Vacuum Leaks Lead To Another LHC Delay

suraj.sun tips this story at ZDNet about a new problem with the LHC. Quoting: "The restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back further, following the discovery of vacuum leaks in two sectors of the experiment. The world's largest particle collider is now unlikely to restart before mid-November, according to a CERN press statement. The project had been expected to start again in October. To repair the leaks, which are from the helium circuit into the insulating vacuum, sectors 8-1 and 2-3 will have to be warmed from 80K to room temperature. Adjacent sub-sectors will act as 'floats,' while the remainder of the surrounding sectors will be kept at 80K, CERN said in the statement. The repair work will not have an impact on the vacuum in the beam pipe. CERN has pushed back the restart a number of times, as repair work has continued. To begin with, scientists said the LHC experiment would restart in April 2009. In May, CERN [said] that the restarted experiment could run through the winter to make up some of the lost time."

Comments

ZOMG,

[Icegryphon]

This is like Duke Nukem Forever all over again.
History might not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme.

Re:ZOMG,

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You wish this was like Duke Nukem Forever. "Vacuum leak" is clearly just G-man coverup speak for "resonance cascade"...

Re:ZOMG,

[Jurily]

This is like Duke Nukem Forever all over again.

The story or the development process?

Re:ZOMG,

[Anonymous Coward]

Better that than the beginning of Half-life.

Re:ZOMG,

[Intron]

Or maybe "formation of miniature Black Holes"

Re:ZOMG,

[Vectronic]

Maybe history is repeating itself, if the first test they did caused some sort of temporal loop at the atomic level and that's what's been causing all the subsequent problems.

Re:ZOMG,

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else getting flashbacks to Another World...?

Re:ZOMG,

[nametaken]

"This is like Duke Nukem Forever all over again."

Hopefully Hubble. Plagued up front, hugely successful later on.

Re:ZOMG,

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome game, thanks for reminding me.

Re:ZOMG,

[The Archon V2.0]

Maybe history is repeating itself, if the first test they did caused some sort of temporal loop at the atomic level and that's what's been causing all the subsequent problems.

What, how many times? Dozens? Hundreds? You mean I've been working at the same job for over a century now, but only got about one year's worth of paychecks?! To hell with black holes destroying the Earth, that's nothing compared to this!

Re:ZOMG,

[noundi]

Haha just what I thought. What the hell is a vacuum leak!? I mean how can the absence of matter leak?

Re:ZOMG,

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect it to be turned on in 2012.

Re:ZOMG,

[khellendros1984]

You could leak matter *into* the vacuum....like some sort of crazy reverse-leak! That's it! The LHC is designed to manufacture anti-leak!

Re:ZOMG,

[treeves]

You laugh but that is exactly what a vacuum leak is. Air or some other gas leaks in and ruins the vacuum. Happens in auto engines causing performance problems there too. In the LHC they need a really good vacuum so that those hadrons can get up to a high speed which they won't do if they collide with gas molecules.

Re:ZOMG,

[Dishevel]

Whoosh

Re:ZOMG,

[noundi]

Well Sherlock that is obvious. What's silly is the choice of words.

Re:ZOMG,

[treeves]

Which choice of words? "Vacuum leak" is a common expression.

Re:ZOMG,

[noundi]

No it's not, it's coined, not common. How often do you say "vacuum leak" during a lifetime? Exactly. Still that's not the point. Choice of words does not mean fake English. I simply pointed out that vacuum doesn't leak.

Re:ZOMG,

[Anpheus]

You mean the most expensive scientific machine ever made makes... duct tape?

Re:ZOMG,

[treeves]

Hang around in a garage (where they work on cars, not where they park them) or a physics lab and you'll hear it often. Saying "vacuum leak" does not mean that vacuum leaks. By your reasoning, I should not be allowed to say "vacuum pump" either, since you pump the air out, you don't pump the vacuum. Tell me "vacuum pump" is bad English too. Go ahead.

Re:ZOMG,

[xouumalperxe]

How often do you say "vacuum leak" during a lifetime?

How often are you confronted with a situation where it might be relevant? You have a container that has something you want inside, and something you don't want outside. The seals on the container are faulty and the stuff is getting mixed up. That's a pretty reasonable definition of a leak. The "something you want" that's inside the container is vacuum. You're losing the vacuum through a leaky container, it's a vacuum leak. It's about as natural a choice of words as you could make it.

First post

[Taibhsear]

After startup that is.
I'm beginning to think this thing is cursed.

Thank You, Mr. Air Pressure!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea! A few more months of reprieve before we're all sucked into the black hole!

Re:Thank You, Mr. Air Pressure!

[maxume]

In other words, gravity has saved us from gravity. Great.

*sigh*

[TooMuchToDo]

As someone on the LHC/CMS experiment team, let me be the first to say "Argh."

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

"Argh."

Pirates! I knew it!

Re:*sigh*

[thenextstevejobs]

As someone on the LHC/CMS experiment team, let me be the first to say "Argh."

As someone with a cursory idea of how amazing some of the things we might learn are, I am champing at the bit myself. Best of luck to you.

I'm a linguist/programmer by training, but I recently read Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos", have read Brief History, and most of Penrose's "The Road to Reality" (a book that covers a lot of the math found in Greene's book)

As a professional in the field, could you recommend more reading for a budding physics enthusiast like myself?

Re:*sigh*

[GigsVT]

You've already created a black hole though. It sucks in tax money which then promptly disappears, and nothing ever comes out of it.

Re:*sigh*

[mcgrew]

Ye be a pirate, then? Are you trying to start an ARGHument?

Re:*sigh*

[nkcaump]

Have we learned nothing from BSG? All this has happened before and will happen again...

Re:*sigh*

[Tablizer]

You've already created a black hole though. It sucks in tax money which then promptly disappears, and nothing ever comes out of it.

Maybe LHC should merge with ISS then. At least the BH would orbit the Earth a while, giving us a little time to ... uh ... pray?
   

Re:*sigh*

[bucky0]

As another person on the LHC/CMS team, let me say: "at least this gives us more time to break and refix things before first beam" .."Oh, you mean we need to change this code again? great."

Re:*sigh*

[krakelohm]

No its just you, I think you just attract the assholes like a big asshole magnet, might as well embrace it because I see no end to your asshole magnetism.

Re:*sigh*

[chaim79]

Actually that's not a bad idea, no problem of 'vacuum leaks' up there, and the black hole could suck up all the space junk in orbit! Great idea!

Now off to patent it... :)

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue some other Anonymous coward with a goatse joke

Re:*sigh*

[TooMuchToDo]

We'll get there eventually =)

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting.

Does having an active intellectual life automatically make a person an asshole?

Or is it just the ones that are smarter than you?

Re:*sigh*

[JCSoRocks]

No wonder those scurvy dogs haven't gotten any work done! They're all busy drinking rum and running down wenches. ...or messing about on slashdot. Either way - get back to work you lazy pirates!

Re:*sigh*

[somersault]

I fail to see how someone who is humbly asking for sources of information on a topic which he would like to study in more depth can be classified a "know-it-all asshole", even in colloquial terms. Does anyone who enjoys the process of learning more than yourself constitute such a person?

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Score: -42, Pirate.

and it's not even September, 19th yet...

Re:*sigh*

[GigsVT]

Oh, yeah "thenextstevejobs" is the picture of humility.

Re:*sigh*

[drerwk]

I understand this being /. most people think that argh is just a pirate term, since there are so many RIAA stories. In the context of Physics, which is what this post is about, argh is an SI unit of work done incorrectly.

Re:*sigh*

[Roger W Moore]

As a member of the LHC/ATLAS team let me say that you are in a good position if you have to break them first! ;-)

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

A common misconception, but the money doesn't just disappear. As long as people have jobs, they're spending money, which other people will then spend, etc. Granted, it would be nice to have all of that AND some results from the LHC, but I'm pretty sure we will eventually get some results. That the investment isn't paying off as fast as we would like doesn't mean it won't pay off at all, and in the meantime it's keeping people employed.

Re:*sigh*

[TooMuchToDo]

Start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physics

Re:*sigh*

[skyride]

Stop being a pernickity little asshole. You know exactly what he meant. All this has happened before and will happen again... is essentially the underlining meaning and final word on the newer TV series. Now go troll somewhere else.

Re:*sigh*

[GigsVT]

That's the fallacy of the broken window..

It's a common misconception.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragonslicer]

"Argh."

Pirates! I knew it!

Sure it isn't the French?

