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."
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
The universe is saved for a couple of more years! Now's the time to form our new national holiday "Beat the Hell out of the Atheist Murderous Universe-destroying Physicists Day".
Project cursed? (Score:2)
It is almost as if this scientific project fell under an evil magical curse.
Bill (Score:2)
Pity the guy who did the dodgy soldering when he gets the repair bill !
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Europe is in the Northern hemisphere, and so the seasons are the same as North America. Therefore, Summer would refer to the period from around June to August.
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Please post on topic. It should at least be LHC porn.
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You mean like Hicks and Bosons getting hot and heavy under pressure?
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
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It was a joke, you moron.
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"
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Mine says "Two cars in every pot and a chicken in every garage."
That's not what I had in mind for a thanks giving...
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I'm trying to relate this to the LHC, but I'm coming up empty here...
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Well, you're too slow. Cookie has already changed.
Apparently, Slashdot is indifferent to slow posters like you :)
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Re:Fortune cookie - fitting (Score:4, Funny)
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Funny you mention pot. I had a dream about chicks looking to me to get high. This must have been a transmission from a different universe. LHC need to help us find this universe for the sanity of the human race (well that's what will be in the business case).
My prediction (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My prediction (Score:4, Informative)
the Mayan calendar merely resets at that date. similar to how computers were expected to reset at y2k, it was not that they expected the world to end they just did not include dates after that much like our calendar does not include specifically year numbers for after 9999(unless you count adding a digit but in that case you would expect the current year to be specified as 02008). http://www.xkcd.com/509/ is somewhat relevant.
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the Mayan calendar merely resets at that date. similar to how computers were expected to reset at y2k
Indeed, I've heard that there's a big boom going on in Central America for stonemasons. All sorts of contractors are already down there, urgently carving updates into the hieroglyphs on all the pyramids and temples before the rollover date.
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the Mayan calendar merely resets at that date. similar to how computers were expected to reset at y2k, it was not that they expected the world to end they just did not include dates after that much like our calendar does not include specifically year numbers for after 9999
Actually it's even less catastrophic than that. The Mayan long count calendar [wikipedia.org] is based on a hierarchical system of cycles, called kin (1 day), winal (20 days), tun (18 winal), katun (20 tun) and baktun (20 katun). Dates are indicated by giving the position in the relative cycle, so today, November 27, 2008, would usually be quoted as 12.19.15.15.15 in the Long Count calendar. You can check out the conversion formula e.g. in the source code for Fourmilab's calendar converter [fourmilab.ch].
The five-position notation for
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It's one of the common apocalypse dates. It started with the Mayan calendar, but it also applies to some chinese fortune telling book, and one of the major Nostradamus types also predicted it as well. What's funny is there is a web crawler bot program used to predict stock market trends that also predicts this date, and supposedly this system predicted 9-11 90 days before it happened.
Not that I buy any of that bullshit..I was just poking fun.
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:Information policy (Score:5, Informative)
This is a work funded by taxpaid dollars, so it should be kept open and transparent. The author of the article is right in this premise.
But I disagree strongly with her perception of the situation. CERN's earlier statements have only been that they did not know how long repairs would take, but that the earliest LHC could possibly restart would be late spring 2009. This is the first time to my knowledge that they have given an estimate of when they actually expect the accelerator to be ready. There was nothing hidden or hushed up about this.
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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.
Actually its funded by Euros (Score:2)
CERN is nothing to do with the USA.
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This is a work funded by taxpaid dollars, so it should be kept open and transparent.
What, you expect to read about day-to-day work on http:///planet.lhc.cern.ch/ [lhc.cern.ch]? ;)
While I'm all for transparency in spending of my tax money, sooner or later you have to stop micromanaging and let people do their job. Otherwise, you will get less for your money.
I'm paid tax money in my current occupation (CS student). I'm hoping there's enough oversight that you can trust that I'll be thrown out on my ass if I'm not worth the money I'm paid, without me having to be held accountable to other people than my
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Francs. The currency of Switzerland is the Franc. Not in the Eurozone, not in the EU, not in much at all actually.
