Slashdot Mirror
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!
Don't you mean
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
I for one, welcome our new accidental parallel universe overlords...
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
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
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
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?
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.
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...
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.
As a result of the creation of microsingularities, the explosion has been delayed about a week while it time travels...which explains why the original article failed to mention an explosion.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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
...a leak of hellium gas and....
... oh wait.....
Jesus christ!
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.
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.
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?
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!"
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"
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
:(){
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.
Pros: Finally get to field-test that cool Tau Cannon.
Cons: Headcrabs everywhere.
This is why you never let Physicists do mathematics.
We at slashdot are scientists, specialists and kernel hackers. Your FUD will be found out.
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.
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... )