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Bad Math Causes Explosion at CERN Collider
javipas writes "The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN has suffered a big explosion deep inside that has caused a leak of hellium gas and the quick evacuation of everyone working there. The reason: a mathematical mistake that affected the design of the giant superconductive magnets made by Fermilab. Now the company will have to repair and upgrade the 24 magnets that are installed on the 27 km. circunference of one of the most important research centers on Earth." This story might seem strangely familiar to you.
To carry the 1 can cost lives! I never believed it in elementary school when my teacher that math could affect my life, but damn, the stuff can kill you!!!! Treat math with respect!
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
Forgot to carry the one. Sorry.
Eh, sounds partially successful.
Talk about missed opportunities. I just listened to an NPR story at around 8:20 eastern time (US) about particle physics and the super collider. They mentioned how a particle zooming around in it would have the force of a bus, and colliding two particles would be an enormous crash. They talked about how particle physics has stagnated for the past few decades, about how the collider was built, and oddly enough, about what a breach of the coil would do. But no mention of an "accident." Hmmm. I guess I need to mail my pledge check.
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
From one of the articles in your link: The old story was that stuff blew up. The new story is why it blew up so we don't make the same mistakes. Turns out it, was just bad math. It wasn't that we didn't understand some physics, it wasn't the gods being mad, it was just plan old avoidable bad math.
A somber and depressing article for the
Fermilab outsourced magnet design to Sony
Haven't these guys read their Dan Simmons?
What do you expect when using hellium?
What's so bad about that? Are they just afraid no one will take them seriously if they sound like the chipmunks when they report their findings? I mean, it's not like it's spraying O2 in the direction of the pilot light of their oven.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
This story has been brought to you by erasers. Don't make a mistake without one.
Here's Fermilab's statment. Of course they are an interested party, but at least their statement contains information, unlike the snide popular press article.
e nts/2007/LHCInnerTriplet.html
http://user.web.cern.ch/user/QuickLinks/Announcem
due to the helium leak everyone in the vicinity of the lab will be talking in very humorous high pitched voices for at least a week!
Did the poster mean helium gas? Or Hellium? Figured it was a typo at first.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
As a result of the explosion, the creation of microsingularities for time-travel has been delayed.
Just think how much money they'd be saving if they were looking at amateur-tons.
(With my apologies to Piers Anthony)
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sounds like you have your own prejudices and to worry about.
Left 404: Why the RIGHT is WRONG
This is a typical example of things than can go bad is the It is not about what you know it is who you know" theory kicks in reality. Yet the knowledge guy is still a security guy somewhere and the managers son keeps coming in to work!
Fermilab - USA. CERN - Europe. You guys did use metric units this time, right? ;)
Oh no... it's the future.
Bush Finds Error In Fermilab Calculations
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
Or it could be that the news that it failed on April 07 was sent back in time and appeared on April 02. They should not be messing with fundamental physics like this.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So the Higgs Boson is a theoretical particle which both the LHC and the Tevatron are trying to prove the existance of and determine its mass. It is important because it could be an elementary particle that could explain the origin of mass of other elementary particles and differentiate between the massless proton and the heavy W and Z Bosons, indicating where the differentiation between electromagnetism and weak force arises. Better understanding these fundamental forces could affect better understanding aspects of microstructures and the univ... Ah hell, I have no idea what this is all about! This one's over my head, I think I'll go back to Soviet Russia jokes now.
Demented But Determined.
why is it still posted if the summary itself acknoledges this story is a dupe?
We've lost containment of the hellium! Quick, we need a goateed doctor and a musclebound space marine from Phobos!
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
...supercollide once.
What's so bad about that?
What's bad is that it displaces all the oxygen in the area. This was a common cause of occupational deaths in MRI rooms- not flying metal objects attracted to the magnet (though a very small number of people have been killed by oxygen tanks and such.) An MRI repair tech was killed because of a slow helium leak that lowered the oxygen percentage enough that he passed out. That's why most if not all MRI facilities have gas monitors that monitor oxygen, nitrogen, and helium levels (liquid nitrogen is also used.)