Re:*sigh*

[mcgrew]

No I did NOT know what he meant. I didn't see the newer series, and the older one was a long time ago.

BTW, your flamebait answer pisses me off. Go fuck yourself.

Re:*sigh*

[Hillgiant]

No, that's AAAAAaaaaaagh.

Re:*sigh*

[Bugs42]

As someone who was looking forward to seeing what the LHC would teach us about physics, let me be the first to say "Get off /. and get back to work!"

(No hard feelings, I just couldn't pass up the joke. Please don't aim your black-hole machine at my house.)

Re:*sigh*

[TooMuchToDo]

Sir, I am offended. You should know well and good that the LHC is a circular (not linear) accelerator, and as such I can't aim it. ;)

Re:*sigh*

[Hurricane78]

But if you remove the large breaking block from the emergency exit tubes (the ones where the matter is sent to when something goes wrong. I don't know their name.), you can do this: http://xkcd.com/401/

Re:*sigh*

[somersault]

I didn't actually notice his username. Flame on.

Re:*sigh*

[Ihmhi]

The whole thing is really just one huge rum still.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming you're from the US you realise that the US gov haven't contributed anything to make the LHC.

Re:*sigh*

[zevans]

Not Even Wrong - Peter Woit
The Trouble With Science - Smolin

Both cover the current state of what used to be called GUT and is now called, um, lots of things... String Theory, Brane Theory, etc.

Re:*sigh*

[repapetilto]

It's only a fallacy if you ignore the cost, it is true that all the money has not disappeared.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

It's now what, a year behind the schedule they'd set after the explosion? CERN is looking worse and worse.

It's really too bad that the congressional Democrats killed the competing Superconducting Supercollider way back in 1994. It's not just a matter of national pride, really. The world simply can't afford to have only one of these machines. The delays have been a tremendous setback for the species as a whole. We are losing years in the progress of our knowledge of physics, the most important science of them all.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the USA that you're talking about, right? To the extent this physics knowledge is in the Bible, such efforts are unnecessary expenses. To the extent the knowledge is not in the Bible, such efforts are forbidden.

Re:Great

[cromar]

I'm as much for interesting research as the next guy, but I think the species will be fine even if we don't begin looking for the Higgs Boson or whatever they're doing over at the LHC for a few more months.

Re:Great

[DriedClexler]

It's now what, a year behind the schedule they'd set after the explosion? CERN is looking worse and worse.

Oh, come on, man, it's not CERN's fault that the anthropic principle limits us to observing universes that haven't ended our existence by creating black holes in a hadron collider!

Worrisome

[BadAnalogyGuy]

What's worrisome is that these same scientists who can't seem to build this thing without some fatal flaw are the same scientists telling us there's nothing to worry about when they create a black hole.

Re:Worrisome

[thenextstevejobs]

What's worrisome is that these same scientists who can't seem to build this thing without some fatal flaw are the same scientists telling us there's nothing to worry about when they create a black hole.

Sorry if I'm missing intended humor in your post but that just doesn't make any sense.

These are construction flaws. The fact that the black holes they may be able to create are not a threat has nothing to do with any sort of special containment. It's simply that the size and level of energy is no where near enough to last even nanoseconds.

The ignorance about the dangers of particle accelerators is disconcerting.

By the way, if you want a good look at modern physics, read Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos". Really good read.

Re:Worrisome

[Tablizer]

What's worrisome is that these same scientists who can't seem to build this thing without some fatal flaw are the same scientists telling us there's nothing to worry about when they create a black hole.

The scientists blame the engineers. But let's see who gets "credit" for the Galactic Darwin Award.
     

Re:Worrisome

[NonSequor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide

I admit it's silly, but I can't shut up the thought in the back of my head that maybe the earth only continues to exist in branches where the start up of the LHC is delayed.

Re:Worrisome

[Anonymous Coward]

A "bad analogy guy" like yourself shouldn't worry over such matters. A black hole is like a cuddle blanket of snuggles to you and your ilk.

Re:Worrisome

[maxume]

Well, if each quantum observation that you make creates a new universe, it makes at least as much sense to think of 'you' as existing in the various universe, exploring the consequences of each observation as it does to think of yourself as a precious unique flower.

I guess the information doesn't necessarily propagate (that we don't know how it could does not rule out the possibility that it could...) to other parts of the multiverse.

Anyway, like most existential questions, satisfaction is only a lifetime away.

Re:Worrisome

[CorporateSuit]

The ignorance about the dangers of particle accelerators is disconcerting.

Said the pot to the kettle.

The purpose of designing the LHC was to see what happens because they don't know what happens, and you are just as ignorant as the person you're chiding. No one is an expert on what happens when the very underlying principle of the experiment is that "no one is sure what will happen". It could make delicious, expensive icecream, for all we know. It could, in theory, destroy the world or a part of it. Given the evidence, I don't THINK it will destroy the world, but giving ridiculous odds against it (like winning the lottery 10 times in a row) is outright lying.

Re:Worrisome

[Ed_Pinkley]

I'm glad someone else brought this up. I was going in the direction of time travel: The End of Eternity

Imagine if there are some people in the distant future (or outside of time as in the story) who know the earth/universe/human race will end if the LHC is completed. They could be messing with our progress in an attempt to prevent it.

I also admit it is silly and it is "only" in the back of my head.

Ed Pinkley

Re:Worrisome

[Werthless5]

No, they're not. And your comment is anything but insightful. Do you realize exactly how many people are involved with the LHC project?

Re:Worrisome

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The odds are much worse than that. Like any event which will either happen or not, the chances are 1 in 2.

Think about that. There are only two possible outcomes of creating this black hole. Either it will evaporate to nothing or it will engulf the whole Earth and everything else within its reach.

That's 2 possibilities with only 1 result. 1 in 2 chance it will be okay. 1 in 2 chance we are doomed.

People are still willing to gamble in Vegas, so it's no use arguing probabilities with them.

Re:Worrisome

[Werthless5]

You're sort of incorrect here. Yes, we built the LHC to probe a new energy regime. However, much MUCH higher energy collisions occur in the atmosphere every day. If we could place multimillion dollar particle detectors like ATLAS and CMS in the atmosphere, we would.

So you could say that we know what definitely will not happen; the world will not be destroyed. I have proof: we're here today to discuss the subject. Since the Earth has been around for some billions of years and these types of events are fairly regular, I'd suggest that there is no chance of the LHC destroying the world.

Re:Worrisome

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Do you realize exactly how many people are involved with the LHC project?

Should I assume that all the ones who suck are the ones in charge of constructing the thing?

That's what you're arguing, right? That there are lots of people working on the LHC, so there are bound to be mistakes. Gosh, I feel better already!

Re:Worrisome

[Chris Burke]

It could make delicious, expensive icecream, for all we know. It could, in theory, destroy the world or a part of it. Given the evidence, I don't THINK it will destroy the world, but giving ridiculous odds against it (like winning the lottery 10 times in a row) is outright lying.

For all you know, sure, maybe the LHC will turn into a pack of Tyrannosaurs with opposable thumbs and big T-Rex sized mopeds that will terrorize the countryside.

Physicists don't know exactly what happens as a result of collisions like they will be creating in the LHC, though there's a lot of theory (much of which has experimental verification) to inform their expectations, that's why they need the LHC to study the results under controlled circumstances. However, they do know that collisions with even higher energies occur in our atmosphere on a constant basis and -- hold on, let me look out the window -- yep, earth still exists. Also, no reports of tyrannosaur moped gangs.

So sure, giving a precise probability of an earth-destroying black hole would be dishonest. However, we know how many times this has occurred, and could ballpark the number of interactions that have occurred over the Earth's billions of years of existence, and using that we could find out roughly how likely it is for the earth to have survived this long for any given probability for black hole creation. It's pretty easy to see that either the earth still existing is a long shot to end all long shots, or the odds of the LHC creating an earth-destroying black hole is in fact the long shot. "Winning the lotto ten times in a row" is a pretty good place to start when trying to get you to understand just how unlikely it is. No, we don't know exactly the odds. No, we don't need to be able to precisely calculate the odds to know that it is incredibly unlikely.

Re:Worrisome

[CorporateSuit]

They're attempting to create black holes. There aren't "controlled circumstances" for that outside of "We'll keep it really cold and we'll only make little ones."

The spirit of Stanley Milgram lives on very strongly in the LHC community. Not only are you all worshipping the ignorant as "knowing what they're doing" but you're arrogant about it as well. They're hypotheses include extra dimensions! How much more proof do you need that they aren't operating on "well-tested, documented, and understood physics"?

