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LHC Shut Down By Transformer Malfunction
Ortega-Starfire writes "A 30-ton transformer in the Large Hadron Collider malfunctioned, requiring complete replacement on the day the LHC came online. No one at CERN reported any problems, and they only released this data once the Associated Press sent people to investigate rumors of problems. I guess it's hard to just sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the rug."
More than meets the eye! I guess the Decepticons don't want us to advance our knowledge!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I bet it was Omegatron!
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
I TOLD YOU! Why wouldn't anyone listen? See what happens when the LHC opened a warp hole to Cybertron? Now they'll come back for vengeance, and they won't care if they're autobot or decepticon, for this dispicable act. They'll know that I stood against the LHC, and they'll ensure that I have a place in rounding up you for work in their salt mines. I for one welcome our robotic overlords.
God spoke to me.
Gordon, what have you done?!?!?!
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
It's a big, complicated machine - shit breaks. It gets fixed. I wouldn't worry about it unless you're waiting for beam time.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
yet. Now I have another chance to try all of those world ending pickup lines! Actually, I really should get religious. If I were religious, I could celebrate an end-of-the-world day every day!
Can one of you physicists tell me how 4.5 Kelvin is different from 2 Kelvin, operationally?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
It would be hard to sweep a 30-ton transformer under a rug, unless there is a black hole under said rug.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
several to go.
Well ALICE, let's see how deep the budget hole goes...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Just in case anyone else misread the headline, there's a vas deferens between the Large Hadron Collider and the Large Hardon Collider.
...and I didn't realize the standard measurement for transformers had been changed to tons. Must be a European measurement?
I think kVA or MVA would be a better statistic.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
They knew this was a hazard going in (temp rising), they talked about the possibility before the first trials and they successfully designed systems to shutdown before causing damage. This is just part of the sea trials of the particle pirate's new ship.
What with, you know, most of the world's population thinking that day was the critical "black-hole" day.
Whilst I'm sure that is beneficial for CERN in the context that most people will be completely unaware on the day that full speed collisions are truly started, I do not for one moment think the media had that intention. A publicised failure would only serve to increase people's prejudice.
I record my sleeptalking
After it was started up Sept. 10, scientists circled a beam of protons in a clockwise direction at the speed of light. They shut that down, then turned on a counterclockwise beam.
Now, accelerating a proton to the speed of light seems to me impossible, given that they are in a vacuum. But if they can do that, then the other interpretation is possible. It was the scientists who were circling at the speed of light, round say, a little beaker of protons. I'd like to commend whoever shut them down, then anti-beamed them to restore reality.
Well that's great that you have that degree, but not everyone does. To people who aren't too familiar with that area of study or work, saying "30 tons" paints a much better picture in the reader's minds.
If you read TFA, you discover that it, but not the provided summary on /., says it was news to nobody in the field that something broke. What's not said here, but said in TFA and far more worthy of mention, is that they replaced it and were running again the next day, well before AP even inquired. Falling prey to the cheap journalistic gimmick of awfulism, are we?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
True, but if they're real scientists they'd figure out it's easier to sweep the black hole under the 30-ton transformer. When done, cover up with rug.
I used to come to slashdot for the summaries. Then the community grew and it was the comments that drew me here. But now, I just come for the tags.
You folks crack me up.
Carry on.
I don't know how you do it. It never works for me.
I could've sworn I left my favorite rug on top of the black hole in the living room the other day but, crazy as it sounds, it seems to have just disappeared. I'd swear on a stack of bibles that's where I left the dang thing and you know it didn't just grow legs and walk out of the house.
..he just assumed that something which might be involved with cooling must be rated in the amount of ice it can create in a day.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
For those who only read the "summary" (I use this term loosely) and aren't familiar with the LHC you may be surprised to learn that:
this is not a major failure
there is no sinister cover-up
no one was ever in any danger
Thanks for some more fear-mongering doomsday garbage "news" Slashdot. The purpose of editors, at least for non-tabloid news sources, is to filter factually inaccurate and inflammatory nonsense, not seek it out.
Being able to MacGyver that thing at all without a DHD is impressive, let's not be so hard on them.
Boy, howdy! Talk about the Uncanny Valley -- his eyes totally give me the creeps!
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"A 30-ton transformer in the Large Hadron Collider malfunctioned, requiring complete replacement on the day the LHC came online."
This news must have traveled in time - because the LHC doesn't come online until sometime next summer. Right now, its in the middle stages of a months long startup and calibration sequence.
Not to mention that stuff breaks during the startup of complex machinery, doubly so for one of a kind complex machinery.
They really can't be called rivals though. Fermilab cannot replicate the experiments that LHC can perform and Fermilab probably cannot be upgraded to do so on a feasible budget. When Fermilab became the most powerful accelerator in the world (and it did find new quarks and what not because of it) it did not put CERN out of business and LHC is not going to do that to Fermilab (our own government can do that on their own).
Fermi has built or been involved in the design of the magnets for basically ALL of the large colliders worldwide. LEP, LHC, SSC, RHIC, Tevatron (obviously), etc all had significant contributions by Fermi. The fact that every design review missed it was simply amazing. Luckily they were able to come up with a way to fix the surviving magnets and fairly quickly built replacements for the destroyed units.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
They have day-to-day log of the activities at https://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/dailynews/index.htm I didn't have any problems finding this logs at the LHC website.
Transformer outage and cryogenics breakdown is logged on September 13. They were not 'rumors'.
I refuse to use
The used superconductors are good well above 4K (although with decreased maximum saturation).
The main point is that they want their helium to be superfluidic, as otherwise it would be impossible to direct the heat over the many km needed (if their were bubble formation in the dewars).
With superfluidic helium, heat resistance also drops nearly to zero(as we are in the real world, it cannot be zero. But heat conductivity increases by many magnitudes, and bubble formation is eliminated). That way, they can keep heat gradients along the whole ring well below 1K.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
The webcam is a great source of information on CMS :), but if you want to know the status of the LHC, check the following links:
The current status of the beam can always be viewed here
All other status informations are linked from here
So maybe they didn't make a press release, but perhaps journalists should be smart enough to find these pages instead of claiming conspiracies?
The transformer malfunction was inevitable, due to the anthropic principle. In every possible universe in which the transformer didn't malfunction, the LHC destroyed the world and we couldn't observe that it didn't malfunction. :p
We had a 20 year old, 5MW transformer go a month ago. Internal bolted connections had loosened in the years since we had last drained the oil to inspect them. There was internal arcing which damaged the connections so badly they had to be replaced. The transformer was drained of oil and shipped off for repair. It was re-installed this week.
We have a vendor sample the oil annually to check for compounds formed during arcing. The oil check picked up the nascent problem about five months ago. We didn't repair it then because the accelerator was operating. When the accelerator was shut down for the summer (electricity price hike) the oil was drained and the problem found to require offsite repair.
We don't have the money to stock spare transformers. CERN seems to. Or at least they have the cash to buy a spare fast and repair the broken one at leisure.
Conversation on the phone went something like this:
LHC: Uh...had a slight transformer malfunction. But, uh, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?
AP: We're sending a squad up.
LHC: Uh, uh, negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak...very dangerous.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.