Though, some of the LHC's funding does come from some Eurozone countries. (and part of the LHC is in France too)
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What were the rules on EU nationals travelling to switzerland and swiss nationals travelling to schengen countries before switzerland joined up?
It seems to me that the treaty is more about reducing delays and beuracracy than actually allowing people to make trips they wouldn't have been allowed to before.
Re:Information policy (Score:5, Informative)
The LHC is its own prototype. Similar beam related incidents happened at Fermilab. It's shit but it happens, and they handled it dreadfully.
Some big numbers were thrown out there about how much the accident will cost, but in real terms it comes our as a very small fraction compared to overall LHC costs.
Everyone at CERN is very disappointed about it, naturally, but it's up to us now to better prepare ourselves for the new startup.
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The submitters original comment was about how this doesn't seem like CERNs typical "information policy". You put this down as your subject line and then stated that this release of information may have been delayed "perhaps scientists don't like to make statements that they aren't reasonably sure of?" -- My reply was merely to point out an alternative possible explanation, namely that the delay in the release of information may have been motivated by politics. The scientists working on the project likely do
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American scientists are a major contribution to the LHC:
1200 physicists from 90 American universities and laboratories have joined with scientific colleagues from around the world to collaborate in LHC experiments at the horizon of discovery.
reference [openaccesscentral.com]
I feel like nationalist rivalry aren't part of this equation.
Second CERN is an independant institution. See their directors CERN press release [web.cern.ch] and tell me where is the politician responsible for this blackout.
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The United States made an attempt at building something similar to the LHC several years ago but funding was cut. It was viewed at the time as a major setback in science and would lead to a brain drain in the United States as scientists went overseas where they could be with better equipment. Funding for the LHC was nearly cut several times amid cries that funding should be focused on "more important" science such as global warming. Part of the reason it got built was precisely because it could show that th
Re:Information policy (Score:5, Informative)
You are so full of nonsense.
LHC is NOT a EU project (EU as European Union).
LHC is a CERN project and CERN is not a EU body.
CERN is an international organisation (like Interpol, WHO, UN, etc.), located on the border between France and Switzerland (Switzerland is NOT part of the EU either).
Buildings are mostly in Switzerland, while most of the tunnel is in France.
CERN predates LHC of something like 30 years.
The LHC is built in the tunnel used previously (for 10 to 15 years) by the former main CERN project (LEP: Large Electron Positron Collider).
So try and be less clueless.
Re:Information policy (Score:5, Informative)
While the LHC is indeed not an EU project, most of girlintraining's remain valid. Politics and national pride play an important part in the internal workings of CERN, and could well explain the communication policy.
Calling people full of nonsense because they did not get some details right is not very polite, dear Anonymous Coward. Actually, there are quite a few building in Prévessin. And while CERN is definitely not an EU project, it is different from the WHO, or the UN in the sense that it has a geographic definition, it is called the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Some of the funding for CERN related projects, like the grids efforts, comes directly from the EU.
So please try to be less impolite and arrogant...
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Both will destroy the known universe of course, but the LHC option will be less worse - sort of like ripping off the band-aid quickly. Some want to prolong and spread the pain, thus the promotion of the slow death option.
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Arguably, the reason the EU was brought into existence was to compete with the US. There's a lot of pride tied into making this thing work.
The whole world doesn't resolve around the USA you know...The first coal & steel treaty was aimed at creating friendship amongst western European countries. The goal of the founding father was basically trade is the best tool to prevent any further misunderstanding leading to a bloody war. There were no form of pride...Just the fear of a third collective suicide on the European continent.
Switzerland isn't part of the EU.
Most Scientists don't give a damn about nationalist pride...What matters to them is
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They want to be the new cultural center for science.
You do realise that CERN has been a "cultural center for science" (whatever that means) long before the LHC?
What do you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
The LHC has been longer in development than the WWW exists (there are screenshots around from the "first website ever" that had design drawings of the atlas detector on it.
It has happened. They got to fix it, piece by piece. Do you really need a "what cf flanges we replaced today" blog?
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Informative)
Karma whoring linky here [madsci.org].
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Karma whoring link
Mod parent Funny :p
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
This being said, I'd say that the LHC has already paid for itself a thousand times over.