Like I said, I DON'T think they'll destroy the world. My bet is that they'll see the effects of a neutron bomb inside the LHC -- but I'm not pretending to KNOW what the odds are when I run a physics experiment that's strung up on metaphysical mathematics.

Re:Worrisome

[kiltros02]

Damn. I just blew my last paycheck on hookers 'n blow, assuming I wouldn't have to cover my mortgage next month. Thanks for nothin'.

Re:Worrisome

[radtea]

What's worrisome is that these same scientists who can't seem to build this thing without some fatal flaw are the same scientists telling us there's nothing to worry about when they create a black hole.

No, what's worrisome is that the murderous idiocy of self-serving show-offs is so persistent.

How many people do you have to kill before you'll stop promulgating this stuff?

An emotionally unstable teenage girl in India killed herself because she was so terrified that the world was going to end when the LHC turned on. I assume you're extremely pleased with that outcome, as it is the only concrete effect that the efforts of people like you to propagate this vicious nonsense has had.

Proud of yourself?

Re:Worrisome

[noidentity]

What's worrisome is that these same scientists who can't seem to build this thing without some fatal flaw are the same scientists telling us there's nothing to worry about when they create a black hole.

These are construction flaws. The fact that the black holes they may be able to create are not a threat has nothing to do with any sort of special containment.

Right, it just relies on them making no theoretical flaws.

Re:Worrisome

[The Moof]

Just wait. When they finally get everything wired correctly, they'll fire that baby up on Dec 21, 2012 and prove you wrong.

Re:Worrisome

[Anonymous Coward]

What's worrisome is that these same scientists who can't seem to build this thing without some fatal flaw are the same scientists telling us there's nothing to worry about when they create a black hole.

Sorry if I'm missing intended humor in your post but that just doesn't make any sense.

These are construction flaws. The fact that the black holes they may be able to create are not a threat has nothing to do with any sort of special containment. It's simply that the size and level of energy is no where near enough to last even nanoseconds.

The ignorance about the dangers of particle accelerators is disconcerting.

By the way, if you want a good look at modern physics, read Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos". Really good read.

Ok. From your posts, I gather that neither of you have ever worked with vacuum chambers. Let me tell you that having leaks is neither a design nor a construction flaw, it just *happens*. This is because, depending on the quality of the vacuum you want, you have to use only certain metals and glass and some very specific plastics. Seals are created by compressing a copper gasket between stainless steel flanges. Then, you will have to bake the entire chamber at about 150C for at *least* a week in order to get all the water out of the chamber. Some leaks are small enough that you will discover them only after bakeout. There are only limited possibilities to tell whether for example a copper seal is engaged completely tight. He leak checking is about the best you can do. So give those guys a break.

Re:Worrisome

[Chris Burke]

They're attempting to create black holes. There aren't "controlled circumstances" for that outside of "We'll keep it really cold and we'll only make little ones."

No, they're not. And "Controlled" means an environment where they know that the only collisions are the one they create, and where the impact occurs in a vacuum surrounded by large amounts of highly sensitive detectors. The "uncontrolled" version happens constantly, yet here we are. Hard to comprehend, I know, but not surprising for someone who probably thinks that keeping it cold is related only making small black holes instead of huge ones.

The spirit of Stanley Milgram lives on very strongly in the LHC community. Not only are you all worshipping the ignorant as "knowing what they're doing" but you're arrogant about it as well. They're hypotheses include extra dimensions! How much more proof do you need that they aren't operating on "well-tested, documented, and understood physics"?

How much more proof do I need that you have no idea what you're talking about? None. The Higgs Boson that they're looking for is predicted by the Standard Model, for your information, not that this factoid would mean anything to you.

Like I said, I DON'T think they'll destroy the world. My bet is that they'll see the effects of a neutron bomb inside the LHC -- but I'm not pretending to KNOW what the odds are when I run a physics experiment that's strung up on metaphysical mathematics.

That's delicious irony there. You don't pretend to know what the odds are, even though if you could follow some pretty simple logic you could at least upper-bound the odds as being exceptionally small. Yet you do pretend to have any clue whatsoever about the physics these guys are using when you are as ignorant as a newborn babe. And of course ignorance begets arrogance, and you think your lack of understanding qualifies you to say the scientists don't know what they're doing, and make better predictions of the outcome than they. Neutron bomb, heh. I'd love to see your reasoning, assuming it's any different than your guess that it might possibly produce ice cream, i.e. "When you don't know anything, anything is possible!"

So keep up the ironic trolling, it's hilarious.

Re:Worrisome

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

The purpose of the LHC is to provide better evidence for the theories we have. We *KNOW* collisions at these energies occur in our upper atmosphere. We've seen them. Now we just want to see them up close to see all the effects that are too small to detect from far away.

We know a LOT more about what will happen in the LHC than your ridiculous comments imply.

Re:Worrisome

[CorporateSuit]

Pretend, for just one second, that I'm not a complete idiot. Pretend that I can stumble through my day without getting hit by a car. Pretend, in that mighty, condescending brain of yours, that I type things on my computer that doesn't make it explode, I don't end up drowning if I'm left alone in a shower, and I can chew food without choking myself to death. Pretend I am capable of the rational thinking. Also, pretend that when an expert says the word "Unknown" they don't mean "unknown to everyone but me, the expert"

For starters, read the definitive report that black holes probably won't destroy the planet that CERN is banking on. I'm sure you already have, however, since it's what you've based your entire ego on. Perhaps the most important is the conclusion: "We conclude that, for the RS scenario and black holes described ... the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible. Nonetheless, it remains true that the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly > 1 sec) than is typically predicted by other models, as was first shown [in 2001]" When you read the rest of it, you see just how "out of control" this would be if these black hole particles DID manifest and then dissipate.

Discuss the importance of real life vs. computer simulations. I may not be an expert on what happens when we smash billions of protons at energy of 14 trillion volts, but I am well-experienced with Murphy's Law. Computer data and simulations showed NASA that Apollo 14 was landing next to a volcano. All the data agreed. They landed where they were supposed to, but there was no volcano! I know that equipment leaks, breaks, malfunctions, punctures, kinks, lies, and shears. I know that literally, shooting hundreds of thousands of protons, through a leak, around the lab isn't what a neutron bomb does -- but the effect will be similar.

And I know a bullshitter when I see one. You care to criticize, but you offer no plausible counterpoints. If you'll bother to notice, I actually post qualifiers to my claims. You set yourself up to be some future-seeing mighty prince of physics and the damned inventor of the LHC himself. In truth, you've shown yourself incapable of questioning the men in white who admittedly don't know what they're getting themselves into.

Re:Worrisome

[sxltrex]

The ignorance about the dangers of particle accelerators is disconcerting.

Greatest complaint about the general public ever.

Re:Worrisome

[Hurricane78]

Are you that badly informed, or just that unfunny?

There are giant amounts of particles with way higher speeds colliding with our atmosphere all the time, creating the same type of black holes.
The type that is apparently so unstable, that all those particles did not create one single black hole that are us all.
Go figure.

And try to not get your "knowledge" from the loudest and dumbest of all people.

Re:Worrisome

[CrazeeCracker]

The obvious solution to this is to build an isolation tank and stay there until you die. If you never check on the outside world, you don't risk collapsing the wave equation of its existence...

Re:Worrisome

[jamesswift]

that makes about as much sense as ye olde "video games cause violent behaviour"

Re:Worrisome

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't construction flaws, their the engineer's. Please someone stop them before these mental rejects kill us all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

Re:Worrisome

[budgenator]

Ever consider that even if Hawkings was wrong and they created a black-hole that didn't evaporate almost instantly that it would just shoot off into the cosmos at nearly the speed of light and we'd probably never even know it happened.

It will take 3 years to come back online

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict the collider turns on in 2012.

Re:It will take 3 years to come back online

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to write your prediction down, but my(an) calendar doesn't go out that far.

Damn you Nature!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why oh why must you abhor a vacuum???

Where's the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows that the LHC will be restarted... when, Dec. 23rd, 2012?

Re:Where's the news?

[Tablizer]

Everybody knows that the LHC will be restarted... when, Dec. 23rd, 2012

Dammit, dontcha just hate it when the world ends? It sooo interferes with trolling.
       

Is that first thing we need ?

