Howlingwolf
09-24-2008, 09:49 AM
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080924/twl-big-bang-machine-breaks-down-3fd0ae9.html
'Big Bang Machine' Breaks Down
September 24 06:26 am
The £3.6bn machine at the centre of the biggest scientific experiment the world has ever seen has broken down and will be out of action until next year.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, designed to re-create conditions cosmologists agree existed at the beginning of the universe, was switched on two weeks ago.
It fires beams of particles around a 16.8-mile tunnel at near light speed with the aim of smashing them in to each other to mimic the effects of the Big Bang.
The machine created a sensation around the world not just because of its record cost and scale but because of claims it might cause a black hole to form that would swallow the planet.
Those in charge of the project at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) dismissed the concerns.
Now, though, they have revealed that a large amount of helium leaked into the tunnel on Friday, forcing the particle accelerator to be shut down.
Cern said an initial investigation suggested a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator's magnets could be to blame.
The collider requires temperatures just above absolute zero (-273.15C) to allow particles to be steered around the circuit.
But as a result of the fault, the temperature of the magnets rose by about 100C.
The affected area of the tunnel must be brought up to room temperature to allow engineers to inspect the magnets, and this process will take three or four weeks.
Robert Aymar, director general of Cern, said: "Coming immediately after the very successful start of LHC operation on September 10, this is undoubtedly a psychological blow.
"Nevertheless, the success of the LHC's first operation with beam is testimony to years of painstaking preparation and the skill of the teams involved in building and running Cern's accelerator complex.
"I have no doubt that we will overcome this setback with the same degree of rigour and application."
At full speed, the LHC will engineer 600 million collisions every second of subatomic particles called protons, which will explode in a burst of new and previously unseen types of particles.
The experiment could confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson, a theoretical particle named after Peter Higgs who first proposed it in 1964 as a way of explaining how matter has mass.
'Big Bang Machine' Breaks Down
September 24 06:26 am
The £3.6bn machine at the centre of the biggest scientific experiment the world has ever seen has broken down and will be out of action until next year.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, designed to re-create conditions cosmologists agree existed at the beginning of the universe, was switched on two weeks ago.
It fires beams of particles around a 16.8-mile tunnel at near light speed with the aim of smashing them in to each other to mimic the effects of the Big Bang.
The machine created a sensation around the world not just because of its record cost and scale but because of claims it might cause a black hole to form that would swallow the planet.
Those in charge of the project at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) dismissed the concerns.
Now, though, they have revealed that a large amount of helium leaked into the tunnel on Friday, forcing the particle accelerator to be shut down.
Cern said an initial investigation suggested a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator's magnets could be to blame.
The collider requires temperatures just above absolute zero (-273.15C) to allow particles to be steered around the circuit.
But as a result of the fault, the temperature of the magnets rose by about 100C.
The affected area of the tunnel must be brought up to room temperature to allow engineers to inspect the magnets, and this process will take three or four weeks.
Robert Aymar, director general of Cern, said: "Coming immediately after the very successful start of LHC operation on September 10, this is undoubtedly a psychological blow.
"Nevertheless, the success of the LHC's first operation with beam is testimony to years of painstaking preparation and the skill of the teams involved in building and running Cern's accelerator complex.
"I have no doubt that we will overcome this setback with the same degree of rigour and application."
At full speed, the LHC will engineer 600 million collisions every second of subatomic particles called protons, which will explode in a burst of new and previously unseen types of particles.
The experiment could confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson, a theoretical particle named after Peter Higgs who first proposed it in 1964 as a way of explaining how matter has mass.