Large Hadron Collider downed by faulty transformer
Not long after the Large Hadron Collider was launched last week, the world's largest particle collider experienced a malfunction that affects its cooling operations.
Click image for gallery on the Large Hadron Collider.
(Credit: Maximilien Brice for CERN)The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, the organization that built the LHC, announced Thursday that a transformer that helps cool part of the collider had malfunctioned, forcing operations to be suspended.
The transformer, weighing 30 tonnes and with a rating of 12 MVA, was exchanged over the weekend. During this process, the cryogenics system was put into a standby mode with the two sectors kept at around 4.5 K. Since the beginning of the week the cryogenics team have been busy re-cooling the magnets and preparing for operation with beam, which is currently forecast for today.
No word on why it took CERN so long to let us know about the malfunction, though.
The LHC, a massive particle accelerator 17 miles in circumference built along the French-Swiss border, is designed to help scientists explore particle physics theories.
However, it has also spawned fears that the experiments could
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
;-)
KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Did CBS contribute to cost of constructing the LHC ? - No!
Does CBS conduct or plan to conduct experiments at CERN ? - No!
As usual all the media can do is to take cheap shots at those who go where the media have neither the wit nor the courage to go!.
It's a pretty big project, so something was bound to fail at one point or another. Better it be early on so they can take care of it quickly.
;-)
Perhaps these people have their heads up where the sun doesnt shine.
(Breaking News: September 11, 2008 - 'Peter Higgs launches attack against Nobel rival Stephen Hawking' - The Times: "Professor Peter Higgs, the scientist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, the particle at the centre of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment, launched a withering attack on Professor Stephen Hawking, saying his work was "not good enough"." "Both men are contenders for the Nobel prize ? depending on the outcome of the experiment ? and their spat is likely to send shockwaves through the scientific Establishment." "Since he retired nearly 20 years ago, Professor Higgs, 79, has gradually detached himself from his academic world, preferring to read novels and play with his two grandchildren. He has, however, stayed in touch closely enough to pour scorn on the views of Professor Hawking and on scientists who predicted that the LHC might bring the end of the world.")
Zealous, jealous, Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed 'Higgs Boson'(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world's most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing groups of billions of heavy subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets, AntiMatter and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena as described below.(Risk Evaluations HERE.)
Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life.
The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, 'The Six Billion Dollar Experiment', incredibly admits quote, "Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don't know what we're doing." And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, "the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown."
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: "There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,..." Again, this is because they truly don't know what's going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don't understand to obtain results they can't comprehend. If you think like most people do that 'They must know what they're doing' you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: "A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals." The second part of the CERN quote reads "...but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,..." A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads "...as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe." These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn't a particle physicist alive who wouldn't gladly trade his life to glimpse the "God particle", and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits.
This quote from National Geographic, "The hunt for the God particle", exactly sums this "science" up: "If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before. That's the essence of experimental particle physics: "You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out." Read about the "other stuff" below:
http://www.SaneScience.org
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon6.htm
http://www.LHCFacts.org/
http://www.LHCDefense.org/
http://www.LHCConcerns.com/
Popular Mechanics - "World's Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock 'God Particle'" - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/4216588.html"
see http://qwix.com/2d
- by Lake_Peigneur May 24, 2009 10:08 AM PDT
- Lake Peigneur just an innocent mistake.
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