[HollyMolly-1122]

Black hole - is that the top of the mankind capabilities they could "create" ? Is that first thing we need ? Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ? - That's because of there are black holes in place of them now.... Why not ? For every small problem with collider smart scientists say: ohh well, - we didn't account for that small issue. Keeping things this way, there could appear the moment when there is nobody left to say: ohh, - we didn't account for that small issue. 99% of population are delegating their future and safety to the remaining 1%. They also hope that this 1% knows all possible consequences. Isn't that scary ? If present science are so sure about all possible consequences of creating black holes using Large Hadron Collider or any collider that size, than why any expirements needed ? How people that are not "against science" can guarantee any HollyDolly mother, that she's childs are in safe place, if they are going to create something that they know nothing about ? Especially if this nothing has one way information flow. Information can enter black hole but can't escape. It could lead to unpredicted consequences in either case: in a small scale or big scale.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[samkass]

Particle interactions with more energy than LHC can produce happen in the Earth's atmosphere every day. But outside of a carefully controlled environment with extensive sensor equipment, they can't be studied. The LHC is not about creating energies never before seen on Earth-- it won't do that. It's about doing so in an extremely controlled manner than can be measured and investigated.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dilute! Dilute! OK!

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[pwilli]

If you start a small firework rocket, you can't predict how far up it will fly and when exactly it will blow up in a shiny and entertaining explosion. But you know the limits of that rocket, e.g. it won't fly up more than 200 feet, the light of the explosion won't last longer than 10 seconds and it won't get hotter than 150 degrees celsius in the center of the explosion (numbers completely made up by me).

The scientists know that the black hole and anything else that may come from LHC won't destroy the world. They also have clear expectations about what they will see, based on what they know about science. But they can't predict 100% what exactly will happen and what new particles will be created, just like a fireworks producer won't be able to tell you how exactly the explosion of the firework will look, just stuff like "it will look like a red heart".

Shooting that firework rocket may point out weekness in design or understanding of explosives involved, just like the LHC may point out flaws in the understanding of physics.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[mcgrew]

Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ?

That's because of a number of factors.

1. There may in fact not be any; it's possible that life (and the conditions that cause it) is so rare in the universe that only one in a hundred galaxies has produced it
2. It's too far away to talk to. No other civilizations farther than a little more than 100 light years away would have been able to pick up any EMF we transmitted
3. The signals we/they transmit are likely too weak to detect
4. It's possible that we haven't discovered their form of communication, while they haven't discovered ours
5. They may have seen our violent history (or their own) and are afraid to communicate with us. If I was them, I'd be scared, too.
6. They may not even realize we are alive (their form of life is likely to be more bozarre than we can imagine)
7. Our own hubris - many (most?) people don't realize that other species on our planet do in fact think, feel, and communicate. It's only recently that science has discovered that other species do in fact communicate
8. They may be so advanced that we're just not interesting to them

If present science are so sure about all possible consequences of creating black holes using Large Hadron Collider or any collider that size, than why any expirements needed ?

Because for a hypothesis to become a theory, it must be tested. That's how science works.

How people that are not "against science" can guarantee any HollyDolly mother, that she's childs are in safe place

There is no such thing as absolute safety. Your "1%" chance enormously overestimates the chances of a black hole swallowing the earth. We're not talking about a pea sized black hole (which would have a mass as great as a mountain), but an infinitessimal mass measuring the same as a few atoms, at most.

Information can enter black hole but can't escape.

See, the problem is calling these tiny singularities "black holes". Wikipedia's definition of "black holes" excludes these things. There is a vast difference between a gnat and an elephant, even though both are animals. There's no magic about black holes swallowing light; in space an object must have enough mass to collapse on itself to create a black hole, if I remember correctly it's about the mass of a thousand suns.

You have far more dangerous things to worry about, driving your kids to the store for instance.

Further reading about black holes. Further reading about the LHC. Further reading about Micro black holes

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[HollyMolly-1122]

There was an information previous year, that one uf Universities studied documentation of Collider and found it is largely based on documents that are themselves based on assumptions.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

9. They may be so advanced that they hold a common-sense policy of "absolutely no interaction" with primitive civilizations. In fact, they may be studying us at this very moment, from an entirely different galaxy, using technology we have no chance of detecting, or even comprehending at this point in our evolution.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[T Murphy]

I was at Fermilab yesterday and a video they showed claimed they ARE working with energies never before seen on Earth, as they are smashing antiprotons into protons, both going near the speed of light. Yes, there are higher energy PARTICLES contained in cosmic rays. Perhaps the video, being old, doesn't account for some recent discovery of naturally-occuring antimatter, but otherwise I don't think anything in nature (around Earth) can reach the energy of two high-speed hadrons converting into energy- at least not on the same scale.

I am talking about what Fermilab is doing- perhaps LHC will not be using antimatter but not being familiar with quantum physics I do not know whether the Higgs particle can be formed without the annihilation of matter on the scale at the Tevatron.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[StikyPad]

I think #8 is a bit of a red herring (along with some of the others, but particularly #8). Our complexity or lack thereof does not reduce our value as a data point for determining how life typically evolves in the universe. For that reason alone any one/thing interested in exploration would be interested in us, and other life forms on our planet, the same way we're interested to know if there's simple life on Mars.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Werthless5]

As others have said, we already know that earth-destroying events (black holes, whatever else) can't be created at the LHC because we're still here to talk about the possibility. If the LHC could make an object that destroys the world, then that object would have already been produced by atmospheric collisions and we'd be dead right now.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[ionix5891]

Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ?

Prime Directive

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[camperdave]

There is a theory that black holes evaporate over time. It goes something like this:

1. Black hole is peacefully sitting there when suddenly a fluctuation in the energy causes a particle/anti-particle to appear, right on the event horizon.
2. The Grand DM casts His dice, and the lot falls on the anti-particle. It falls into the black hole, while the particle escapes.
3. Somewhere in the unknowable bowels of the black hole, the anti-particle annihilates a corresponding particle.
4. A scientist, carefully measuring the black hole, records that a particle left the event horizon and that the black hole's mass diminished by exactly the mass of the particle.

Of course, if the physics inside the black hole preclude the particle/anti-particle annihilation in step three, then our intrepid scientist will see that the black hole emitted a particle and that its mass INCREASED (by the added mass of the anti-particle).

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the minimum mass to make a black hole from a star is more like three suns.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[E 99]

Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ? - That's because of there are black holes in place of them now

We have never detected a black hole with only the mass of a planet. Such things probably do not exist in the universe. We haven't found any alien civilizations yet because we don't know what to look for and even if we did, we don't have the technology required. I suspect our civilization is unique in its excessively technology-oriented behavior. I doubt many, if any, alien civilizations will ever be transmitting radio signals unless they get that technology from us.

99% of population are delegating their future and safety to the remaining 1%. They also hope that this 1% knows all possible consequences. Isn't that scary ?

How did you know when you wrote the above, that typing that exact sequence of letters into a computer wouldn't destroy the world? That sequence was probably never tried before. So how did you know. You didn't, but you took the risk anyway, on behalf of all of humanity. There is nothing in our understanding of physics that suggests any more danger to the world from the LHC than there is in that, or any other action. Just because someone comes up with a sci-fi doomsday scenario, whether it's the LHC, 2012, 2000, or the Terminator movies, doesn't make it an actual danger. Just because someone -- or even a LOT of people -- believe something is a danger, does not make it a danger. Those are fictions and fantasies. If there was an actual foundation of the possibility of a risk in physics, that would be a different matter. But there isn't. The only reason why some people assume there to be a risk there is because other people assume there to be a risk there, not from any rational basis.

If present science are so sure about all possible consequences of creating black holes using Large Hadron Collider or any collider that size, than why any expirements needed?

Actually, physicists have no idea if it will create micro black holes. In a poll of physicists I saw, I think there was a 40/60 split. If black holes are created it means there are more than 4 dimensions, as string theories predict. Either way, the result will have profound consequences for our knowledge. But there are no scenarios under which those black holes would be dangerous.

Especially if this nothing has one way information flow. Information can enter black hole but can't escape. It could lead to unpredicted consequences in either case: in a small scale or big scale.

That is a paradoxical view of black holes. Some may hold that view, but it certainly can't be stated definitively. Most physicists believe that information that enters a black hole gradually radiates out in Hawking radiation.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[HollyMolly-1122]

How dense is matter around these black holes in atmosphere ? What kind of matter is around there ? Is that true for LHC ? Who measured directly any energy that is speculated to collide in atmosphere ?

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[pwilli]

Can't give any references right now, as it was a documentary on TV some days ago about the building of ATLAS (one of the two big particle detectors at LHC - maybe their homepage atlas.ch has more info about it).

