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

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

[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

[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: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.

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: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.