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Hadron Collider Relaunch Delayed
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 10, 2009 05:58 AM
from the earth-gets-a-reprieve dept.
from the earth-gets-a-reprieve dept.
SpuriousLogic writes "There's been another delay in the schedule announced for getting the Large Hadron Collider switched back on — now it's September 2009, a year after it shut down due to a malfunction. Scientists had said they expected the $5.4B machine to be repaired by November 2008, but then pushed the date back to June 2009, before the latest delay."
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[+]
LHC Shut Down By Transformer Malfunction 293 comments
Ortega-Starfire writes "A 30-ton transformer in the Large Hadron Collider malfunctioned, requiring complete replacement on the day the LHC came online. No one at CERN reported any problems, and they only released this data once the Associated Press sent people to investigate rumors of problems. I guess it's hard to just sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the rug."
[+]
IT: Princeton Student Finds Bug In LHC Experiment 243 comments
An anonymous reader writes "A Princeton senior has found a bug in the hardware design for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the hardware used to record and capture events in the LHC, she discovered errors that were leading to the appearances of double images because of particle streams known as jets. 'Xiaohang Quan '09 was working on her senior thesis when she found a miscalculation in the hardware of the world's largest particle accelerator. Quan, a physics concentrator, traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, last week with physics professors Christopher Tully GS '98, Jim Olsen and Daniel Marlow for the annual meeting of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This year, however, they also came to discuss Quan's discovery with the designers of the hardware for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which, as part of the Large Hadron Collider, has the potential to revolutionize particle physics.'"
[+]
Vacuum Leaks Lead To Another LHC Delay 224 comments
suraj.sun tips this story at ZDNet about a new problem with the LHC. Quoting:
"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. 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 [said] that the restarted experiment could run through the winter to make up some of the lost time."
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Incredible (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It must be those wormholes they created.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing it's a white hole.
Re: (Score:2)
so what is it?
Re: (Score:2)
So what is it?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the goatse man's black hole was the culprit for this time travel mishap.
Re:Incredible (Score:5, Funny)
Actually traveling to the future is extremely easy.
The hard part is getting there faster than one second a second.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Weight has nothing to do with it
Its 2009, not 2008 (Score:2, Informative)
Just fyi. And last year was 2008, not 2007.
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SpuriousLogic writes
"There's been another delay in the schedule announced for getting the Large Hadron Collider switched back on -- now it's September 2008, a year after it shut down due to a malfunction. Scientists had said they expected the $5.4B machine to be repaired by November 2007, but then pushed the date back to June 2008, before the latest delay."
technologytimesummarywrongsummary
Fast! (Score:5, Funny)
November 2007 was a bit optimistic, but september 2008 is still a really fast fix!
That's more than just a typo... (Score:5, Funny)
That entire news item is outdated. :P
Confusion about Dates (Score:2, Insightful)
See? This is why you always have to use four-digit years when specifying any date, even months, otherwise the 'software', *eyes original poster*, gets confused.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it's AD. You don't have to say it's AD. It's 2009. It's not like anything happened in 2009BC. Well, not in Geneva
Re:Confusion about Dates (Score:4, Funny)
It's not like anything happened in 2009BC. Well, not in Geneva
As a resident, I can assure you that unless you have very deep pockets or actually work for CERN (and even then...), nothing happens here anyway. It's the Indianapolis of Europe.
Parent
Maybe it's a dupe from a year ago? (Score:2)
Slashdot editors earning their keep...
When are you guys demanding a slice of the government bail-out then?
Time travel? (Score:2)
So Advanced (Score:2)
So this thing is so advanced that it can time travel into the past and delay its own repairs?
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't it rather make them happen early? Fixed september 2008 isn't what I would call a delay.
2012 is fast approaching (Score:5, Funny)
I have a sneaking suspicion the repairs won't be done till 2012... :| Making the prophecy come true after all.
Re:2012 is fast approaching (Score:5, Funny)
Mark my words, 2009 will be the year of atleast one prophecy!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's 2008 kdawson time for those of you who didn't get it!
Just to clarify (Score:4, Informative)
TFA actually mentions no years, just "this year" and "last year".
When a quote isn't a quote (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When a quote isn't a quote (Score:5, Informative)
The original submission:
SpuriousLogic writes
"The Large Hadron Collider could be switched back on in September a year after it shut down due to a malfunction and several months later than expected.
Scientists had said they expected the £3.6bn ($5.4bn) machine to be repaired by November, but then pushed the date back to June, before the latest delay."
So we can thank kdawson for fucking it up and attributing his/her errors to someone else.
Parent
Analysis from the Washington Post (Score:5, Funny)
Here: [washingtonpost.com]
'CERN* management today confirmed the restart schedule [translation: announced another delay] for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) resulting from the recommendations from last week's Chamonix workshop. The new schedule foresees [not that you'd want to bet your life on it] first beams in the LHC at the end of September this year, with collisions following in late October. A short technical stop has also been foreseen over the Christmas period. The LHC will then run through to autumn next year, ensuring that the experiments have adequate data to carry out their first new physics analyses and have results to announce in 2010. The new schedule also permits the possible collisions of lead ions in 2010.
'This new schedule represents a delay of six weeks with respect to the previous schedule, which foresaw the LHC "cold [sic?????] at the beginning of July". The cause of this delay is due to several factors such as implementation of a new enhanced protection system for the busbar and magnet splices; installation of new pressure-relief valves to reduce the collateral damage in case of a repeat [explosion] incident; application of more stringent safety constraints [no more drinking contests in the tunnel]; and scheduling constraints associated with helium transfer [because the scientists can't resist making their voices sound funny] and storage.'