They showed that the detector was tested before the rest of LHC was ready (and before the first particles were sent circulating through the pipe), by measuring the (often cited) particles that are bombarding earth from space as they travelled through ATLAS. So I'd guess that ATLAS, CMS and other (older/smaller) particle detectors are/were capable of measuring the energy of those space particles just fine, even if they weren't setup to specifically do that.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[maxume]

I think there probably is a fair chance that a civilization might not be interested in us. For instance, ants are quite interesting to a wide range of biologists, but the colony of ants living under the tree on the North side of your back yard are not of particular interest to biologists.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

99% of population are delegating their future and safety to the remaining 1%. They also hope that this 1% knows all possible consequences. Isn't that scary ?

Yes, it is extremely scary. However scientists are not the 1% that you should be worried about. Instead, look to the wealthy who control the corporations, the politicians they have bought, etc. They are the real threat. And they do know most of the consequences of their actions--namely that they will profit enormously while the rest of the world suffers. In most cases it is not by ignorance that they are a threat to us; it is by indifference or malice. In comparison to such issues, the notion that scientists might accidentally blow up the Earth is laughable.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[radtea]

After an authoritative-sounding bunch of complete nonsense you say: but not being familiar with quantum physics...

Well, given you know you aren't familiar with it, why are you telling us what kind of experiments are going on in it?

It is possible, perhaps, that not being familiar with the subject matter you completely misunderstood the PR hype from Fermilab, which certainly does not produce collisions with energies that are anywhere close to what is happening in the atmosphere every day?

Either that, or every competent physicist who has rightfully dismissed the murderous idiocy of the "LHC's gonna make a black hole" crowd is wrong.

I am familiar with quantum physics, and with human psychology, and I know which of those possibilities seems more plausible to me.

Oh, and as it happens, cosmic ray showers do contain a significant fraction of anti-matter, so your whole speculation about that is completely irrelevant, based on nothing but your admitted ignorance of the subject matter.

Finally, I don't know anything about horse racing, but I think the Kentucky Derby is a threat to humanity. See, horses don't run that fast around ovals in nature, so we really can't possibly predict what will happen. And horses have been getting faster and faster due to scientific training methods, so each year new records are set, and there's a risk that when the average speed exceeds 33 1/3 mph there will be a quantum correlation that will cause an equine bose condensate that will result in all the horses in the world suddenly taking on the same velocity, resulting in the destruction of the Earth.

Even though I don't know anything about horse racing I think you should take this threat seriously because it is a) scary and b) stupid, and that's apparently the kind of thing you take seriously.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Daspaz]

You're missing a vital point. The exact same interactions can be achieved in proton-proton or proton-antiproton collisions. The Higgs, if it exists, can most certainly be produced in the LHC's proton-proton collisions, and high-energy cosmic ray particles can indeed produce collision energies higher than either the LHC or Tevatron can. The key point is that protons (or anti-protons) are NOT fundamental particles. As you probably know they are made up of quarks and gluons. What you may not know is that on the energy scales of these collisions it is not meaningful to say that a proton is made of 3 'normal matter' quarks (2 ups and 1 down). It contains these 3 so-called valence quarks as well as a 'sea' of gluons, other quarks, and - importantly - ANTI-quarks, all collectively referred to as 'partons'. When 2 protons collide in a high energy collision, what is REALLY colliding is either a pair of gluons (one from each), or a quark from one proton and a sea ANTI-quark from the other. The lesson to take away is that even in 'normal-matter' hadron collisions - in the LHC or from cosmic rays - it is still matter-antimatter annihilation at work. A last note: You may easily wonder WHY then the Tevatron collides protons and antiprotons while the LHC uses only protons. Since in the first case there are valence anti-quarks in one of the colliding particles, it is more likely that any given collision will give you the high-energy release wanted (not every collision does!). It is, however, much easier to produce protons than anti-protons! The LHC's approach is to simply produce many, many more collisions per second - easier to do with just protons. The result is more of the desired high-energy events per second than would be attainable with the limited supply of anti-protons.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[The Moof]

Your "1%" chance enormously overestimates the chances of a black hole swallowing the earth.

Glad to know we're safe from the black hole, but what of the Fry Hole?

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[CorporateSuit]

After an authoritative-sounding bunch of complete nonsense you say: but not being familiar with quantum physics...

Reading articles on wikipedia, written by college dropouts, doesn't put you at any higher level than he is.

every competent physicist who has rightfully dismissed the ... "LHC's gonna make a black hole" crowd

The point of the LHC is to make a black hole. Physicists claim it will dissipate quickly enough from the Hawking radiation vs. whether it will begin snowballing out of control. NOT whether it will create one. You don't even know what you're talking about.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[HollyMolly-1122]

> We have never detected a black hole with only the mass of a planet. Is the black hole is something static ? Why it should have the same mass, if it tends to increase it enormously over the time ? Any mass that is around black hole tends to join it forever. I' think "the static" is understanding of nature for some of us.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[mcgrew]

Well, I'M not safe from the black hos or the white ones, since my favorite bar is in the ghetto.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[pomakis]

One thing I've never understood about this explanation is that it doesn't explain why it's always the anti-particle that falls into the black hole. Wouldn't chance dictate that half the time it will be the particle, causing the black hole to take on the extra mass?

(I'm sure the answer to this question is somehow related to a similar question that I've always had... and that is: why is the universe composed almost entirely out of matter rather than being a mix? and why aren't there any anti-matter black holes?)

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ? ...because the aliens try to avoid contact with retarded asking stupid questions..

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[T Murphy]

I stated I heard information that I found contradictory. I figured if my understanding is correct, it adds to the discussion. If I am wrong someone can clarify and we get some informative posts, adding to the discussion. The video mentioned antimatter hadn't existed since the Big Bang- I didn't know if that was said for simplicity's sake or if it was then believed true. I didn't want to spend half the post how I'm not sure about this or that, so I made it clear I don't mean to be authoritative and left it. I don't care to play the "I know more than you" game.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[StikyPad]

That's not really a good metaphor because it implies similarity between all colonies. If the ants in your backyard were demonstrating a behavior different than any other ants studied, then a biologist would certainly be interested.

Really, regardless of the starting assumptions, someone would be interested in us, if they exist:

1) If we assume that Homo Sapiens exist on other planets (colonies) that are identical to us, then those people would be interested in us, and the super-intelligent species is irrelevant. If the extra-terrestrial species is not interested in us, then they're not identical, and we are exhibiting unique behavior, which means the super-species would be interested in us.

2) Homo Sapiens do not exist on other planets, so we are unique, and the super-intelligent species would be interested in us, and the non-existant extraterrestrial homo-sapiens are irrelevant.

Any way you slice it, disinterest is very unlikely to be a factor.

I pretty much agree with the first five entries of your list though, and would add the possibility that we are the first intelligent species to arise in the galaxy, and perhaps the universe. Really, we have very little data. We don't have any idea what the odds of life are, let alone the odds of intelligent life, or advanced intelligence including the use of tools and symbols, storing and harnessing energy to perform work (aside from bodily processes), etc.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[maxume]

Not my list.

It is at least possible that a super intelligent species has noticed us and classified us as boring. Think millions of unique data points, not 10. How possible isn't very interesting, as no accurate estimate is within reach.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Terminal Saint]

The point of the LHC is to make a black hole. Physicists claim it will dissipate quickly enough from the Hawking radiation vs. whether it will begin snowballing out of control. NOT whether it will create one. You don't even know what you're talking about.

No, you don't know what you're talking about.
The point of the LHC is to demonstrate the existence of the Higgs boson. Any microscopic black holes created are purely incidental.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I don't think anyone believes the experiment simply shouldn't be conducted aside from the die hard religious zealots. However EVERYONE I have met believes it should at least not be done on Earth. There is nothing that gives any person or group of people the right to risk any chance, no matter how small, of killing anyone but themselves. I mean hell, we are planning for a colony on Mars, at least wait until we have a self sustained one to avoid wiping the Human race from existence if it fails, or simply build it there, and orbiting body of the same mass doesn't really matter if its a black hole, the mass would be the same and it would be elsewhere.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the cosmic ray particle spectrum (google 'cosmic ray spectrum') one can see stuff at 10^20 eV, that is a lot higher energy than the couple of TeV these particle accelerators achieve (no mean feat). Here's a list of some observatories that look at cosmic rays:

Pierre Auger Observatory : http://www.auger.org/index.html
HESS : http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/hfm/HESS/
MAGIC : http://magic.mppmu.mpg.de/
Icecube http://icecube.wisc.edu/

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[camperdave]

One thing I've never understood about this explanation is that it doesn't explain why it's always the anti-particle that falls into the black hole. Wouldn't chance dictate that half the time it will be the particle, causing the black hole to take on the extra mass?

