The end of the world has been delayed by 2 months lolLHC shut down for months
September 21, 2008
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) says its new particle collider will be out of commission for at least two months after having more damage than previously believed.
CRN spokesman James Gillies said experts have gone into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to inspect the damage.
The LHC operations ceased after an electrical fault forced it to stop just days after being launched to global fanfare this month.
The problem affected a cooling system for high-powered magnets designed to steer beams of particles around the LHC's 27-kilometre circular tunnel, Mr Gilles said.
Supercooled helium escaped because of the faulty connection between the two magnets, he said.
CERN would shut down the LHC to make the repairs and the section that was damaged would need to be warmed up to well above absolute zero, Associated Press has reported.
The LHC took nearly 20 years to complete and at six billion Swiss francs ($6.57 billion) is one of the costliest and most complex scientific experiments ever attempted.
It aims to resolve some of the greatest questions surrounding fundamental matter, such as how particles acquire mass and how they were forged in the "Big Bang" that created the Universe some 13.7 billion years ago.
The September 10 switch-on saw the testing of a clockwise beam, and then an anticlockwise beam.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24378565-5005961,00.html