Launch?! (Score:4, Funny)
One extra year... (Score:3, Funny)
I have stopped paying my life insurance already because in a year I may be dead but there will also be no-one left behind to pay out the policy.
Or to receive it for that matter.
Re:NO (Score:5, Funny)
September 2008? Its 2009 you fucking idiots.
No, the Large Hadron Collider already provoke a Time-Space anomaly.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, the Large Hadron Collider already provoke a Time-Space anomaly.
So that's what John de Lancie has been up to since Stargate SG-1 ended. I always knew the human race would be judged for our barbarism.
Re:NO (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:NO (Score:5, Funny)
No, the Large Hadron Collider already provoke a Time-Space anomaly.
A guy walked into the Chicago campus where the particle accelerator sits in December, 2001 and proclaimed he was from the future. "I'm here to warn you, we built a device called the Large Hadron Collider that's bigger than the one in Chicago. When we turned it on it momentarily generated a black hole and a spacetime anomoly, and I got caught in the anomoly. I have to give you some details to prevent the error."
The fellow says "That's interesting but it's hard to believe. How could I tell you're from the future? What's going to happen in the next few years?"
"Well, the next President will be a black man who went to a Muslim school as a child, and and his middle name is Hussein. In 2008 we'll not only still be at war in Afghanistan, but we'll be at war in Iraq too."
"Look buddy, I can almost swallow that time travel stuff but the rest of it is unbelievable bullshit."
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(Not original, but I can't remember where I heard it.)
Parent
Mod parent up (Score:5, Funny)
Listen pal, it ain't as easy as you would think to do things as they are done here. You people keep whining about us not reviewing the submissions before they come in, and so we finally get around to doing it, and you troll about it. So what if it took five months to review the submission? That's a LOT better than not reviewing it at all, right?
Sheesh!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps you could elaborate? Many of us do difficult jobs and still know what year it is.
See that big shiny thing outside your window that keeps track of days and months and years? People in their parent's basement don't have that luxury.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:4, Funny)
I think they should both be sacked, just to be sure.
Parent
Re:NO (Score:5, Funny)
They're living backwards in time, dude. They think that the year of Linux on the Desktop was^H^H^Hwill be 1972.
Parent
Re:NO (Score:4, Informative)
Hard to notice the years passing by in the cellar.
Damn, yet another year as virgin!
(I to was wondering if it happened to be an old article which some idiot had posted, but LHC isn't that old I thought... But well, turned out it was just an idiot who wrote the dates.)
Parent
Re:NO (Score:5, Funny)
I'm really slipping, I wrote 1908 on a check today, instead of 1909.
Parent
He said fucking idiots, so not modded up? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
stop yelling at them... I still mess up the whole 2008/2009 thing.Its only febuary
Re:NO (Score:5, Funny)
Please mind your language. What you meant to say was: "It's 2009 you fucking idiot." (singular). kdawson is indeed a fucking idiot; the other "editors" aren't necessarily fucking idiots by extension.
I mean, they are, but we have to retain some sense of relative scale. They employ kdawson in much the same way that a bunch of plain girls always take a really fat, ugly one out with them to make them look better by comparison.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd rather the EU was spending my tax euros on something... like a new generation of nuclear reactors
And don't you suppose the additional knowledge the LHC might provide would help us build better, more efficient reactors?
Re:Every night (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, a good businessman knows that money spent in the past is gone. There is nothing you can do about that. What happened in the past shouldn't dictate the decisions you are making right now.
If we discovered right now that continuing with the LHC would be fruitless, then we should stop the project and stop spending money on it, regardless of how much it has cost us in the past.
Of course this is not the case, and I agree that not performing research using the LHC would be extremely silly.
Interesting reaction, but wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Now let's dispense with your other analogy. I know the (mostly under 30s) posting on Slashdot don't like my argument (troll? I think not) but I have actually had P&L responsibility for some serious manufacturing plant, and I think I know more about this than you do.
Your analogy
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you're angry (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dates back to the 1950s (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's rock-
Superconducting wires were a little-used oddity until the Tevatron (at Fermilab) caused enough demand to cause them to be commercially feasible to purchase a lot of it. After Tevatron got the wire it needed for magnets, GE (and others) used the newly developed manufacturing capacity to produce MRI machines. The research into superconducting wires and magnets has led to maglev trains and is being used to replace transmission lines in some instances (New York has a liquid nitrogen cooled superconducting transmission line). They're close to getting a formulation that doesn't use Yittrium (which is expensive). Considering ~half of the energy produced in a power plant (like your coal plants) are lost to resistive losses in transmission lines, it's good news for energy production.
A number of accelerators use their beams for clinical applications. (Usually by bombarding patients with ridiculously high fluxes of neutrons). Many accelerators use their beams to activate radioactive materials which are then later used in cancer treatment.
All the detectors used in high energy physics have _tons_ of uses ranging from medical applications to non-invasive scanning of cargo. Antineutrino detectors are used to verify that the cores of nuclear reactors haven't been tampered with.
By using ultra-sensitive detectors looking at flourescent bubbles, we've been able to fix many errors in our ideas of fluid dynamics. These detectors would've been unfeasible without the research performed to produce an accelerator.
Most of those things are things that were tangential to the actual goal of finding out the deeper mysteries of the universe, but just because people aren't going to build something out of the higgs boson, doesn't make the research worthless. If you looked at someone a while ago bombarding different metals with different wavelength X-Rays and called them an idiot, then you would've shut down the theory of electron bandgaps, the application of which is the foundation of all our modern conveniences.
anyway, back to work.
Parent