the knowledge we seek, I hope we apply it with subtlety that's becoming.

 

As we manipulate the fabric of space/time, creating mini black holes and completely unknown phenomena, particles that wouldn't normally exist, will we "modify" space for our convenience? (futuristically).

 

Anyway however we apply the knowledge it will offer great insight to the universe.

 

Here's the scientists involved on a documentary.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fJ6PMfnz2E

[yplim]

there is still no finding.

I hope we can find the God's particle.

[Klaynos]

there is still no finding.

I hope we can find the God's particle.

 

There wont be for quite a while.

[Kyrisch]

Why do people keep referring to it as the God particle? >.<

[Klaynos]

Why do people keep referring to it as the God particle? >.<

 

It was once called that as a bit of a joke, and then a book was written where the editors decided against the better idea of the author to call the book "the good particle" and it just stuck...

 

I don't like the term personally.

[iNow]

IIRC, it's something also about how "nothing would be possible without it," like mass or us or other things.

 

I agree with Klaynos. The term adds much unecessary obfuscation to already hard to understand work.

[Comandante]

they say it was a mechanical failure, but it's all a cover-up! go and check it - sector 34 disappeared completely after it was swallowed by a black hole shortly after first collision, now they need to make some replacements

[npts2020]

they say it was a mechanical failure, but it's all a cover-up! go and check it - sector 34 disappeared completely after it was swallowed by a black hole shortly after first collision, now they need to make some replacements

 

Yes, and bigfoot survived and crawled out of the crater.

[big314mp]

Yes, and bigfoot survived and crawled out of the crater.

 

actually it was the yeti with high voices that someone mentioned before

[Royston]

Here's an update on the progress at the LHC, from physicsworld...

 

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/36769

 

In the past week or so, seven of the LHC’s magnets (mostly 15m-long, 35 tonne “dipoles”) have been transported approximately 6 km through the 27 km LHC tunnel from the scene of the incident to a shaft on the main CERN site. From there, the magnets have been craned 50 m to the surface and taken to different locations for inspection. Some 50 magnets are expected to have to come to the surface in total, about 20 of which will not return, and the last one should be above ground before Christmas.

“The incident in September was a major blow for us,” LHC operations leader Roger Bailey told Physics World. “But things are moving fast now and we can see a way ahead.”

[iNow]

I went down to the university last week for a free showing of a film called "The Atom Smashers" in our physics department. There were two high energy particle physics professors taking questions after the film, and one mentioned that LHC probably wouldn't turn back on until March or April. We knew there would be bumps in the road, but it's too bad they hit such a large one so early (the folks at FermiLab are probably happy to have more time to try reaching the Higgs finish line first, though).

[npts2020]

Aw, man. Now we gotta wait till spring for the end of the world?

Seriously though, I thought now they had to wait till then anyway because of the amount of electricity it draws from the grid?

[midgetwars]

Making protons go near light speed would not create black holes. MAKING THEM CRASH WILL.

[Martin]

The new estimate is it will be down until late summer 2009, or possibly until early 2010

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=1290

[AlphaNumeric]

An email was forwarded to my department 2 or 3 days ago containing a link to an LHC guy's presentation about the damage and it said that the collider will be offline till after 2009. So that means it won't be up and running for about another 15 months

[Klaynos]

Making protons go near light speed would not create black holes. MAKING THEM CRASH WILL.

 

Nope, it wont. Move along.

[Severian]

Nope, it wont. Move along.

 

How do you know? It might well do. It would be very interesting if it does.

[Klaynos]

How do you know? It might well do. It would be very interesting if it does.

 

OK, fair point, but we're going to fall into the "ahha they said it would destroy the world" argument if

[Pangloss]

OMG, we've lost Klaynos to a mini black hole! In mid-sentence, no less!

 

I don't know what I'll do if it comes to Flori