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: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:-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: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.