Earliest LHC Restart Slated For Late Summer 2009 229
gaijinsr writes "The damage done in what CERN calls the 'S34 Incident' (and what other people call a major explosion in the cryogenics system) is much more serious than originally admitted: The earliest possible restart date is late summer next year, but with some proposed improvements to avoid repetitions of the incident, it looks more like 2010. They kept this pretty quiet up to now, not the kind of information policy I would expect from CERN."
Fortune cookie - fitting (Score:5, Insightful)
The current fortune cookie at the end of pages is somehow very fitting:
" The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -- Sagan"
Information policy (Score:5, Insightful)
They kept this pretty quiet up to now, not the kind of information policy I would expect from CERN.
Ummmm, perhaps scientists don't like to make statements that they aren't reasonably sure of? If there were still some disagreement or doubt about this timetable, I would fully expect them to keep it internal, and would be disappointed if they made a public statement prematurely. It's not like this timetable is exactly time critical today or anything...
Re:My prediction (Score:1, Insightful)
if that's the case why not wait until Dec. 22
Re:Information policy (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they had to take some big pieces of machinery apart before making a definitive statement. That takes time.
Even worse than a late statement would be making a statement then changing it a couple of weeks later.
The beam is like small bomb. (Score:4, Insightful)
The beam would make a good weapon (if the LHC a bad weapons system).
The beam was 200 MJoules, the equivalent of 48 kilo's of TNT. That's a pretty good bomb if it should hit you.
(Note that there are 2 beams; it is not clear to me if that is the energy per beam on in total.)
Re:Fortune cookie - fitting (Score:3, Insightful)
Use the date, not the season (Score:2, Insightful)
While most of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere admittedly, can we please reduce the ambiguity by referring to an approximate date (e.g. August 2009) instead of the season?
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)