Large Hadron Collider Struggling 371
Writing in the NY Times, Dennis Overbye covers the birthing pangs and the prospects for CERN's Large Hadron Collider (which we have discussed numerous times). "The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections. [And] many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies. Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine [Fermilab's Tevatron] across the ocean. ... Technicians have spent most of the last year cleaning up and inspecting thousands of splices in the collider. About 5,000 will have to be redone... Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy [of 7 TeV]. Many physicists say they would be perfectly happy if the collider never got above five trillion electron volts. Dr. Myers said he thought the splices as they are could handle 4 [TeV]. 'We could be doing physics at the end of November,' he said in July, before new vacuum leaks pushed the schedule back a few additional weeks. 'It's not the design energy of the machine, but it's 4 times higher than the Tevatron,' he said."
All (Score:5, Funny)
High school physics students will tell you that physics experiments are doomed from the start.
If it smells, it's Chemistry.
If it squirms, it's Biology.
If it doesn't work, it's Physics.
Just how they managed to suck billions of dollars from governments is beyond me, unless political "science" isn't really a science at all!
PS: for the humor impaired: This is a joke.
Large Hadron Collider Struggling (Score:5, Funny)
Conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone ever think that Fermilab is paying Cern employees to sabotage their collider? Each setback adds 6-8 months to the life of Fermilab...
2012 (Score:5, Funny)
FTFA:
"scientists say it could be years, if ever, before the collider runs at full strength"
Looking more and more likely that a Dec 2012 full-power test could be on the cards.
Ah, memories (Score:4, Funny)
There was a character running around named: "Drphillip" and I thought to myself, "huh, interesting name he has." And then all of a sudden, he started shouting in town:
"OH NOES. teh large hardon collider is turning onz0rz!!!"
Give them time... (Score:5, Funny)
Lazy Europeans (Score:5, Funny)
WTF??? (Score:5, Funny)
After I invested my entire 401(k) in crowbars???
Re:anything worth doing (Score:3, Funny)
is also usually hard to do
the setbacks are part and parcel of such a complicated effort
True. But could there be additional complications? To compare it to another grandiose project, the Three Gorges Dam. For starters, it's a prestige project so the Party cannot allow it to fail without losing much face. Second, if there are any technical shortcomings in the design, they will be covered up due to the pressure from on-high. Third, there's theft by contractors in the substitution of inferior materials, allegations of defective workmanship, and so forth. And again, these issues would be covered up to prevent embarrassment of the national government which is funny in funny-uh-oh way because tearing things up and fixing the problem now would be less costly and embarrassing and lethal than finishing the dam, flaws and all, and letting it fail years later during a quake with a full head of water in the reservoir.
So, what's the Hardon's problem? (Yeah, I keep calling it the Large Hardon Collider. It's funny.) Anything worth doing is going to be complicated. That's the one I'm hoping for. Is the design sound? Are there defects in workmanship? Any corruption from subcontractors?
Re:All (Score:5, Funny)
Just how they managed to suck billions of dollars from governments is beyond me
Well, you could say the LHC working better than intended. Instead of making a black hole, it became one.
Re:Conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LHC_quadrupole_magnets.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like they need to get the Milliard Gargantubrain or the Googleplex Star Thinker working on a solution, and fast!
Re:it's the space-time continuum messing with them (Score:3, Funny)
1. once an effective way to control time travel is discovered, said method will be able to exist at all times.
CITATION NEEDED
Re:Conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
Says the man whose .sig links to his Fermilab profile page! We're onto you!
Re:I was wondering why the world hadn't imploded.. (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry, the Vogons will not be here until 2012.
You know that famous Maya calendar? Well, actually it's the timing diagram for the final phase of Earth's computer program.
I'm glad I'm an atheist... (Score:3, Funny)
Clever Tevatron People (Score:3, Funny)
Large Hardon Collider? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:It's Europes Orion (Score:3, Funny)
Why did I read the title 'Large Hardon Collider Struggling'? Christ, I must be at home here.
Re:anything worth doing (Score:5, Funny)
Given the reduced energy: Re, the Higgs Boson (that's the one that everybody talks about): Is that still the one sure thing that this machine will sort out? If the Higgs exists, will they still see it right away, and if it doesn't, will the scientists still finally say, "There is no Higgs, we need new physics to account for why; things have mass, something in our standard model went awry"?
No, it won't. Actually God keeps breaking the LHC. You didn't think (s)he'd let a bunch of monkeys have h(er/is) particle do you?
Re:time travelers from future stalling it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Did anyone else think... (Score:4, Funny)
Now I just have a picture in my head of the whole thing not working because somebody tripped over the cable connecting the whole thing to the standard wall outlet..
Damn those cold solder joints... (Score:4, Funny)
I knew I should have read my copy of Forrest Mims's "Getting Started in Electronics" more carefully before working on the Large Hadron Collider!
Re:I'm glad I'm an atheist... (Score:5, Funny)
All part of the plan (Score:5, Funny)
"We start with a 50 Euro note and a 50 USD note," Dr. Grotzy explained. "We accelerate them to near the speed of light- interesting things can happen when the velocity of money gets this high. When the beams of Euros and USDs collide - thousands of notes per minute- we get some interesting reactions.
"This is a photograph of one such collision- an annihilation as you can see," Grotzy said, pointing at the annotated diagram. "The buck stops here."
"Out of it you can see these spiraling particles. Given the $50 is one of the ingredient particles, we call this 'Grant money going down the drain'.
"The experiment is actually quite easy to run. If the beams start to wane you just go up to the generator and throw more money at it.
"To keep busy we'll be adding more projects. With with a little more funding from the Brits, we can test out a heating system powered by burning cash. Convert a pound's mass into energy.
"Some people are concerned this collider will produce economic black holes that will destroy the worldwide economy. I can assure you this is nothing but uninformed rumor.
Re:anything worth doing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't Settle (Score:3, Funny)
The cost/benefit curve has a very clear kink in it.
Well then figure out what its kink is, and hire it an open-minded hooker or something to straighten it out. Geeze, do I have to think of everything?
It's proof! (Score:5, Funny)
Hardon Collider (Score:5, Funny)
It takes too long (Score:3, Funny)
My Hadron is fading away...
Re:VERY LARGE test bed? (Score:4, Funny)
Nonsense. Mathematics isn't a science!
mini sirloin holes (Score:2, Funny)
Smaller black-holes? That outta buy humanity another few months.
4 [TeV] should be enough (Score:3, Funny)
I have a family reunion in december I need to get out of, and a rogue singularity orbiting the core of the earth is a nice excuse not to go.
Re:LHC != Installing a Sink (Score:5, Funny)
"unforseen consequences"
Great. Now I _AM_ going to stock up on crowbars.
Re:anything worth doing (Score:3, Funny)
But the LHC uses helium, so that problem should be solved.
Re:It's Europes Orion (Score:1, Funny)
This is why: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/194396/930771.png [ebaumsworld.com]
4 TeV ought to be enough for anybody (Score:2, Funny)
"Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies."
Two thoughts:
* It's probably not a problem, probably
* 4 TeV ought to be enough for anybody.