It doesn't matter. I tried to convey that with the "God playing dice" step. However, I think that people explain it with the particle leaving and the anti-particle falling in because particles are easier to understand and they're more comfortable with thinking of a black hole as filled with regular matter.

a similar question that I've always had... and that is:why is the universe composed almost entirely out of matter rather than being a mix?

Physicists also wonder why. It's one of the great unanswered questions. My personal guess is that there are regions of the universe where things are all antimatter, and the whole thing balances out to zero.

why aren't there any anti-matter black holes?

Who says there aren't? There's only three discernible qualities of a black hole: mass, charge, and angular momentum. Since both matter and antimatter have mass, charge, and angular momentum, there's no way of distinguishing an anti-matter black hole from a normal-matter black hole.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[wideBlueSkies]

>>If you start a small firework rocket, you can't predict how far up it will fly and when exactly it will blow up in a shiny and entertaining explosion. But you know the limits of that rocket, e.g. it won't fly up more than 200 feet, the light of the explosion won't last longer than 10 seconds and it won't get hotter than 150 degrees celsius in the center of the explosion (numbers completely made up by me).

>>The scientists know that the black hole and anything else that may come from LHC won't destroy the world.

Let us not forget though that every now and then one of those little bottle rockets goes astray and ends up exploding in someone's personal space. Eyes get lost, etc.

So even though we know that said rocket can only go 200 ft up, and can only burn at 150 C, when it does misbehave it usually ends up causing some amount of trouble.

Think about it.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also the way the PDFs (parton distribution functions) scale up to LHC energies it's mostly the gluons that are interacting, so the differences between proton-proton, and proton-antiproton are less. As a side effect of that is the production cross sections for strong interactions (gg->ttbar) rises a lot faster than that for electro-weak (like single W or Z production).

Also part of why this is anonymous. The real problem is the &^%$ design of the connections between the sections of the copper busbar (this acts a current dump during a quench) in the magnets. It was during warming up to test these connections that the vacuum leak occurred.

The machine will not run at design energy until the busbars are redesigned and replaced. Running safely at 5 TeV (10 TeV center of mass) is going to be troublesome even.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstood the video. Those energies were never before seen in a laboratory setting. Much higher energy collisions occur in the atmosphere. In order to get a collider to produce collisions at the same energy, it would have to have to have the diameter of a planet.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[Captain_Chaos]

Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ?

I think it's because high intelligence is apparently rare. It only evolved once on our planet, out of millions of species. There's probably plenty of life out there, just very little intelligent life.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[budgenator]

The video mentioned antimatter hadn't existed since the Big Bang- I didn't know if that was said for simplicity's sake or if it was then believed true.

I'm sure they meant in quantity as in there are no longer atoms composed of antimatter around; there is plenty of subatomic particles of antimatter.

Re:Is that first thing we need ?

[budgenator]

Your assuming that a mini-blackhole created on Mars wouldn't be more dangerous if it hit the Earth than a mini-blackhole created on Earth would be; Marvin the Martian could be looking through his Acme catalog for a LHC right now!

Vacuum Leaks...

[Anonymous Coward]

... soon they won't be able to stop them. It will be a hazardous vacuum spill, endangering all the surroundings of the LHC!!

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[Anonymous Coward]

wow...that sucks. :)

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[BlueKitties]

I think the vacuum is caused by a BLACK HOLE. Excuse me while I go blog.

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[gilbert644]

nah, it blows!

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[CopaceticOpus]

Vaccuum leaks are one of those under-appreciated dangers, along with dry spills, hot freezes, and explosions of calm.

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you mean that blows? ;)

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[Anonymous Coward]

... especially vacuum very dangerous: you can not breath in it at all.
The only consolation is that eventually this vacuum will escape from the atmosphere to the space, where it is pretty common.
Actually the universe full of vacuum could be an evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence making their own messy experiments with theirs LHCs.

Re:Vacuum Leaks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Vaccuum leaks are one of those under-appreciated dangers, along with dry spills, hot freezes, and explosions of calm.

LMAO! Clever.....

At least...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the delay will mean the world lives on for 2 more months ;=)
 
Ofcourse, A(H1N1)v will prevent the startup alltogether, as key personnel falls sick at the critical time ;)
 
Then again, the sudden reappearance of sunspots on the sun probably means the super nova will come before even that happens
Oh no, I forgot to take my pills !

Re:At least...

[Anonymous Coward]

don't worry about the pills, they aren't working

It's only a setback for lab technicians

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Real physicists have already worked out the equations and have anticipated the results of the experiments at CERN.

Experimental lab techs are the ones who are having setbacks here.

Don't worry your little monkey brain too much. Humans are progressing just fine.

Bit off more than they could chew

[Tanman]

This is why movies have producers. It's to keep the artists in check. Someone should have kept the brains in check when they designed this thing. Instead of being smaller and useful, it's just a gigantic waste of money -- the Waterworld of the scientific community.

Once it 'works' . . . my guess is something will go wrong with the measuring instruments. There's no reason to think that the base functionality is the only thing flawed. It'll be great to finally have particles fire around the track, collide, and have bad data.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[alexhs]

Once it 'works' . . . my guess is something will go wrong with the measuring instruments. There's no reason to think that the base functionality is the only thing flawed. It'll be great to finally have particles fire around the track, collide, and have bad data.

Cutting-edge science uses cutting-edge technology.
Of course it breaks !
But in a few decades these technologies might be ready for industrial uses.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[cowscows]

This is a giant multi-national project with funding from multiple governments. I'm sure there was plenty of politics and bureaucrats involved, not just a bunch of over-ambitious engineers trying to build the most complicated things they could dream up.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[mcgrew]

Instead of being smaller and useful, it's just a gigantic waste of money

We already did smaller. The LHC, when it comes on line, will be far more useful.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[Kjella]

This is why movies have producers. It's to keep the artists in check. Someone should have kept the brains in check when they designed this thing. Instead of being smaller and useful, it's just a gigantic waste of money -- the Waterworld of the scientific community.

Yes, and we should dismantle Hubble and replace it with an army of hobbyist astronomers with a 100$ telescope. They won't find anything new except maybe a few near-earth asteroids, certainly no exoplanets and all the other interesting stuff happening. Same with LHC, if you wanted any particle accelerator I think we had an electron one in high school science class. We could play with it forever but I doubt we'd ever get any more results on the standard model and the higgs particle. Experimental science of this kind is all about building the most sensitive equipment you can - it's complex, expensive, obsoleted by the next generation but it's the only way to do science and not guesswork.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[Tanman]

The LHC, when it comes on line, will be far more useful.

I'll believe it when I see it. Right now, smaller and working is far superior to gargantuan and failing.

Maybe they should have upped its size by, you know, double or something. Go for 12km instead of 27km. They have this gigantic collider and not good-enough support/tech/whatever to keep it working. It is too complicated for current conditions. It is my belief that it will not be working for a number of years -- if it ever works at all, that is.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[mcgrew]

Yes, right now the tevatron at Fermilab is superior to the LHC, and it's half as big as your 12 km and most likely as complex as the LHC. It may in fact be years before the LHC comes on line, but I have no doubt that it will come on line.

The LHC will tell us things that the Tevatron can't when it does come on line. It will be well worth the wait.

Re:Bit off more than they could chew

[FrameRotBlues]

Were you saying something similar from 1961 through 1968?

I have said this before...

[Colourspace]

.... but the time for the LHC to come online is getting scarily closer to 2012 each time one of these hiccups happens. And did anyone else wonder how lead could leak out of a vacuum?

Re:I have said this before...

[Colourspace]

Couple of things - this wasn't redundant when I wrote it - by the time I had come back to the main thread two other people had mentioned it. I *did* actually check first - I hate being redundant. Secondly, if you read the moderation recommendations, you are supposed to use mod points in general to mod up. If I see something redundant, I don't waste mod points on it, I simply don't mark it up. Simple really. Think about it next time.

Re:I have said this before...

[amRadioHed]

How could it not be redundant? Your first 5 words were "I have said this before" ;-)

The simple way

[Feint]

C'mon guys - it's just a leak.. didn't someone put some budget aside for duct tape?

Re:The simple way

[Roger W Moore]

Yes - but you need "duct tape" that works at -271C and you need to warm up the magnet first so you can open it up to put it there and then cool it down again. You have to do this very slowly (~month) so that everything can expand and contract together.

