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

Re:-456 degrees?

[ionix5891]

it must be the only country still using that system, why oh why? does it make everything sound bigger or something??

since this is a european project the writers of this must have went out of their way to convert to Fahrenheit and dumben down the subject matter

Re:I can wait

[Bemopolis]

You must not be an American. I was hoping for total annihilation rather than having to live through the election.

-450who?

[IorDMUX]

Okay, I'm a born and raised American, and -453 Fahrenheit means nothing to me. Even us Americans use Celsius for science. If I read a temperature outside of what the weatherman could report, then a Fahrenheit measurement is just another number that I have to convert before it will mean something. (Let's see... being a former Clevelander, the weatherman range would be from about -30 to 110 F.)

Please. If it's science, give us our 'degrees C'.

Re:-450who?

[Anonymous Coward]

The measurement should have been in Kelvin, anyway. Perhaps the author isn't a science guy.

You're no kind of scientist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Real scientists use SI metric base units. And as everyone knows, the SI unit for temperature is... *drumroll*...

KELVINS.

Several weeks to warm up and cool down?

[blind biker]

I hope the repairmen don't forget their gloves or screwdrivers in there.

More seriously: the LHC wasn't designed with repairability/serviceability in mind, it seems. Before you mod me down: the proof is before our eyes!

Re:Several weeks to warm up and cool down?

[Sj0]

You're not familiar with large scale industrial operations. Even a large boiler must be disabled for a week or so before reaching room temperature. You're not going to be able to bring that much material to such a low temperature quickly.

Re:Several weeks to warm up and cool down?

[m50d]

More seriously: the LHC wasn't designed with repairability/serviceability in mind, it seems.

I doubt that; rather it was designed as serviceably as *possible*. Which isn't very given how cold and how freakin' big it needs to be. The whole thing is an exercise in pushing the boundaries; it's hard enough designing it to work at all.

Re:-456 degrees?

[Bob-taro]

Drives me crazy when I get UK motor cycle mag. The give the fuel economy in MPG and the fuel tank size in Liters!

Not only that, but British Gallons and U.S. gallons are different!

Re:-456 degrees?

[LWATCDR]

Yep that is why the same car with the same engine gets better mileage in the EU than the US. Often they really don't.