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The WWW was just hypertext on the internet, and not really a new idea at the time. Ted Nelson invented the "hypertext" concept in 1963, and hypertext became commercially available in 1987. Just how long *has* the LHC been in development?
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The WWW was just hypertext on the internet
With flexible markup and layout, and extensible content type handling. Compare w/ gopher.
Maybe that +Internet were the essentials.
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This being said, I'd say that the LHC has already paid for itself a thousand times over.
And changed the world as we know it.
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It has happened. They got to fix it, piece by piece. Do you really need a "what cf flanges we replaced today" blog?
No no, hourly twitter updates will be fine =)
I kid, I kid
With the data... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most likely cause : an electric arc due to rupture of the interconnection. Unfortunately this is difficult to prove, since the whole dipole interconnect was 'vaporised' during the event!
Cut 'em some slack (Score:5, Funny)
Some Further Info (Score:5, Informative)
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In a superconductor, current doesn't matter, you could have 8.7x10^100 Amps and it would make no difference to the conductor.
Now, to nearby magnetic fields, it would make a whole lot of difference, but only on the surface of the conductor.
Now... if there was a flaw in the conductor... oops!
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Aren't chain reactions the province of the other end of the periodic table?
His description was mechanical, not nuclear.
It didn't explode, (Score:2, Funny)
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.)
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Short range though - the atmosphere will quench the beam within a few hundred meters, tops.
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Your post made me think of this =)
http://www.demotivateus.com/drive-me-closer-i-want-to-hit-them-with-my-sword-demotivational-poster/ [demotivateus.com]
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Sure. But if you had one of these in space, that would not be an issue. The beam is charged, and that will make it spread out - by my calculations, to maybe a meter wide in 1000 km, which would limit the range.
I think that the beam dump targets [web.cern.ch] are impressive. Down 600 meter tunnels there are 7 meter long graphite dumps, with 750 tons of shielding, just to safely absorb the beam energy when they want to shut the thing off.
Bizarrely placed trust in governments (Score:2, Troll)
Your faith in the openness and transparency of government boondoggles is touching.
Summer Blockbusters (Score:4, Funny)
helium escape (Score:2)
Some notes (Score:5, Informative)
The initial cause of the incident was probably a bad weld in a busbar joint. But they'll never know; the entire busbar was vaporized when it lost superconductivity under load.
The quench protection system wasn't designed to properly handle a failure of the superconducting busbar between two magnets. There's an elaborate system to dump the energy from a magnet that's starting to lose superconductivity into a big resistor bank. They expected occasional problems within the magnet windings, but this failure wasn't in a winding. The quench system is being redesigned.
The cryogenic system needs many more pressure relief valves. In this event, 6 tons of liquid helium was vaporized, which is 30,000 cubic meters at 1 atmosphere. That much helium couldn't get out of the existing relief valves fast enough, sizable parts of the plumbing were damaged, and magnets were pushed off their mounts. Now that was just bad pressure-vessel design. They should have had enough relief valves or rupture discs for the worst-case scenario. That would have localized the problem. Given the huge amount of energy in the magnets, in close proximity to liquid helium, in an experimental machine, this could not be a totally unexpected possibility.
More relief valves are going in, which means the whole ring has to be brought up to room temperature and atmospheric pressure for plumbing work. Then the whole commissioning process has to be repeated, which takes months.
The tunnels are empty of people when power is on, because if all that helium vents, the air is unbreathable. But this event was big enough that it could have affected people in experiment halls at tunnel level. If this had happened during actual use, people could have been killed.
A magnet quench isn't supposed to be a big deal. Early design specs said that restarting after a magnet quench should only take a few hours. Oops.
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Thanks for the excellent info. Problems will occur when you're still tweaking your prototype.
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That much helium couldn't get out of the existing relief valves fast enough, sizable parts of the plumbing were damaged, and magnets were pushed off their mounts.
Expanding or contacting piping can actually move/distort structures (say, buildings anchored onto foundations as an example) that you might think to be "solid".
Paul
Some random points (Score:5, Informative)
I work on one of the LHC experiments, so I'm posting anonymously.
1) CERN's communication has been lacking. Especially in deleting reports immediately after the incident on their eLog that had been open. That was a black eye on their image.