MRI machines have vents for this sort of thing. Also because if the magnet quenches, a LARGE amount of liquid helium will boil off; all the electrical energy used to generate the field, which is constantly running in the magnet, turns very quickly into thermal energy. If the vent wasn't there, the room would pressurize, preventing one from opening doors (even an outward opening door- enough force would make it impossible to overcome friction on the bolt.) Magnet quenches are done only in situations where someone's life is in immediate danger (say, they're trapped by a ferrous object and about to bleed out) because of the danger (and the fact that there's a 1:4 chance of destroying the multi-million-dollar magnet and boiling off thousands of gallons of very expensive liquid hydrogen.)
It's been reported in vent failures when a magnet quenched that it rained oxygen; liquid helium is substantially colder than liquid oxygen. Shit happens: vent valves fail, birds nest in stuff, someone says "hey, what's that big empty pipe for" 6 rooms over and cuts it/blocks it off, etc. I think the MRI tech was killed because of a leaking o-ring.
Are they just afraid no one will take them seriously if they sound like the chipmunks when they report their findings?
Picture one guy yelling "Run, run! We'll all suffocate!" in a chipmunk voice, and everyone else laughing at how funny he sounds, and passing out. And dying.
I mean, it's not like it's spraying O2 in the direction of the pilot light of their oven.
Oxygen spraying in the direction of a pilot light in an oven will do nothing except make the pilot light burn at a higher temperature. It will not cause an explosion, because there's nothing else combustible in the oven, unless it's REALLY greasy.
What is not a joking matter is smoking in high-oxygen environments or fires in spacecraft, because they do have lots of flammable stuff, like wire insulation (which is fire-resistant, not necessarily fire-proof.)
Please help metamoderate.
Was I the only one who read that as "The Large HARDON Collider". Sounds like something you would want to stay clear of in case of explosions.
I can almost hear the squeaking scientists running from the clouds of helium like a pack of chipmunks. Helium while a little dangerous can be alot of fun too ;)
If it were Helium, then, since Helium is an inert gas, things would have been less dangerous. But Hellium, let me tell you, that is another baby. It's the gas straight from Hell, you know? Basically a satanic fart. Oh wait, I guess that could be a typo. Anyhow. I hope things get better at CERN...
Thanks to democrats (neo-luddites?), the US doesn't already have this technology. Know your (recent) history.
- administration.html
http://www.rootsweb.com/~txecm/super_collider.htm
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/03/ssc-and-clinton
100 internets to whoever tags this story "oshits" or "ohshitson"
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
...a leak of hellium gas and....
... oh wait.....
Jesus christ!
Good thing no one was hurt! Would hate to think that someone was once again killed by theoretical physics and bad calculus. Please tell me this wasn't another traditional to metric conversion problem.... What's with runnimg from the cloud of Helium, were they scared of sounding funny while describing on TV what the explosion sounded like? Would be funny to hear the chipmunks describing an accident at the nuclear/quantum research facility. I know I know, nothing quite like a cloud of radiactive, potentially cryogenic or super-heated to scare the living daylight out of you.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
People with "anti-science" prejudices, are generally not the type that will appreciate a replication of the big-bang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton more importantly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_Boson the Higgs boson particle is being sought in order to prove large portions of string theory.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
And the people within a 200km radius all enjoyed a free MRI that day, too!
Whenever Mrs. Fitch breaks wind, we beat the dog.
There is the theory of the moebius, a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, where time becomes a loop, where time becomes a loop...
I wonder if any of them ended up on Another World?
Where is the mod "incoherent" selection when you really need it?
On my first scan of the /. home page this morning, I read this headline as "Bad Meth Causes Explosion at CERN Collider". Needless to say, the actual story turned out to be a lot less interesting than I thought it would be :-D
Read my blog.
