Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Short Circuit In LHC Could Delay Restart By Weeks

Posted by Soulskill on from the universe-will-survive-a-bit-longer dept.

hypnosec writes: On March 21 CERN detected an intermittent short circuit to ground in one of the LHC's magnet circuits. Repairs could delay the restart by anywhere between a few days and several weeks. CERN revealed that the short circuit affected one of LHC's powerful electromagnets, thereby delaying preparations in sector 4-5 of the machine. They confirmed that seven of the machine's eight sectors have been successfully commissioned to 6.5 TeV per beam, but they won't be circulating a beam in the LHC this week. Though the short circuit issue is well understood, resolving it will take time, since it's in a cold section of the machine and repairs may therefore require warming and re-cooling.

17 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Just great... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    Now would probably be a good time to stalk up on crowbars and prepare for unforeseen consequences, right?

    1. Re:Just great... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you don't have a crowbar on reach at all moments, you're gambling with your own life.

    2. Re:Just great... by fisted · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm not sure. What Anomalous Materials are actually involved here, and are they delivered On A Rail for Residue Processing? I mean if not, that would be fairly Questionable, Ethics-wise.

      My, look at the time. BRB fixing the Lambda Core.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    3. Re:Just great... by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      I don't see what could go wrong. Once the fix has been done, they only have one step left, which is just a standard procedure of pushing a crystal in a cart into a beam.

    4. Re:Just great... by gman003 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Now if only someone could create a combination crowbar and towel. Keep one of those on you, and you'll be set for anything.

  2. It's the universe trying to stop us innit... by Bruce66423 · · Score: 2

    It doesn't want its secrets revealed ;)

    1. Re:It's the universe trying to stop us innit... by marcello_dl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The universe does not need to stop us, because from the inside of it you can never prove you have the faintest idea of the way it is implemented, even if you got to model and understand every single particle and every single interaction. Does an insulated VM run on intel or on powerpc or on a commodore 64 with a hell of a RAM expansion? no way to know from the inside of it.

      So the most rational reason becomes: they tried using systemd to speed things up but some not well documented glitch made the thing shut down. The short circuit is a scapegoat.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    2. Re:It's the universe trying to stop us innit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not from the inside.

      You can viewing from the outside.

      But just a quick hypotehtical.

      Say we are a computer simulation. And our timeframe progresses in very tiny finite steps. Each one of those steps is say 1 clock cycle in the machine hosting our simulation. Whether that clock cycle takes 5 years of its timeframe, or 1 second of its timeframe its still only 1 time step for us, and we would never know. Or it can run 4 at a time or 20 at a time, or hundreds because its a giant beowulf cluster of machines, the simulation could be set up so that we are not aware of it.

      Now perhaps if say they upgraded the memory and all of a sudden our universe tripled because it hold so much more and while they tried to adjust the history to mean it was always there there still could be anomalies and hints to maybe know.

      But I don't know how inside the system you could do timing measurements properly unless we got access to the direct cosmic (host system) clock to do time calculations on and do comparisons over "time".

    3. Re:It's the universe trying to stop us innit... by ralphsiegler · · Score: 2

      You assume the makers of the universe's emulator did a perfect job. And that they designed to foil detection. Maybe they did not. Maybe they even made a way for sufficiently advanced technology to discern the difference intentionally.

  3. Re:How do we know the Higgs was really discovered by Shimbo · · Score: 2

    If your car won't start, how can you prove that any other places in the world exist?

  4. Re:How do we know the Higgs was really discovered by Thanshin · · Score: 2

    I don't think works as you think it does.

    If you point your goggles to a spot and see a lion eating a gazelle, finding afterwards that your goggles had a dent won't make you doubt of the existence of that lion.

    Or, in other words, short circuits don't conjure results that coincide with decades of theory.

  5. Post-LS1 Powering Tests Campaign by jcdr · · Score: 2

    http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/

  6. Re:How do we know the Higgs was really discovered by amoeba1911 · · Score: 2

    No, that just means you bought a GM car.

  7. Re:How do we know the Higgs was really discovered by Thanshin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Experiment result : "A squirrel fell on the azidoazide azide magnetic container, leveling the lab and leaving a 23 feet deep crater where the Dean's office used to be."

    Conclusion : "Higgs Boson!"

  8. Sun and moon the same size by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You realize that the sun/moon size thing is just a temporary condition, right? The moon's been receding from Earth and will continue to do so, so in a few hundred million years it'll be noticeably smaller than the sun and we will have no more total solar eclipses.

    And the dinosaurs probably got to enjoy more eclipses because the moon was closer then.

    Given that, it's hard for me to read anything into the sun/moon size thing other than that it's a coincidence.

    --PM

  9. This is why by The+Eight-Bit+Link · · Score: 2

    you double-check that you don't have solder bridges. Use only what you need, and make sure those joints are bright and shiny!

  10. Pippin said it best by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 2

    Short cuts make long delays.