LHC Offline Until April 2009 (Or Longer)

rufey writes "The recent problems at the Large Hadron Collider will now keep it idle until spring 2009. The official press release is here. The LHC went offline due to a suspected failure in a superconducting connection, which overheated and caused around 100 of the LHC's super-cooled magnets to heat up by as much as 100 degrees. This resulted in the accidental release of a ton of liquid helium. The process required to repair the failed superconducting connection involves weeks of warming up the affected area from -456 degrees Fahrenheit to room temperature, and then several more weeks to cool it back down after the repair is made. The total amount of time to do this will spill over into CERN's scheduled winter maintenance/shutdown period, which is partly done to save money on electricity during the period of peak demand."

Comments

I can wait

[Anonymous Coward]

I can wait till next spring for the world to end.

Re:I can wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically what happened is when they fired it up, a giant ring - gate, if you will - appeared, and they don't have it under control yet.

Re:I can wait

[Prof.Phreak]

Don't worry, there will be another delay, then another, then another, until it goes live in 2012.

Re:I can wait

[Barradrewda]

Spring is in the air! Higgs bosons everywherrrrrrrre!

Re:I can wait

[JCSoRocks]

Which is awesome, because every time they're about to fire it up we can use the "come on baby, tomorrow could be the end of the world... they're firing up the LHC..." line.

Re:I can wait

[Bemopolis]

Oh yeah, that's gonna be great:

MODERATOR: "Senator Biden, what qualifies you to be Vice President?"
BIDEN: [answer redacted due to copyrights held by the estate of Neil Kinnock and the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome]
MODERATOR: "Yes, yes. And you, Governor Pain, what qualifies you?"
PALIN: "Nothing."[long pause] "But I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night!"
Exeunt, pursued by a bear. With hair plugs and wearing lipstick.

Which reminds me, I need to make sure that my wet bar is fully stocked.

Now what do I do?

[bigtallmofo]

I spent all my money over the last 6 months on alcohol and parties, secure in the knowledge that the world would come to an end this October when the LHC came up to full power.

This is unacceptable. I demand they destroy the world now.

Re:Now what do I do?

[Prof.Phreak]

...spent all my money...secure in the knowledge that the world would come to an end this October

Yeah, you and all the banks!

Re:Not the end of the world

[Ethanol-fueled]

A year from now everyone will be complaining about the huge price tag on this thing that has never been 100% operational.

It's the Windows Vista of supercolliders.

Re:Damn

[ivandavidoff]

Indeed. I'm not an expert, but I believe "a suspected failure in a superconducting connection, which overheated and caused around 100 of the LHC's super-cooled magnets to heat up by as much as 100 degrees" is just fancy-talk for "we made a wormhole, but it wasn't big enough".

Ouch

[Linker3000]

I understand things were going well - then there was this 'big bang'....

Re:Hmmmmmm

[AndersOSU]

It looks like you're trying to repair a superconductor coolant loop. Would you like to:
(a) vent all helium
(b) order another 30 ton transformer
(c) damn the torpedoes, lets make some black holes.

Re:Damn

[vertinox]

Now I'll have to wait even longer to welcome our new demonic overlords who were supposed to come out of the stargate that the LHC will create.

Well, it looks like the best estimates will have the LHC running full collisions will be sometime in December, 2012.

Hey wait a minute!

Re:Not the end of the world

[tnk1]

You're being unfair, but they have a plan.

They're going to rename it the Large Mojave Collider and prove that its just bad press that is making them look bad.

Read the article

[Technopaladin]

I wonder if anyone has considered the dangers of that much free helium. If there was a horrible accident at LHC if they called anyone their voices would be too high pitched to take seriously.

LHC Joke of the Day

[CorporateSuit]

Q: What did one CERN Scientist say to the other after they collided their first particles?

A: What's the matter?

Re:They will trun it back the day after the CUBS w

[Chris Mattern]

Actually, the world ended when the Red Sox won it all, it's just that nobody noticed.

Re:They will trun it back the day after the CUBS w

[drolli]

I am dissappointed. We are on slashdot. Please say instead
"The results will be evalutaed using GNU/Hurd"
or "The operators could finish a round of DNF in the breaks" or "a microsoft linux running on phantom game consoles is used as a thin client operating system" etc...

NO Sports, please!

Re:They will trun it back the day after the CUBS w

[theantipop]

This is why I moved to Cincinnati.