Second Snag This Week Could Delay LHC for Weeks

sciencehabit writes "After a transformer failure earlier this week, the Large Hadron Collider has hit another snag — and this one is much more serious. As Science reports, 'At least one of the LHC's more than 1700 superconducting magnets failed, springing a leak and spewing helium gas into the subterranean tunnel that houses the collider ... How long [repairs take] will depend in part on how much of the LHC must be warmed to room temperature for servicing. If it's only a short section, the repair could be relatively quick. But the machine is built in octants, and if workers have to heat and cool an entire octant, then the cooling alone would take several weeks." Reader Simmeh contributes coverage from the BBC. We recently discussed the transformer malfunction at the LHC, which was a smaller problem and has already been fixed. Update - 9/20 at 12:52 by SS: CNN reports that the LHC will be out of commission for two months.

good grief

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna live in the dimension where the LHC works.

Re:ohno!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was another magnet eating black hole!!!!!

Messin' up committee's schedule

[Tablizer]

The Milky Way Darwin Award Committee has to wait a bit longer before awarding the little blue ex-planet.

That's how...

[doublee3]

Dr.Kleiner got his high pitched voice.

Argh, Matey!

[Panaflex]

Thar she blows, ye scalleywag... doewn beluw deck she's spewin colder then the centre o' hell.

Mark me wards... there's trouble brewing... somethin strange and black. Beware, I say... beware!!!

Re:ohno!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it was the strangelets. That is why the LHC is acting strange.

That's a lot of helium...

[Majik Sheff]

All I could envision was a bunch of physicists coming out of the tunnel squeaking like chipmunks.

I have nothing to contribute but a cheap laugh and for that I am sorry.

the octant?

[circletimessquare]

oh i know this level

just beyond the dead space marine after you open the first door (watch out for the imp sniping at you from above) there's a false panel marked "UHC" (not "LHC") on your left. shoot that with your pistol and it opens. but shooting your pistol will wake a cacodemon further down the hall

easy

Re:So what?

[LordLucless]

Not until they get it fixed anyway.

Maybe this is just the Universe's way of saying...

[stonetony]

STOP!!!!!

Is anyone listening?

Re:Argh, Matey!

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was such a day, it would be a silent day, as ninjas are stealthily silent until you are already dead. Then they secretly talk like pirates when nobody around them is left alive.

Re:Messin' up committee's schedule

[Tablizer]

Oh fuck off. Sick of you idiots who think that's funny...

If you're not nice, I'll make pro-creationism jokes next.
       

Re:ohno!

[dotancohen]

For the slashdotters who haven't yet seen the CERN webcam images of the leak occuring:
http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html [cyriak.co.uk]

Re:sabotage

[GargamelSpaceman]

I'd be surprised too, but not as surprised as I would be if it were really time traveling sabotage agents from the future sent back to keep the experiment that while uncovering the physics that allowed time travel to ultimately be discovered unleashes the hordes of microscopic interdimensional atom-eaters that munch on matter and defecate thermal neutrons. Because these molecule sized creatures (some say they are intelligent) are alive they multiply exponentially but though the early stages of infestation they were hardly noticed. But after some years their presence was obvious and our doom was sealed unless time travel could somehow save the world... These creatures entered our plane of existance through a wormhole opened at the LHC. The LHC had to be destroyed, or if not destroyed, at least delayed. T-100, a robotic facsimilie of a particle physicist, looking remarkably like Arnold Schwartzenpecker was sent back to throw a wooden clog into the workings of the LHC.

In Soviet Russia...

[itsdapead]

Universe destroys Large Hadron Collider!

What does LHC Stand for again?

[houbou]

LHC = Leaking Helium Coolant

Quite appropriately named uh?

Re:sabotage

[nospam007]

>What does it do? Ummmmm, yes, it will have the potential to reveal to us the HIGGS BOSON! Yes. HIGGS BOSON.

Wot?
All this money just to peek at Miss Higgs Bosom?

Re:good grief

[Metasquares]

<paranoid>

No! Don't you see!? This is quantum immortality at work! The universe in which the LHC works is the one in which WE ALL DIE!

</paranoid>

Re:Give me a bag

[russotto]

Have you ever built something big, powerful, and complex? If you have, you'd know that "turning it on" is not a sudden point, it's a gradual process of implementation until it's fully operational, with hundreds or thousands of small, minor issues found and addressed as implementation approaches 100% complete.

When _I_ turn something on, I set it up completely first, leaving only one final connection incomplete. That connection is made by an enormous knife switch, which I throw to the dramatic dimming of lights (managed by my assistant; my invention is of course on another power source entirely), sparks, and the scent of ozone. THAT is how you turn something big on.

Re:sabotage

[Walkingshark]

Fuck, I can't even get Hello World to work on the first compile most of the time.

Re:good grief

[DikSeaCup]

I looked at a number of the early posts and didn't see this joke - hope it's not a repeat ...

I just keep having this image in my head of two of the technicians for the LHC wandering through the innards of the thing, when one suddenly looks at the other and says, "Aw crap! A Helium leak!" ...

Sounding, of course, like a chipmunk.