I did help with the calculations by running LHC@Home.
who swear they can create black holes in their collider without swallowing up the whole earth? I mean, they PROVED mathematically that it's safe, right?
Man, that's just out of this world...
Coffee-driven development.
A bunch of Mathheads cook up a bad batch in their laboratory and it explodes. I think we've seen this story on the news before.
That was our YouTube. And we liked it.
I always knew math was out to get me :(
Well, a week ago the accident propelled the collider into the future, and that's why it's being reported today. Sheesh, do we have to explain **everything ** to ya?
Googling on (( FREEFALL HOFFER )), you are led to a TRUE STORY which can be had used for a penny from Amazon Marketplace. It *WAS* an English-Metric issue, which led to the 767 running out of fuel in mid-flight, finding an airfield only by luck.
When you're working with liquid nitrogen and liquid helium (as coolants for superconducting magnets) it's easy to assume they're harmless because they're chemically inert. However a small volume of liquid boils into a huge volume of gas, which will exclude the air - and precious oxygen - from the vicinity. A big helium leak is no laughing matter because of the asphyxiation risk.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
So Fermilab, CERN's competition, designed the magnets that happened to have a basic design flaw? Hmmmm, cue The Beastie Boys tune "Sabotage"!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"I must've....put a decimal in the wrong place. DAMMIT! I always do that!"
Helium?
Mikey
> the Higgs boson particle is being sought in order to prove large portions of string theory.
Actually, it is parts of the standard model that it is proving. String theory would probably just be tweaked a little if something unexpected happened with the Higgs boson and the standard model.
When physicists screw up, they certainly do it spectacularly. Though I don't think this quite rises to the level of the Castle Bravo "oops"
I wonder if they have a Gordan Freeman working for them.
Am I the only one who saw that headline in an RSS feed and read it as "Bad Meth Causes Explosion at CERN Collider", and laughed out loud at the office before realizing I'd misread it and feeling like a fool?
Or is it just too early in the morning for me to be posting?
This is not a sig. this is a duck. quack.
where the last of those Pentiums with the divide error ended up!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Funny half-life reference. Whoever modded it troll is a loser.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Waaah? I wasn't even near that place. Besides nobody saw me there, so you can't prove anything. :P
Carbon based humanoid in training.
This is why the president stressed the need for math and science in schools.
Man, Goble rocks. He drives a car with the license plate UNIX.
Here's a YouTube link to the video. I don't think barbecue is the right word...try incinerate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBLr_XrooLs
:(){
I see nothing here that was not known from the story of one week ago. I cannot find a point in the original article or today's articles where someone misread their slide rule, or a napkin got wet and someone mistransfered some figures. The consistent message from the start has been that all groups neglected to consider some basic forces involved when the device is in use.
Their they're doing there hair.
No, the problem was not bad math. The problem was that the engineering design specification did not take into account torsion forces acting upon the magnets. Bad engineering, if anything.
LOL, I just read a 5 page story about a 72 hour meth binge, so when I read the title of this article, I read it as, "Bad Meth Causes Expolosion at CERN Collider"
Now that would be a great story... a bunch of scientists building a meth lab at a collider.
So what science is going to get canned to pay for this fix?
This reminds me of the accident at the Princeton TFTR when it was being installed. The fusion reactor used huge flywheels to store sufficient power to operate the tokamak (without pulling down the electric grid). During installation, a contractor dropped one of the flywheels from an overhead crane.
To fix the flywheel, congress cancelled almost every other fusion research project in the country. This was when, for example, the EFBT project at NASA was cancelled - despite having results as or more promising than tokamak research.
(My plasma sciences professor at college had previously led the EFBT project; the story is repeated from him.)
I wonder what dozen other less-well-known research projects are going to get canned to fix this high-profile mistake, and what breakthroughs we'll lose because of it.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
No, 43 feet is 13.10644098438738472930 meters, give or take.
