Princeton Student Finds Bug In LHC Experiment

An anonymous reader writes "A Princeton senior has found a bug in the hardware design for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the hardware used to record and capture events in the LHC, she discovered errors that were leading to the appearances of double images because of particle streams known as jets. 'Xiaohang Quan '09 was working on her senior thesis when she found a miscalculation in the hardware of the world's largest particle accelerator. Quan, a physics concentrator, traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, last week with physics professors Christopher Tully GS '98, Jim Olsen and Daniel Marlow for the annual meeting of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This year, however, they also came to discuss Quan's discovery with the designers of the hardware for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which, as part of the Large Hadron Collider, has the potential to revolutionize particle physics.'"

Comments

Great story.

[palegray.net]

She just made her career, and rightfully so.

Re:they should not turn it on

[Tubal-Cain]

until enough people / scientists are SURE nothing bad will happen.

The only way to know that is if they know exactly what will happen. And if you know exactly what will happen, what's the point?

This is awesome

[adpe]

This story makes me fall in love with science even more. Smart people think of ways to understand the world better, other smart people review it, find errors and discuss their finding with other scientists.
They have a discussion like adults, they look at the math, one side is correct and they correct their experiment and thank them for the contribution.
This is what the world is supposed to be like. Not like these fucking religois nutjobs, screaming at each other, arguning who has the cooler imaginary friend, without having even a halfway decent argument. They're just like "You're stupid!". "No, you are!". "No you!"
Science for the fucking win!

Re:This is awesome

[Mr. McGibby]

Yup. Scientists never argue or deride the work of their colleagues without merit. Never.

In case you missed it, I'm being facetious. Irrational disagreements and other immature behavior are a human problem. The scientific community is no less guilty of this than anyone else.

Re:This is awesome

[Ohio Calvinist]

I think the statement needs a little intellectual honesty. I do agree that the scientific method when used properly is wonderful thing and this case is an example as such. However to limit "close mindedness" to "relgious" people sounds good on /. and gets you some cred with the groupthink crowd, but is pretty weak.

It takes a high degree of personal humility to be open-minded. Particularly when you have a vested interest in a particular outcome, (beit relgious, scientific, political, etc...) many people to greater or lessor extents need to actively pursue impartiality. There are many spheres of life such as politics, sports, business, science, etc. where you find members of those communities not engaging in meaninful dialogue, because they have a vested interest in a particular ideology or theory or methodology.

I have been in lectures where Ph.D.'s would not intellegently debate and discuss a particular set of data or therom contradictory of their own research/worldview. In some scientific fields there are positions you can take that will effectively kill your chances at a tenure-track faculty position; even if you are taken to those positions by the data against your will.

On the other hand I've been in discussions of a religious or political nature where those in discussion where members were looking for insight from other members; including those who were diametrically opposed, because they recognized that they didn't have it all figured out and they'd either be convinced of an alternate or affirmed in their existing position. This isn't to say that religious, poltical, business communities are better or more open minded, or anything to that effect, just that your generalization simply isn't accurate.

Science is great when it is really science. Science is truly lamentable when the theory trumps the data because the theorizer has far too much to lose if the theory is disproven or radically challenged; and broken theories are taught as immutable truth.

Re:This is awesome

[Godji]

Yes, but in said community counterarguments like "Here's the math and it works out, while your doesn't due to this counterexample!" work. Try that with the religious nutjobs.

You should not post to Slashdot

[hobbit]

until you are SURE you have a better handle on the issues.

Maybe you should wait until you completely understand the basics of physics before you talk about man-made black holes wiping out our solar system?

Re:A concentrator!

[icebraining]

Have you found thousands of bugs on billion dollar projects announced by the media as world-sucking black-hole producing machine?

Re:they should not turn it on

[Anonymous Coward]

until enough people / scientists are SURE nothing bad will happen.

The only way to know that is if they know exactly what will happen. And if you know exactly what will happen, what's the point?

If I flip a coin, I don't know if it will land on heads or tails. I know it's not going to turn into a unicorn though.

Re:they should not turn it on

[hobbit]

Humans have been breathing for thousands of years, but nobody has ever yet simultaneously breathed and thought about twelve thousand four hundred and ninety-six books about fruit all connected together by friendship bracelets.

I had to hold my breath while writing about that just now in order to be able to think about it without risking the entire universe imploding into a singularity.

Let me know if you manage to think about it and breathe at the same time. If we can get away with that, I think we can safely turn on the LHC (as you can surely agree that the whole universe imploding is a substantially worse risk than a single black hole or explosion).

Re:A concentrator!

[sortius_nod]

...the computer side of it is written a lot by grad students and others without any formal CS training. Bugs pop up.

I really don't think that's a valid statement. Bugs pop up in anything, CS trained or not. In fact, some of the best coders I've come across have been untrained.

Arrogance like that is a reason why there are bugs in programs...

Re:wha?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's her model number. She's actually a Japanese Robot.

Ethnicity Identification Fail.

Re:Public Spin

[Meumeu]

Once again: my buddy got shot by one of those high velocity armour piercing rounds; it went straight through him, hardly any damage at all. So there's no chance at all anyone'd be hurt by one of those namby-pamby pistol rounds. They'd probably bounce right off or something.

Did he also get shot at billions of times per second for 4.5 billion years?