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How a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone In a Medical Facility (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: In one of the strangest system admin tales of all time, one IT guy details how a new MRI machine managed to disable every single iPhone, Apple watch and iPad in a medical facility while leaving the rest of the devices untouched. Eric Woolridge, a system administrator at Morris Hospital in Illinois, said in a detailed post on the r/sysadmin subreddit that helium was to blame for the malfunctioning iPhones. "[T]he MRI installation involves supercooling the giant magnet in the machine by boiling off liquid helium," reports Motherboard. "This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility. In all, about 120 liters of helium (or about 90,000 cubic meters in its gaseous state) was pumped out of the MRI room and an untold amount leaked into the rest of the hospital."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
Using MEMS instead of a quartz crystal is like using an inscribed candle instead of a pendulum. It's a major step in the wrong direction.
Apple may have saved a whole 2 cents per $1000 phone by doing that.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If the helium concentration was high enough to affect phones this way, they're lucky it didn't displace too much oxygen and freaking kill people.
They really should have sensors to detect these conditions in places where large amounts of gas is used.
I am Indian.
Check your own white privilege for the same.
Because it is perfectly normal to walk around in a Helium-enriched atmosphere, given it's SOOO commonplace....
It's used in critical facilities for fireproofing. i.e. inert gas firefighting systems. The other options are argon and nitrogen. It's far more common then you'd think, especially since "inert gas" fire fighting systems have become the green choice instead of stuff like halon and it's derivatives. And also unlike halon, which can be mixed with a secondary to drive it through the system like with how a car airbag works, neutral gas system remain fully or partially pressurized. Especially those in closed rooms, those "check oxygen levels before entry" signs aren't for show.
Om, nomnomnom...
That's hilarious - the company that eliminated reading the manual buries product disclaimers in the manual that they don't intend anyone to read.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
No. Although you're right on with your view of Corporate America, the impending Helium Shortfall is Worldwide. You fail like most to understand just where Terrestrial Helium comes from. It's the result of billions of years of very slow Alpha Decay from Actinides way deep down. Practically all of it migrates upwards and escapes, first into the atmosphere, and then into space. But in certain kinds of crustal conditions, like in Natural Gas pockets, some of the Helium hangs around. However, most Natural Gas contains little to no measurable Helium at all. (Helium unlike Hydrogen forms no natural Molecular compounds to bind it, at least down here. Yes, we can make Helium Hydride... for a short time and with incredible difficulty. This I have actually done.)
Alpha Decay can't reasonably be speeded up, unlike say Fission, so we are utterly dependent on natural processes here. But wait, there's more!
4He is the result of Alpha Decay from the Actinides. But 3He is the result of the Beta decay from Tritium. Tritium is Primordial here; all of the Tritium within the Earth decayed quite quickly, billions of years ago, leaving 3He in some of those same Gas pockets. At least on Earth, the only sources of new Tritium, and its decay product 3He, comes from our Nuclear Reactors.
I was once involved in the design of a new kind of Neutrino Detector that needed 3He, quite a lot of it. Even at the cut rate prices that the Russians were offering, and that they couldn't deliver in the volume needed, the Detector would have needed some ~$200 Billion in 3He. The design was cancelled.
And for this very reason, absolutely crazy schemes have been put forth to mine 3He from the surface of the Moon, where it is continually produced due to the Solar Wind that our own Magnetic Field protects us from.
But why 3He? What makes it so important?
Aneutronic Fusion.
Background: I'm on the technical team for a research unit that has an MRI machine of its own and access to another. Plus I do Helium refills for an MEG facility. This does not ring true. An MRI is going to have something like 500L of liquid helium in it. It doesn't cool by "Boiling it off". In fact a high boil-off rate is a bad thing. The unit will have a chiller to keep the temperature of the helium down and probably a recondenser to reduce loss. If the unit quenched during install then all the helium will have boiled off. A lot more than 120L. Also the vents are certified so that *All* the helium that boils off goes up and out safely. Add to that all these facilities have O2 alarm systems, this must have been a very small, slow leak over the course of months. Any leaking helium will have risen straight up to the ceiling and spread out, maybe working its way up into cracks and passing to above floors at a massively reduced concentration. At the levels we're talking about here, if the helium were the problem then we'd be seeing a spate of iPhone failures at children's parties from the helium in the balloons.
I think it's more likely that an electromagnetic pulse fried the Apple products. The MRI 5-gauss line is only applicable in steady state operations. When the 500-1000a current in the super conducting coils ramps up or down, it's got a hell of a kick. Leave the electronics in the car when they come to re-charge the coils.
Yes, the raw helium may only cost $1k but the cost of ramping a magnet up/down is a lot more. In case of Siemens MRI, they have to fly in special equipment from Germany overnight (a few pallets of basically giant transformers and BeCu tools, shims etc), the repairs associated with a magnet quench are a few thousand (usually you have to outright replace the valves and various other parts that froze) and then it takes a few hours of carefully charging the magnet and monitoring while the helium is slowly being filled. Hopefully you only have to do this once as it is possible that other issues or leaks are found and the helium you just filled boils off. All the while you are paying for at least 3 engineers and the helium delivery guy.
I've been involved with MRI magnet quenches, they're not pretty or cheap. The helium is practically worthless, I've heard of some sites that rather let helium boil off at a certain rate than get a repair done.
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I made much the same point, but with less colorful language. Because of the Physics involved, Tritium contamination would need to be way less than a part per Trillion, to bring Background Noise down to reasonable levels. Russia was quoting us about $10K a gram delivered in liquid 3He form with the required purity, which sounds like a lot, but it was half the price that we were going to have to charge ourselves. (The US/Canadian Governments do have their own Reactors...)
The sphere for the Neutrino Detector would need about 20 Tonnes of liquid 3He. So we built SNO instead. (FWIW, it would have taken two decades or so for Russia, going full bore, to make that much Tritium=>3He...)
3He was a far better choice. SNO had only about 0.01% of the Detector Efficiency using 1,000 Tonnes of Heavy Water; but it was still just good enough to snag a 2015 Nobel Physics prize.
The "Urban Legend" about needing $200B of 3He for various purposes came right from our Feasibility Studies starting in 1991. Here is a Source for another "Urban Legend":
Whether on a Submarine or Land Based, there are stories about Reactors shutting themselves down for unexplained reasons, only to find out that flushing a particular Toilet caused this. It wasn't a Reactor; it was the Berkeley Bevatron. Because there were so few Women working there originally, there was only one Women's Bathroom, hastily added only when the need was found pressing enough. The Plumbers just tapped into an available but unlabeled Water line, that just happened to provide the Water to the MG Room Ignitrons. Flush the toilet, which happened rarely, and the Water pressure would sometimes drop just low enough to trigger the Ignitrons into dumping ~15MW back into the Grid. Very quickly, and with unintended consequences. It took about a decade to figure this out.
Oh, one last thing: Berkelium does not rhyme with Helium...
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