Pros: Finally get to field-test that cool Tau Cannon.
Cons: Headcrabs everywhere.
It's a good thing that spelling doesn't risk lives, though!!
"the 27 km. circunference"
Who else here would have loved to have been the emergency operator when people started calling in?
Presumably this was supposed to be a joke, but just in case...
If you read Fermilab's press release, you'll note that Fermi and CERN followed proper procedures, with Fermi running reviews including both CERN and third party labs. NOBODY seems to have caught this. So if someone does want to propagate conspiracy theories, they'll need a wider net than merely inter-lab rivalry.
[Egging them on dept: I suggest watching _National Treasure_ a few times; there are lots of hidden clues in there. Good thing people foresaw this coming in a supercollider centuries ago!]
My point exactly.
Wow.. This has all the makings of a conspiracy theory. Hell, it may even be true.LOL.. Anyways lets see if Fermilab beats them to it. Then the Europeans will never ever trust the Americans again. Remember HIV and the Internet.
Neat! Where do I sign up for Bad Math 101?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Wikipedia also has a shorter and much less dramatic description of the 767 in question, which includes a description of the conversion problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Yes. It is.
The magnet's failure created ripples that extended through time. We are seeing the first one coinciding with us. Expect to read the same post next week as the second ripple reaches us.
Also, you will remember the ripple that also propagated into your past, about a week before the accident. Next week, you will remember the second one, two weeks before the accident.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
I heard the lead-in for the story you mention this morning, over breakfast, but I did not hear the story myself (left to catch the train to work). But I remember wondering if they were going to mention the accident, and if not, then maybe NPR was running a fluff piece for CERN. You know, essentially recycling a positive press release that CERN may have put out in light of their recent embarrassment. The fact that you say they didn't makes me suspicious that this may be the case.
After a minute of searching, here's the NPR piece that ran this morning.
Apparently god does not like Higgs Boson particles!
5 7/jhep032006057.pdf
Is this a hint of gods existence?
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1126-6708/2006/03/0
detecting evidence of a similar nitrous leak approximately two years ago. Strangely, no leak was ever reported.
I was a mathematics major in college. I'll never forget my only college physics class, I found one answer to have pi in it, so I left it in there. Lost 1/2 credit because I didn't take the right number of "significant digits of pi." Next day, dropped the class and picked up a biology course for my science credit.
Maybe, just maybe, all of the digits are significant.
Coincidentally, Fermilab stands to gain most from delays at Cern. Its researchers also operate a rival but less powerful particle accelerator, the Tevatron.
I think not...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I survived the first Big Bang at CERN and all I got was this lousy t-shirt...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
The accelerator is designed to smash together protons, a kind of sub-atomic particle, at near light speed.
The LHC itself comprises two pipes, each containing a beam of protons traveling at near-light speed that are steered around the circular tunnel by powerful magnets.
No wonder there was an explosion! We have seen this before:
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Also this has been covered in some way on /. here
Boy, CERN is just 720km away from me... Not that beeing on the other side of the planet would be of much help if the produce a "mini" black hole by using bad math.
Every day the gap between Slashdot and Digg grows smaller.
12 paragraphs and the closest he gets to what went wrong is something to do with balance of forces. We read these stories to know WHAT HAPPENED, not what Dr Kinsey Mc Kinsey of Whatever institute thinks about how some other nobody might feel upset or surprised or whatever about this UNKNOWN but obviously BAD event.
Damn already.
The linked article, which has more useful information in each paragraph than the entire original article from the story submission, is a little technical. Lemme try and simplify the important parts:
The magnets are chilled with liquid helium to keep the temperature near absolute 0. Some of the support framework which holds one of the magnets inside the coolant pipes ("cryostat") failed at 300 psi because the loads did not line up in a way the framework was designed to hold.
These conditions do not happen often, but they were known and were apparently overlooked by the engineers. Fortunately, the functional design of the system appears sound, it's just the design of physical supports that needs to be modified.
