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:Hmmmmmm Funny that you should mention

[davidsyes]

the paperclip (alluding to magnetism)... My initial thoughts are that this is a successful (achieved, whether or not the victims want it to be a) sabotage act. We already heard that crackers broke in but were contained or blocked. Often, thefts and heists are facilitated by insiders. I wonder which (if any) internal "agents" is a mole. Even just yesterday, having read the link about acts of internet sabotage/cyber attacks:

http://net-security.org/secworld.php?id=6554

I wouldn't be surprised if a US or US-sympathetic student or agent working on the scientific teams helped map the security protocols/topology and insert the mole. Why dare slam the US? Well, because we CONSTANTLY are bombarded with what appear to be outrageous lies about *China* constantly attacking (when "probing" might be the better description?) US military sites. The report/link on the attacks indicates that China's currently interested or succeeding in planting trojans/bots/mechanisms in less secure academic facilities. And, the US' Semiconducting super collider never took off:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94481272

So, who knows with unassailable certainty that the US (aside from risking losing access to treasured scientific Data from the LHC) wouldn't have tinkered with the idea of delaying or sabotaging the LHC? NOBODY! But, there could be other culprits, to be fair...

OTOH, if there are any Chinese nationals as scientists/workers there, i doubt they'd have a motivation for doing it. It's not as if they have a domestic collider program. They're busy with the ship construction, manufacturing, and space programs - and, i suppose, - if Crawl Street implodes, they will try to advance Shanghai or other places as financial centers, inviting in many of the brightest being purged or dropped from New York. And, who's to SAY (with certitude and factuality) that the US WILL AND SHALL remain the financial processing center of the world? NO ONE can.

Anyway, I bet any overheating or tube/ring failures will end up being reported as unfortunate mechanical failure. Even if it is sabotage, it'll be kept hushed to not help any attackers know for certain that THEIR act was the one that did in the LHC and deflated the short-lived jubilation felt over activation of the LHC...