Vacuum leaks are bad

[OglinTatas]

I had a vacuum leak once and in less than 5 seconds my house, instead of just smelling like dog hair smelled like stale month old dog hair in a vacuum bag. I also learned to empty the bag more often.

Re:Vacuum leaks are bad

[maxume]

I also had a vacuum leak. It made my car idle too fast.

I didn't get it repaired until the EGR valve failed and the engine temp would go up when the vehicle wasn't moving (I guess the valve failed open).

Re:Vacuum leaks are bad

[Opportunist]

So, in other words, they forgot to take out the trash? How typically geeky. Wasting billions on shiny stuff but failing to hire some immigrant to do their trash.

Re:Vacuum leaks are bad

[BlueKitties]

My wife had a vacuum leak and it ruined her dress.

Zing!

Re:Vacuum leaks are bad

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

It's sloppy, but you can leave vacuum leaks unrepaired if you just put down newspapers under the car to absorb the dripping vacuum before it stains the garage floor. I wonder why the LHC didn't just hire someone to mop up the leaking vacuum.

If this keeps up...

[Anonymous Coward]

we won't be able to use the LHC before the end of the world in 2012...

Over or Under June 2010 - taking bets

[us7892]

I'll take the "over" bet on this one. It will not restart successfully until after June 1, 2010.

Re:Over or Under June 2010 - taking bets

[tnk1]

Actually, we already know when it will restart:

December 21, 2012.

OK

[Shivetya]

I want to know where they hid the working LHC at.

Re:OK

[Anpheus]

The one that worked immediately created a blackhole and ended humanity in that universe. By the anthropic principle, we will never make the LHC work, and will instead see one failure after another and wonder why fate has cursed us so.

A vacuum leak causing delays?

[drachenfyre]

That sucks.

Re:A vacuum leak causing delays?

[MadKeithV]

Maybe it blows. It all depends on which way you look at it.

Re:A vacuum leak causing delays?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
Its not sucking enough.

The delay is not big for such an experiment...

[master_p]

For an experiment of such magnitude, a delay of a few years is not very important...it's way more important to make the experiment in a good way, above anything else.

Re:The delay is not big for such an experiment...

[dominious]

exactly, this should be a reply to this idiot a few posts above: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1311329&op=Reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=28781965

Re:The delay is not big for such an experiment...

[Late Adopter]

For science and humanity, surely you are right. This does effect those of us who work on it, however. People are waiting to graduate, waiting to publish, waiting to move on to other things (at the LHC or elsewhere). Scientists sometimes like to have normal lives too, and not have their careers stalled out.

Not to mention, the number of people who get tired of waiting and leave increases as time goes on (this does happen, there's plenty people switching over to D0 and CDF theses), depleting the amount of institutional knowledge retained, which will be necessary when this actually gets going.

Re:The delay is not big for such an experiment...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you are doing your PhD there.

puzzled by the headcrabs ref?

[gandhi_2]

so was i.

Re:puzzled by the headcrabs ref?

[PaintyThePirate]

More importantly, Gordon Freeman is apparently an engineer at CERN.

No worries though, he has a crowbar now.

Re:puzzled by the headcrabs ref?

[Chris Burke]

That's so awesome. Someone actually sent them a crowbar and CERN played along. Well, my last concern (that there were no crowbars at CERN for Gordon to use) is finally assuaged.

Reminds me of that God joke...

[lymond01]

To paraphrase, this guy is in the middle of a flooding city. He repeatedly refuses attempts of others to rescue him, claiming God will save him. He drowns, winds up in Heaven, and asks God why he didn't save him. "I sent you a two boats and a helicopter..."

So I can see God now using his mighty and flagellant tendrils to tinker with the LHC's inner workings and yet we still press on, thwarting his every attempt to save the planet Earth and the life he created. I'm certain this will all end with a, "Okay, power it up!", followed by a surprisingly brief sucking sound as the world is drawn into a black hole of its own making.

I can just see the look on his face...

Re:Reminds me of that God joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

God: "Petrus, have you seen Earth? I sent them a message that I'd be on vacation for some months and they should postpone the startup of LHC till I've got time to oversee the experiment."
Petrus: "It was there just a moment ago... wait, there seems to be someone at the door!"
God: "God dammit, not again!"

Re:Reminds me of that God joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can just see the look on his face..."

That's not God you dipshit. That's Satan, befuddled and yet oddly pleased such a specimen like yourself would end up in the Underworld.[1] Talk about F'ing up by committing blasphemy and presuming you'd end in Heaven.

Then he remembered you read and post on /. and it all made sense.

Two Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Duct Tape!!!

Well, that sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

(repairs, how appropriate....)

Aliens

[nevvamind]

They're not vacuum leaks, they're gateways to another universe. Plug'em soon before Aliens start oozing out !

Large Hadron Collider Understanding The Dangers

[HollyMolly-1122]

Large Hadron Collider: Understanding The Dangers (Part 3) The end note there: This "safety review" is a political PR document, not real science. http://deepthought.newsvine.com/_news/2008/09/05/1831610-large-hadron-collider-understanding-the-dangers-part-3

Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad that the restart of the Large Hardon Collider has been delayed.

I don't care who you are. A large hardon collider has got to hurt.

December 21, 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

Coincidentally, LHC activation is delayed until the last day of the Mayan calendar.

Large Hadron Collider: Understanding The Dangers

[HollyMolly-1122]

Large Hadron Collider: Understanding The Dangers (Part 3) The end note there: This "safety review" is a political PR document, not real science. http://deepthought.newsvine.com/_news/2008/09/05/1831610-large-hadron-collider-understanding-the-dangers-part-3

New Expected Start Date

[Anonymous Coward]

December 21st, 2012

Re:Large Hadron Collider: Understanding The Danger

[Anonymous Coward]

So, some guy calling himself "deep_thought" read a document about LHC and thinks that it is not real science, but a political PR document.

So how exactly is his opinion any more valuable or valid than that of others or the scientists who don't hide behind a nickname?

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's like Ultra-High-Vacuum applications -- the one single real-world technical application even more frustrating than programming.

(Disclaimer: I am a scientist working on UHV applications, and I am a programmer :-) And I enjoy both. And I'm doing both for a living... Hm. Hang on a minute, I'm just realizing my masochistic tendency... :-p )

Re:Nope.

[thrawn_aj]

Masochistic is right. I just spent all of last week trying to find and fix a vacuum leak in my experiment. Luckily it was a (relatively) straightforward setup and after I got to the point where I wanted to strangle someone (or wreck the lab with a hammer - I'm not too fussy about my violent outbreaks :)) I just swore a terrible oath at the thing and machined a new one from scratch.

I'm not complaining about the work (it's sorta like having an irritating kid - no matter what, it's still your kid :)), but vacuum leaks can be seriously frustrating, especially the ones that show up with a delay so you have not the slightest farking clue where the damn thing is leaking.

Since I feel like venting (no pun intended :P), I'll let y'all in on just how one leak checks a vacuum chamber. The leak-checker is just a glorified pump that can pump down to really low pressures. The stuff coming out of the chamber is also directed into a mass spectrometer that is tuned to register and count (usually) helium atoms. You spray helium gas over the outside of the vacuum chamber and if there is a leak, some helium gets sucked in and registers on the spectrometer. The bigger the leak, the bigger the count and a simple calculation converts this into ccs of helium coming in per second with a pressure difference of 1 atmosphere across the leak (1 atm outside and ~0 inside) - that by the way is where the unit standard ccs per min (sccm) or standard cubic feet per min (scfm) comes from - you may have encountered these units in several diverse places (anywhere that gas flows are controlled through pipes). Of course, these days most of this is automated but we have this really cool leak-checker (Air Force surplus from the dawn of time :)) that is so freakin' awesome and not too automated. It's from the 60's and still works perfectly o.O

The bottom line is that finding a small leak* in a man-sized chamber is difficult to begin with. Imagine how insanely difficult it would be to do this in the frakking LHC! And there, since they deal with subatomic particles, they need even better vacua than I do. Gawd I'm glad I'm not the guy in charge of finding leaks - I'd probably start gibbering and running around in little circles if I had to deal with it :P.

____________________
*Here, small usually means somewhere around 1E-9 std.cc/s - at this rate, it would take more than 25 thousand years for a vacuum chamber the size of a beer stein to fill up due to air bleeding in from the outside. Much more than that actually since the rate would go down when the pressure difference decreases but this will do for now. And yet, such small leak rates can wreak havoc in delicate experiments (for instance, in a recent one where I was trying to measure the flow conductance of nanoholes - very tiny flows and leaks can screw things to hell).