While the full cause of the problem is not yet known, failure to account for the asymmetric loads in the engineering design of the magnet appears to be a likely cause.Contrary to what the submission and article imply, the math was probably fine, but they engineered the design for a less stressful load than it actually experiences in the worst anticipated case.
Per common practice in large projects, other professionals checked their work, including the customer (CERN). Nobody else thought to account for this case, either. Internal tests did not naturally replicate the failure conditiosn.
Stay tuned for more news, while they confirm their failure theory and come up with a fix.
How many times do I have to say it? Antisandwiches do not have negative mass. They simply have opposite charge. Negative mass makes no more sense than negative energy or negative bread.
Typically what happens during spontaneous sandwich creation is you get one meat and one vegetarian sandwich. This is a result of the Jared Uncertainty Principle, discovered at Subway. However, it is inevitable that the sandwiches will encounter each other and be anihiliated.
There's an interesting side affect whereby one of these sandwich/antisandwich pairs can form near a blubber-butt, where the shear mass pulls only one of the sandwiches in and consumes it. Because of conservation of matter/energy, since the other sandwich is not consumed, the blubber-butt actually experiences a net loss of weight.
Only the way I remember it, it was called the Black Mesa Incident.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
If you wish to continue this cost argument, check out:
m
http://www.sunshinecable.com/~eisehan/V80-10en.ht
The initial costs of the LEP (say $1b, because your link requires registration) are close to the initial costs of the SCC at the time of its cancellation if you translate the 1981 Swiss Franc's purchasing power to that of USD say in 1990-93. Bzzzzzzzzt, thanks for playing.
From Fermilab Today:
Fermilab Today has been full of PR spin about the lab's mistake lately...
Anecdotal evidence! I'm sold!
Aren't these the same guys that are determined to create miniature black holes to study them, and they guarantee that these black holes won't suck the earth into them? That's pretty scary if if they're suffering from math errors.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
They must have used that batch of old Pentium 586 that were doing screwed up math in the 1990's.
Isn't strange that no one bother to check another persons math on this? Something this big I would definitely have someone or several people would check it before I make it and start it.
That's an excellent summary. The historic four-letter word response to "all engines out" did not make it into the book, nice to know that. Although I won't go back and reread the book, I do not remember the book explicitly mentioning that "all engines out" was missing from their training scenarios - by analogy to the CERN issue we are discussing, it's glaring in hindsight, yes that's what WILL happen if you run out of fuel, but (apart from human error) indeed running-out-of-fuel might never happen, so let's just give it a zero probability ! Given today's CAD/simulation excellence this is where Murphy must hide - once something makes it into calculations it will be covered, so what's "unthinkable" ?
the one where spock has a beard and everyone wants to kill william shatner's character as much as everyone wanted to kill him (following the release of his "music" album)?
The reason that "[t]his story might seem strangely familiar to you" is that both stories refer to the same event.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
what gap? seriously... i think we've reached the cross-over point and it is widening...
I am a physicist working at CERN, but have nothing to do with the superconducting magnets. I work on the detectors. From my standpoint, if CERN admitted to the fact that there will be a delay and set some reasonable amount of time for said delay, then it would make the life of others who are trying to play catch-up constantly, a lot easier. There is a huge amount of pressure on those constructing the detectors, getting the computing infrastructure ready, etc. to be ready for data taking by summer 07. Such a pressure cooker is a good incubator for problems to come. Some breathing room would be most welcome!
;)
Indeed, a delay of a few weeks is nothing compared to ~20 years some physicists have been working on the project. (I am considered a newbie, after 3 years on it!) The director general (DG) of CERN has "promised" to the funding agencies to deliver the beam by the end of 2007 and right now, with the current schedule, that would be Dec 07. A few weeks makes that 08, which would make CERN look like it did not live up its promises. Also remember that the LHC has mostly been built with loans. The sooner it starts up, the sooner CERN can pay the money. Most of the cost is construction. Although the electricity bill is so high that CERN will not be able to afford running in winter again after the first startup. (Electricity prices in France change on a daily basis -- often dictating what happens when.)
