LHC to shut down for a year to address safety concerns - Polidicks

[quote]The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) must close at the end of 2011 for up to a year to address design and safety issues, according to an LHC director. Dr Steve Myers told BBC News the faults will delay the machine reaching its full potential for two years. The atom smasher will reach world record collision energies later this month at 7 trillion electron volts. But the tunnel must be made safe before proton collisions planned at twice that level can commence. The Geneva-based machine only recently restarted after being out of action for 14 months following an accident in September 2008. Dr Myers said: "It's something that, with a lot more resources and with a lot more manpower and quality control, possibly could have been avoided but I have difficulty in thinking that this is something that was a design error." He said: "The standard phrase is that the LHC is its own prototype. We are pushing technologies towards their limits." "You don't hear about the thousands or hundreds of thousands of other areas that have gone incredibly well. "With a machine like the LHC, you only build one and you only build it once." He said the second problem is not with the most complex technology but involves the copper sheaths around the superconducting joints in the tunnel. The copper sheaths are a failsafe mechanism designed to take up the current if one of the magnets in the Large Hadron Collider warms up - an incident known as a "quench". The 2008 accident caused one tonne of helium to leak into the tunnel and resulted in a series of "quenches" and a 40m Swiss franc (£24m) repair bill. Engineers believe the machine is now safe to run at 7 trillion electron volts (TeV) but are anxious to avoid another breakdown. So they have taken the decision to run the machine for 18 to 24 months at half-maximum power before switching it off for a year to carry out improvements to the 27km tunnel. Dr Myers said the decision was taken jointly with the physicists working on the four giant particle detectors on the LHC. He said they appreciate the chance to test their own equipment while the machine is running at half its maximum power. Collisions at enormous energy The Large Hadron Collider sends beams of protons in opposite directions around the tunnel at close to the speed of light. These cross and collide, smashing into each other with enormous energy. The ultimate aim is to collide particles head on at 14TeV to recreate the conditions in the moments after the Big Bang. Scientists hope they will see new subatomic particles in the debris and gain insights into how the universe came into being, billions of years ago. The machine is buried 100m below the French-Swiss border. Cern officials say running the LHC at 7TeV will enable physicists to explore another secret of the universe, namely the nature of the "dark matter" that accounts for most of the mass in the observable universe. [/quote] [url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8556621.stm?ls[/url] I am not sure if they are listening or they are trying to cover it up with the whole fact that it took too damn long to make the damn thing and they got to overhaul the whole thing.

for fuck's saaaaake :doh:

[b]" close at the end of 2011 "[/b] :tinfoil:2011+1 = 2012:tinfoil: I don't want to die :( [editline]12:11PM[/editline] :tinfoil: Edit: I'm srs, rate me agrees or you won't get a place in the arC!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh goddamnit I want to see a goddam portal/black hole for fucks sake

Well, I expected that. It's just too complex to work from the beginning and safety is always a good thing if they can safe millions of dollars with it.

It's not going to function in our lifetime.

God damn it.

YEH THEY SHUD SHU TDOWN COZ I DUN WUNA BE SUKED UP BY A BLAK HOOOOLE!!!11 Juuuust waiting on those people to come along.

I bet they're delaying just for 2012.

It's like they're doing it on purpose so that they activate it at full power in 2012 just to mess with the "end of the world" believers. I'd do the same.

"insert witty comment here"

Anyone that thinks that black holes would form are idiots, they already are using the LHC and have had collisions already. Collisions that are re-created in the LHC happen in our solar system all the time anyway.

[img]http://www.thegatesofdawn.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/34481.jpg[/img] Fuck yeah, now we don't have to worry about a resonance cascade!

That was known from the start, wasn't it? The break between 7teravolts and 14 was planned since start, as many things they used now had to be tested, before passing to upper levels. [editline]01:40PM[/editline] I mean, it's not news nor a fault of anybody, it's going as planned.

Yeah guys, it's not like the LHC is the most advanced piece of technology that we've created to date. WHY THE FUCK ISN'T IT WORKING IMMEDIATLY. OMG oh wait.

[QUOTE=zotic;20662887]Goddamnit fucking stupid scientist get your fucking asses of the chair and start getting the machine to work fucking properly, what the fuck is the meaning of bulding a shit fuck expensive machine and then not fucking using it properly what the fucking shit.[/QUOTE] It's the most expensive and most ambitious scientific project in human history, they'd rather not fuck it up by rushing it.

[QUOTE=zotic;20662887]Goddamnit fucking stupid scientist get your fucking asses of the chair and start getting the machine to work fucking properly, what the fuck is the meaning of bulding a shit fuck expensive machine and then not fucking using it properly what the fucking shit.[/QUOTE] Well they can close it over and over when they find a new issue, or leave it to run at half power, and let it deteriorate, oh and then let it explode and punch a nice little ring shape into the earths surface. Your a moron, sit down shut up and play with the crayons and paper, and let them do their job.

I wonder if it will reach full capacity before Episode 3 is out.

[QUOTE=Nikita;20663000]I wonder if it will reach full capacity before Episode 3 is out.[/QUOTE] Probably.

Fuck...by the time they get it working it'll be obsolete and they'll start work on a new one.

Why can't they just throw some duct tape on there or something?

[QUOTE=zotic;20662887]Goddamnit fucking stupid scientist get your fucking asses of the chair and start getting the machine to work fucking properly, what the fuck is the meaning of bulding a shit fuck expensive machine and then not fucking using it properly what the fucking shit.[/QUOTE] Have you any idea of how complex this machine is? I doubt.

When something has the potential to unleash that much energy then they SHOULD do their best to make sure nothing goes wrong.

i'm pretty sure the human race didn't make any huge scientific leaps by abiding to health and safety rules.

[QUOTE=EnenehV2;20664967]i'm pretty sure the human race didn't make any huge scientific leaps by abiding to health and safety rules.[/QUOTE] I'm also pretty sure the human race didn't make any huge leaps by blowing up experiments for no good reason.

They didn't do much with the LHC anyways

[QUOTE=EnenehV2;20664967]i'm pretty sure the human race didn't make any huge scientific leaps by abiding to health and safety rules.[/QUOTE] Well, if Fleming's laboratory was all sterile and clean, we wouldn't have Penicilline...

Oh Jesus Christ, it's just the fucking churches shutting it down for 2012, God!

That thing has turned out to be a colossal waste of money, they can't seem to keep it working for more than a few days at a time.

[QUOTE=B1N4RY!;20665072]They didn't do much with the LHC anyways[/QUOTE] ...that's because it's not being running at the power required to achieve results you ding bat.