Photos of the Damage To the Large Hadron Collider 106
holy_calamity writes "CERN have released images of the damage done to the world's most powerful machine, the Large Hadron Collider, when an electrical fault caused a helium leak. New Scientist has posted them, along with explanations of what you can see. The sudden burst of gas shifted some of the huge superconducting magnets by half a meter, causing at least $21 million in damage."
Re:Why (Score:5, Funny)
Odd... articles on Slashdot aren't usually read.
Doubts. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm conCERNed that this think may never stay functional long enough to destroy the earth.
On an unrelated note, if there's two things I love, one is pointless, likely redundant puns, and the other is shouting "the sky is falling!"
Wanna bet? (Score:1, Funny)
I'll bet they get it working on 12/12/2012.
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:3, Funny)
Of course the only was I have to pay is if by some miracle it doesn't destroy the earth, but does start working on that date. So, I just need come up with a back up plan to destroy the earth.
Re:Why red (Score:2, Funny)
Just a Cover Story (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who has been following these developments closely knows that the "helium leak" is just a cover story for the out of control mini black hole they created when they turned it on. Those magnets were shifted when they were finally able to collapse down the black hole, it went out with a massive gravitation burst (measured by seismographs as far away as the USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory) that damaged a lot more equipment then they are letting on. Now that they know how dangerous it is, I wouldn't count on them ever turning on the Large Hardon Collider again.
Re:Why red (Score:5, Funny)
The Large Hardon Collider [today.com] is designed to pump various types of hardon up to huge energies before banging them together. However, many concerned citizens without the personal experience or understanding of what hardons do worry at the idea of the large hardons being sucked deep into a black hole.
The device will push large, energised hardons through a ring repeatedly, faster and faster, as smoothly and tightly as possible, until they clash and spray matter in all directions. "It's nothing that cosmic rays don't do all the time all over the place," reassured a particularly buff scientist. "It's perfectly right and natural."
Low-energy hardon physics and the temperature dependence of hardon production are well understood, as is the process of a hardon smoothly entering the nucleus. But some question what may happen at greater, hotter energies.
Church leaders have come out at the device. "They're the same polarity!" said Pope Palpatine XVI. The Church worries that strange matter may recruit normal matter and turn it strange.
After a premature ejaculation of gas, the Large Hardon Collider has been delayed until July 2009. "I'm so sorry," stammered a scientist, "this has never happened to us before."
There is a GOD (Score:2, Funny)
Clearly this was an act of Divine Intervention...
Re:I liked the earlier description... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too bad Congress killed the SSC in Texas... (Score:5, Funny)
the (pardon me) boneheads in Congress
Well, if you think you can do better, I hear there's an opening for sale in Illinois.
Re:There is a GOD (Score:3, Funny)
Right now all of the detectors are calibrating with cosmic rays.
I'll consider it an act of Divine Intervention when God uses cosmic rays to spell "TURN THIS SHIT OFF" on every detector.
Until then, let's fix this black hole device!
A month later... (Score:2, Funny)
"Well there's your problem!"
Thanks for letting us in on the details so quickly.[/sarcasm]
Re:Just a Cover Story (Score:4, Funny)
Remember there is a backup LHC. Why build one when you can build two for twice the price.
Re:Too bad Congress killed the SSC in Texas... (Score:5, Funny)
And by another odd coincidence, other particle physicists took a detour into Wall Street, where they applied their advanced mathematical knowledge to creating exotic derivatives like Credit Default Swaps
That's the scariest correlation I've heard in a long time.
<Credit Bank VP>: "'Morning, Erwin, how's the CDO hedge working out? Makin' the firm some megabux?"
<Ex-physicist>: "Maybe we did, maybe we didn't."
In the end, the VP opened Erwin Schrödinger's books, collapsed the quantum superposition of mortgage debt obligations, and found that the economy was dead.