The former DGs of CERN had been physicists for the last 50 years. But this DG is actually an engineer. This decision was a concious and good decision as the biggest challenge for the *start* of the LHC is an engineering challenge -- not a physics challenge. The physicists have a lot of say in the design of the LHC, the construction of the detectors and the analysis of the data -- but *not* in the construction of the LHC, which is the biggest cost. So all those making fun of physicists, well, remember, the LHC is an *engineering* project, not a physics project. Any chance you are an engineer??
(For those who are wondering why I said that everything needs to be ready by summer 07. Before the LHC collisions with two beams colliding head-on every 25 nanoseconds, with ~20 interactions in every bunchcrossing and a resulting animal zoo of 200 or more particles spewing out of the interaction point, the LHC will have single beams going around the ring, probably summer/fall 07. Although having single beams in the collider sounds like "no fun" -- actually it is. Because the beampipe will not (can not) be at total vacuum so there will be interactions between the gas in the beam and the single beam going around the ring. We will not find ths Higgs in the data, but is crucial for calibrating the detectors... )
...has caused a leak of hellium gas and...
It's helium.
My page.
God, you people make me sick.
Sometime, too much sharing of responsibility is not good. You can save the money for the third and fourth review - at least if you tell them that they are the third and fourth. Also alwas check any design first by your pocket calculator (or emacs calc, or python command line if you wish) before inputting it to the fancy simulation. Having a paper with five lines (or 10) it is easiert to figure out which questions need to be asked.
I like how the article about a math error has a spelling error in it!
Noooo ... They were on this world.
..
An explosion happened and all those scientists got running around the room laughing like chipmunks; if that isn't a national threat to our chipmunks?
who modded parent interesting anyways, should be funny or fascinating but not interesting
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
First of course there was this; Another World (known as out of this world in the States) which comfortably pre-dates Half-Life. http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=13
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Yeah. It's the users with IDs over half a million that are the problem, because they'll reply to themselves three times in the same subthread because of some confusion on their part about how moderation works.
Not so! I'm sure they eagerly anticipate it.
Of course, you have to take into account that their idea of the "Big Bang" involves a cheerleader named Shiela and most of the football, basketball and hockey teams.
It does seem kind of odd that the two most powerful devices have had the same flaw introduced to them. Makes some of us wonder what effort is being expended in discouraging us from discovering something.
A new CERN press release today reports that the first sector (1/8 of the LHC or 3.3km of it) has now reached the operational temperature of 1.9K. Afterall, it is the world's largest cryogenic system and contains 800,000 litres of helium. 12,000,000 litres of liquid nitrogen will have been vaporized to achieve the full cool-down of 31,000 tons of material. Cheers!
Honest. It's not our thing.
There's no confusion, there are a lot of the mods on Slashdot, probably people like you, that are petty and lack a sense of humor.
Oh, and this is your cue to tell me that I can leave.
Oh, you half-millioners are so cute. Can't even detect an old /. curmudgeon having fun with you without a smiley face to clue you in.
FWIW, your confusion about the mod system is simply that the moderators and the posters are the same people, so why would you somehow expect moderation to work any better than comments themselves? I mean, here you are, replying to yourself three times in a row about something utterly trivial about which no-one cares. I can only imagine what you do when you have mod points!
Yeah, I guess I did react a bit too harshly to your post. For that I apologize. But I was in a foul mindset towards Slashdot.
Truth be told, I'm really quite tenacious. Which can be good or bad.
It's just that sometimes the mods do things that make no sense. Like modding a perfectly good joke, that's non-offensive, as "troll."
I applaud you. It takes self-control and compassion to apologize in a public forum.
I blame my mother. :)