Comments on: Large Hadron Collider downed by faulty transformer

Not long after the world's largest particle collider became operational, a transformer that helps cool part it malfunctioned, forcing operations to be suspended.

[darthstupid]

Meh. This planet isn't worth saving. Let the black holes eat it up.

[Dalkorian]

Exactly, no one seems to understand that the Vogons are coming to destroy us anyway to make way for an interspace bypass.
;-)

[Perry_Clease]

When I first saw the headline I thought that it was one of those robotic "Transformers" from the '80s TV show :)

Has the 'Halo' slipped so soon?

[kieranmullen]

?3.2?6.4 billion and no backups? Very sad.

KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com

[ralfthedog]

They had backup components ready to be installed. This thing is very big and very complex as it is. If you had a backup on standby for every component, the LHC would cost more than twice as much and be four times more likely to fail. The people at CERN are by far the smartest people in the world. The design is quite elegant.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

[skillingssucks]

You're an idiot. The whole point of now until the end of December is testing and calibration.

[actualtiger]

Why should CERN tell CBS about malfunctions on the LHC ?

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!.

[Renegade Knight]

Did you contribut to CBS? No. The Collider? No. By your rules all that leaves you with is cheap shots. Yup, you took those.

[ddesy]

Oops...

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.

[microg]

Maybe the cooling transformer got sucked up by a black hole.

[Renegade Knight]

That's what I was thinking. After all, they really don't know what happens when you smash things together or they wouldnt' be smashing them to gether to see what happens.

[Dalkorian]

Funny, I figured we were still here because of this transformer failure.
;-)

[antwawn]

They've just found a solution to the LHC problem: http://tinyurl.com/3tbdpx

[royc]

Since personal attacks are prohibited, the only thing I can say is GIGO.

[gpell]

The article is informative except for the last sentence about that stupid black hole nonsense. Stop perpetuating such rubbish, or you'll just invite more threatening phone calls and emails. Sensationalist media are the cause of it all.

[theantibush]

Im sick of hearing about black holes and other dangers regarding the LHC. Cosmic rays many orders of magnitude above what the LHC can ever hope to attain have been smashing the atmospheres of the planets and the sun as well for billions of years naturally, and last I checked the sun was still shining.

Perhaps these people have their heads up where the sun doesnt shine.

[SaneScienceOrg]

Man's technology has exceeded his grasp. - 'The World is not Enough'
(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"

[mbenedict]

LHC suffers another failure, this time superconducting magnets got overheated to 100C (from close to absolute zero) and a tonne of liquid helium got leaked into a tunnel.

see http://qwix.com/2d

[royc]

Since personal attacks are prohibited, I will say that ALL of the comments that I read show a total lack of science understanding.

[Lake_Peigneur]

Lake Peigneur just an innocent mistake.

Whats one more?