August 4, 2009 9:02 AM PDT

Giant particle collider struggles

After 15 years and a showy "switch-on" ceremony, the Large Hadron Collider is riddled with bad connections.
(From The New York Times)

The story "Giant particle collider struggles" published August 4, 2009 at 9:02 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from The New York Times expires after 7 days.

6 comments

Join the conversation!
Add your comment (Log in or register)
Great, now whenever any other university wants to make a state-of-the-art collider, they will think twice because of the shoddy construction of this collider.

I hope the company that soldered the magnets has to pay for all the repairs.
And shame on the scientists for the "good enough" attitude. Sure, the public paid for this device. That's the very reason why it's so important to get it operating within the design specs.
If it's so great operating 20 or so percent below it's maximum rating, then why bother designing it for the higher rating in the first place? Get it fixed and do it right.
Posted by Mergatroid Mania (5295 comments )
Reply Link Flag
I have to agree. This thing should be fixed at the expense of the company who built it in the first place, and some of them should be put in prison if they did these bad splicing jobs and said "GOOD ENOUGH!"
Posted by Lerianis3 (1135 comments )
Link Flag
'Dark matter' is more modern day 'phlogiston', like 'personalities' and 'ego' and 'ghosts'.
Posted by TogetherinParis (304 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Long live the Fermi Lab Collider, built American tough!
Posted by Tansho (42 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Depending on where you draw the line between 'old' and 'new' understanding of matter we've only been at this for say 150 years. We've made astonishing progress in the understanding of matter in the mean time. A few years of delay to get a revolutionary machine operational is no big deal. Have you seen pictures of it? The complexity is almost beyond comprehension. That is could be designed and built at all is astonishing. Sure it's annoying that something seemingly basic like electrical connections and magnets don't behave as planned but the power levels involved make this entirely new science.

Good luck to all at CERN/LHC and I'm confident you'll get the machine operating soon. Maybe at reduced power levels first, then improve and tune until you've squeezed the last bit of juice out of it.

As for the scientists leaving LHC to go to Tevatron, no big deal. They just made room for a new generation to take their place. Time will tell if they made the right choice from a career perspective. Competition in science is a good thing. All we can hope for is that LHC and Tevatron generate some of the same particles which would provide confirmation of data found by both sides. Competition will drive both sides to be first, scientific inquisitiveness will drive both to reproduce results from the other side.
Posted by NocturnalCT (189 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Maybe it is time to rethink the one that was planned for Texas. Maybe when the economy picks up in two years they can find enough money to restart construction.

Reminds me of the question in Parliment about what good is this stuff call electricity? Lord Kelvin replied that he did not know, but he was sure we can find a way to tax it. They did and they do.
Posted by Been_there_Saw_it_before (383 comments )
Reply Link Flag
 

Join the conversation

Add your comment

The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use.

Inside CNET News

1-2 of 12

Scroll Left Scroll Right

What's Hot

Discussions

Shared

RSS Feeds

Add headlines from CNET News to your homepage or feedreader.

Markets

Market news, charts, SEC filings, and more

Related quotes

Dow Jones Industrials (0.55%) 70.65 12,871.88
S&P 500 (0.71%) 9.51 1,352.15
NASDAQ (0.89%) 25.75 2,929.63
CNET TECH (0.78%) 15.79 2,047.81
  Symbol Lookup