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to run one of those He-mass specs too! Defense Radar systems production. ANY thing larger than a small dog takes TIME to zero in on. That, and a good eye for weld and braze flaws. Though I have found leaks that go streight through a material, especially extruded material. A bubble inside the metal matrix gets streached out durring extrusion, and then exposed by machining. Very Very difficult to locate, even on a small part!

Frank Close

[Roger W Moore]

You could try some of the books by Frank Close. He's a British author and, while I've heard that some don't like his style, I appreciate it a lot more than Brian Greene - but then I work in the field so I might have a different point of view to a layperson.

So that means...

[Neurowiz]

the invasion from the Hive will be delayed a few more months. Good! We can look for the Tunnel-Makers' signal a while longer... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_Bridge_(book))

Re:Large Hadron Collider: Understanding The Danger

[HollyMolly-1122]

It's exactly the same way, like you, calling self even more anonymously: "Anonymous Coward". Don't take it personally. It's common today. Without that, probably, there wouldn't be other opinions on the net, just political PR ;-)

No

[Werthless5]

The explosion happened last September, so it can't be a year behind the new schedule; it hasn't even been a year since the explosion! The schedule set after the explosion was to run again the following September, so it's now predicted to be 2 months behind that schedule

And it's really not too bad, since the SSC was far more overbudget than the LHC has ever been and was being footed solely by the US (whereas the LHC is international). And we're not really losing anything from even a one-year delay. Also, consider the fact that experimental particle physics is but a single aspect of physics, one side of a multifaceted subject.

As for cost, the total LHC cost after 10 years of running is expected to be less than $10 billion total, and that includes the full design phase (greater than 10 years). That means the cost/year is less than $500 million, a drop in the bucket for any modern nation and certainly no problem for CERN's 20 member states and six observer states.

There's a WHAT?

[Minwee]

Vacuum leaks? There's vacuum leaking OUT of the LHC?

Holy crap! If this continues that monster could leak enough vacuum to completely cover the entire world, possibly destroying all life on Earth. How long are these madmen going to keep playing with dangerous things like vacuum before somebody puts a stop to it all?

Everything is based on Assumption

[Roger W Moore]

All of science is based on an assumption namely that the laws of nature do not change. You cannot prove that tomorrow gravity will continue to work as it did today. However given that, as far as we can tell, gravity seems to have worked since the Big Bang, it seems a very reasonable assumption that it will continue to work tomorrow.

So saying that things are based on assumptions is meaningless unless you state what those assumptions are and what evidence there is to point out that they are wrong. Otherwise we might make the assumption that the author has no clue what they are talking about...

Re:Everything is based on Assumption

[HollyMolly-1122]

The laws of nature do not change in our time frame. - That's why we want to do something beyond that. ..Creating something that: ".. will simulate conditions that was present at the time of Big Bang". Isn't that ironically prove that we are ready to sacrifice some assumptions just to get any result ? Even if this result could potentially lead us to the end of everything we have.

Re:Everything is based on Assumption

[Roger W Moore]

The laws of nature do not change in our time frame.

That is an assumption. As the Universe expands it is entirely possible for it to undergo a spontaneous phase change to a lower energy state which will effectively alter the current way that particles interact, just like it did very shortly after the Big Bang.

Isn't that ironically prove that we are ready to sacrifice some assumptions just to get any result ? Even if this result could potentially lead us to the end of everything we have.

No this is not irony nor could it "lead us to the end of everyting we have". If the LHC was dangerous we would already be dead thanks to cosmic rays. In addition stars, planets etc. would be disapearing from our skies as they are converted into Black Holes by cosmic rays as well. We have never, ever seen this happen. Hence either we conclude that it is so rare that there is a neglible chance of it happening with the LHC (on the millions of years timescale) or it does not happen ever.

...and yes you can assume that we got it wrong in which case you should also be worrying that we are wrong about the current vacuum being stable in which case we are all doomed anyway!

Re:Everything is based on Assumption

[budgenator]

Your assuming that the purely theoretical quantum black-hole
1 even exists,
2 even though its mass which is completely dependent on relativistic effects so its only a black-hole in one dimension, the direction of travel, that it would have an effect on normal classical object in 3D space-time.
3 that a quantum black-hole traveling at many 9's the speed of light could have any interaction with resting mass that would cause it to lose so much velocity (and therefore mass) that it wouldn't immediately cease being a black-hole!

If these things were blackholes because they had enough rest mass to be blackholes, I'd be worried.

Vacuum doesnt leak !

[Anonymous Coward]

Vacuum doesnt leak :P
but then again this is slashdork, and the puns are way funnier this way.

LHC may never activate?

[wigginz]

I really wish I could find this article again, but I remember reading a paper from a couple physicists that offered the possibility that the LHC wont let itself activate because of the risks to spacetime or some other quantum effects. They mentioned previous experiments that posed the same risks have never actually been successful. Damn, anyone know the report I'm talking about? I swear I'm not making it up ;)

Re:LHC may never activate?

[wigginz]

Found it! Interesting read: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/230

There is a 50 % chance that we'll all die

[pwilli]

at least if we believe Walter Wagner: TheDailyShow - LHC

Re:There is a 50 % chance that we'll all die

[pauljuno]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and state that there's a pretty good chance that 100% of us will die at some point or other.

Re:Large Hadron Collider: Understanding The Danger

[Werthless5]

His comments and criticisms reveal only that he knows very little about particle physics. For instance,

"Obviously, a elementary particle has a predefined shape and size that cannot be adjusted and that leads to an issue with an efficient packing arrangement to create a micro-blackhole"

This makes no sense from any perspective.

His harshest criticism is that we're not certain what the equivalent cosmic ray energy would have to be in order to produce the same center of mass energy as the LHC. He's completely wrong. This is an elementary number that any grad student would be able to calculate given the same conditions.

More fun quotes

"'(d) cosmic rays are incapable of producing micro-blackholes due to the distribution of forces during collision', or '(e) relativistic particles striking non-relativistic particles do not exhibit the same behavior as relativisitic only collisions. "

(d) Wrong, because you can always perform your calculations in the rest frame of either proton and get the same answers. Also, Newtonian physics don't work at these length scales

(e) Wrong again for the same reasons. The difference between fixed target experiments (we've built several) and colliders (LHC) are well understood, and at the energies we're discussing the mechanics are nearly identical. The real difference, that the particles are produced closer to rest in the LHC, is already mentioned in the LHC design documents

Hmm...

[ghostis]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1919v3.pdf

delays after delays

[Anonymous Coward]

At this rate the LHC will not be online till the end 2012.

Crap!

[PPH]

I'd figured my finances based upon the world ending some time this summer. Now I'm going to have to figure out what to do with all those credit card bills I've been ignoring.

Terminator?

[pance]

What if the reason all these problems are happening is that people from the future are coming back in time to stop something bad happening in the future. Just like in terminator!

Fermi has done it again!

[T Murphy]

I'll bet they're having a "Mission Success" party at Fermilab today. First some faulty equipment, now some sabotage... Fermilab will never become obsolete.

Re:Fermi has done it again!

[Anonymous Coward]

No. There's a huge community of folks here that very badly want the LHC to get going. Fermilab is a center for computing for the CMS experiment in the US.

Well,

[cfortin]

that sucks ...

Vacuum Pockets!!

[Rafe_Aguilera]

Local Safety Nazis must be involved, I bet someone found the MSDS for vacuum.

just self-preservation

[HermDog]

The Eschaton is merely working retroactively to prevent causality violations. Clearly, they've inadvertently created a time machine.

need a vac for a large hardon

[majid_aldo]

going for a complete vacuum might damage the hardon. i say -10psi is enough.

The misery of the LHC

[Animats]

Think about what it takes to work on that thing. It's in a long underground tunnel of rather small diameter for what's in there. Fixing stuff in place is difficult and hazardous. Removing a magnet involves disconnecting everything (a big deal; some of the connections are welded and superconducting), lifting the magnet onto a narrow carrier that runs on the walkway (no idea how that's actually done) and inching the carrier for kilometers to one of the two big vertical shafts where it can be hoisted out vertically. As an underground maintenance job, this is not fun.

The canceled American SSC was designed with a larger tunnel diameter. The LHC was designed with the assumption that not much magnet maintenance would be required, which cut costs but turned out to be a bad assumption.

Paradox

[Anonymous Coward]

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/230
Duh, everytime the LHC 'works' int the future, it screws itself in the past. When they fix it the whole process starts again.
The solution is simple: the LHC can never work because it will work.