2) Plans change as more information comes in, so no one should be surprised by initial statements saying "The earliest possible date is several months" (which would be the case if no magnets needed replacing) followed by Spring '09 if everything goes well. This is now followed by Summer '09 to just repair the problems and late '09/ early '10 if remedial actions are taken.
3) CERN is changing directors in a month or so. The new director will make the decision of cautious startup vs. remediation and more aggressive startup. My expectation is the latter.
The world can wait an extra year for these results. I feel bad for the students and post-docs who are waiting for the data to emerge, though.
Some More Random Points (Score:3, Funny)
1) The failure of the flux capacitor was actually the real cause of the shutdown (although this will never be released due to the humiliation that would be heaped upon them for such a simple mistake - see below).
2) Apparently no one told them that when you accelerated it beyond 88 mph (within the limit of their test runs) it would create a hole in time/space through which a moderately-priced novelty sports car (or something of equi
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Drivable car? Where we're going, we don't need a drivable car.
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"by Arthur Grumbine (1086397): I work on the LHC experiments as well, so I'm posting anonymously, too."
Lol...
Posting anon because I just made an off topic post.
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What are we having for lunch tomorrow guys? Maybe someone can spot me a ten because I haven't made it to the ATM yet.
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There was another announcement recently as well pointing towards the summer 2009 plan, so it is probably more likely. We'll know more in Feb once they've had more chance to study the data from the incident.
Whatever. (Score:5, Funny)
gaijinsr -- Your an idiot (Score:2)
This fits exactly with all released information about the incident.
What, did you just look at 50+ pages and say "aHA it worse!"
Moron.
They will do a limited firing in 2009, possibly with no beam.
This makes sense becasue that can't run during the winter.
Well they could, but Geneva wouldn't be habitable!
2012 (Score:2)
We will never see it work (Score:4, Funny)
LHC is obviously a doomsday machine. Turning it on will immediately destroy humankind in all the parallel universes where it works. Therefore, in the universes where we stay alive, we will always see it fail. The failure proves the parallel structure of the universe.
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?
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I would think that most of the people reading this are aware that the LHC is located in the Northern hemisphere.
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I'll spill the beans (Score:2)
"S34 Incident" stands for either "Black Mesa Incident" or "Judgement Day. Pick one.
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I wonder how long before we get some trashy sci-fi novel called "The S34 Incident" about how aliens blew up the LHC to keep us from going back in time or something else equally ludicrous.
There was no error in information (Score:2)
I would guess tha
No ! NO !! (Score:2)
They did create a huge black hole, you know (Score:2)
for MONEY.
Not trolling, just watching. Wow. I've said it before, I'll say it again. They have the best grant writers
Any bid on the movie rights yet? (Score:2)
CERN calls it the 'S34 Incident'
Other's call it a major explosion in the cryogenics system
I say the gates of hell have been opened
This Fall
Prepare to Collide with this seasons blockbuster...
S....3....4
This film is not yet raited.
You know what this means? (Score:2)
It's so obvious now.
The Higgs Boson was a front. The LHC is a prototype of the hardware intended to run Duke Nukem Forever.
The great conspiracy? (Score:2)
They kept this pretty quiet up to now, not the kind of information policy I would expect from CERN
I think the explanation is straightforward: this is a very complex system, not only to build and run, but also to figure out why things went wrong. The modern day public are used to a media circus, where we follow events as closely as possible - but heavily edited for whatever pseudo-drama can be wrung out of it, to make it look like a soap-opera or a "reality" tv show. One can't blame them for not buying into that - they just want to figure out what went wrong, repair things and get on with research; they
Sure it is... (Score:2)
Would *you* really let someone dumb enough to brag about the black hole machine suddenly exploding catastrophically the first time it was turned on to the uneducated (and easily panicked) masses back at the controls for another try?
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There was a joke, you missed it.
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Damn it, how am I supposed to know I'm meant to laugh if it isn't modded +5 Funny? Do you job, mods!!
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One of the critical attributes of a joke is "being funny".
I wouldn't classify that as a joke.
Re:Anthropic principle (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you actually believe that incoherent, illogical, unscientific, unprovable baloney?