LHC shuts down for two glorious, existence-filled months

Posted by John Brownlee, September 21, 2008 11:16 PM | permalink

Being sucked at the speed of light in a head-on, face-first collision with every speck of matter on Earth will have to wait: a large helium leak on Friday has shut down the LHC (which I guess we're now supposed to call "Halo") for two months... two months not required to fix the leak, but to warm up the chamber from absolute zero to repairman-tolerable working conditions.

LHC helium leak will shut collider down for two months [Scientific American Blog]

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Discussion

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#1 posted by dimmer

, September 21, 2008 11:41 PM

Halo? Now I fear for the end of the world. Damn that Bungie...

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#2 posted by Marcel , September 22, 2008 12:48 AM

With this thing being 100 meters underground and all, one wonders what the impact of any significant tectonic movement could be on such an obviously sensitive piece of equipment.

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#3 posted by David Carroll , September 22, 2008 3:45 AM

Marcel #2.

I don't think it makes a great deal of difference if it was 1 foot deep or 100m or even a couple of Km. Being that particle physicists make rocket scientists look like morons, I would hope that somebody did some checking before they mapped out the ring.

If after spending all this money and effort, the LHC got cracked in half by a tremor, well that would be embarrassing!

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#4 posted by eliterrell , September 22, 2008 3:56 AM

Yah! Two more months that pickup line works.

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#5 posted by Agies , September 22, 2008 5:38 AM

Gah! Not Absolute Zero. They get it very close to Absolute Zero (within a few degrees). Theoretically Absolute Zero is impossible.

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#6 posted by David Carroll , September 22, 2008 5:58 AM

Smart-ass filter is on:

Actually Agies (#5) absolute zero is totally theoretically possible! I ran the proof back in grade eleven chemistry like everyone else, except I used a slide-rule.

You should have said: Absolute zero is practically impossible... ;{)

Smart-ass filter is off.

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#7 posted by strider_mt2k

, September 22, 2008 5:59 AM

Wimps.

The view of the event horizon will be FANTASTIC!!!

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#8 posted by Anonymous , September 22, 2008 12:31 PM

Nah - it warms up fairly quickly, the two months is mostly for cooling it down again. See Cern sources.

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#9 posted by holtt , September 22, 2008 5:02 PM