Mark Henderson, Science Editor
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Two weeks ago the world’s physicists were all smiles. The most powerful atom smasher to be built had been switched on to global acclaim and scientists were ready to begin experiments that could unlock many of the enduring mysteries of the Universe.
They are going to have to wait a little longer. On Friday the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) created the wrong sort of big bang — a fault so serious that CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, announced last night that the particle accelerator would have to be shut down until next spring for repairs.
Preliminary investigations into the incident, in which a huge quantity of helium leaked from the LHC’s cooling system, have suggested that it was caused by a faulty electrical connection between two of its superconducting magnets. The fault affected a part of the accelerator that is kept chilled to within 1.9C of absolute zero \, and it will have to be warmed up to room temperature before the problem can be understood fully and resolved.
It will take at least three to four weeks to warm the affected sector and then to open the damaged magnets for inspection, and then another month to re-chill them to their operating temperature.
Even then, engineers will not be able to switch the LHC back on. The accelerator was always scheduled to be turned off for winter maintenance in December, and CERN officials confirmed last night that this was “obligatory” and would not be postponed.
No more beams of protons will be travelling around the collider’s 17-mile (27km) ring until early spring, and it will then be several weeks before it can start smashing them together to re-create the conditions of the big bang. Operations are likely to restart in late March or early April. The LHC’s official inauguration on October 21, which President Sarkozy of France is expected to attend, will still go ahead as scheduled.
The news has come as a huge disappointment to the scientists, who had cracked open champagne two weeks ago when the first protons were sent around the LHC much more quickly than had been expected.
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.”
Friday’s incident was what is known as a quench, in which the operating temperature of some of the magnets that bend and accelerate the particle beams began to rise.
The fire brigade was called, and it soon emerged that as much as a tonne of helium had escaped from the cooling system that chills the magnets of sector 3-4 of the LHC ring. Some of the magnets rose in temperature by as much as 100C.
It immediately became clear that the LHC would not be able to begin trial particle collisions this week, as had been planned, to start calibrating the accelerator’s vast detectors that will look for new physical phenomena.
The full extent of the damage began to emerge over the weekend, when CERN announced that a two-month shutdown would be required. It then became clear that there would be little point trying to start it up again before the winter maintenance break, which is necessary for safety reasons.
The LHC’s network of magnets, which will eventually fire protons at 99.9999991 per cent of the speed of light, are chilled to 1.9C above absolute zero so that current flows through their coils without resistance. This superconductivity allows the magnets to generate much stronger fields than would otherwise be possible. A quench occurs when these magnets warm up and lose their superconducting properties. The online logbook described the incident as a “massive quench”.
James Gillies, CERN’s head of communications, said that although the extended shutdown was disappointing there was little point in rushing the LHC back into operations. “We always knew that something like this could happen, and it’s not so much the fact as the timing that’s so disappointing,” he said. “It happened during the last test before we were ready to go up to high energy. Coming so soon after the wonderful success of the first beam day, it is a great shame.”
Physicists from other atom smashers offered their sympathy. Peter Limon, who led the commissioning team for the US Tevatron accelerator, said: “The LHC is a very complex instrument, huge in scale and pushing technological limits in many areas. Events occur from time to time that temporarily stop operations.”
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Just shut down this stupid waste of money for good who really cares how our universe is created anyway the fact is its here! even if we do find out just how it was created what good does it do for us nothing! absoloubte waste of money thats all this thing is!
Jack, Poole, United Kingdom
RE:: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
There is no evidence.
Science says Earth formed in 4 billion years....something so huge and complex doesn't take 7 days to make. The universe is 13.7 billion years old....why did he wait??????
Dan, Los Angeles, USA
I think there is something much more sinister afoot here.It could be that the scientists realised that they were causing the predicted negative affects after all and have given this excuse to shut down to avoid alarm, conspiracy theorist Moi??
Jasberg UK
jjohn, truro,
I wonder if the public story about what happened is a cover for something else. The information that is revealed publicly about nearly everything is either incomplete, distorted, or deceptive. Perhaps the singularity that was predicted actually started to form and the operators had to abort.
G. DelVecchio, El Paso, Texas, USA
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1. Is this so hard to believe that intellectual minds have spent thousands of years and billions of dollars trying to figure it out? It's clearly written in the only Book that has withstood the test of time! Read it!
Nahrin Dixon, Palmdale, USA
So all the Hadron Collider repairmen are out on other jobs & they're backed up 6 months. Typical - just like my cooker.
Maggie, Guildford,
I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if a failure of the trigger of the so called big bang had malfunctioned like the LHD. We would not be here, would we? Woe unto us human beings, if we are really products of chance. So anything can happen and we be no more.
Peter, London, UK
so--- did the "fire brigade" sound like Mickey and Minnie Mouse as they worked on stopping the helium leak?:)
JD, Springfield, USA
In a hundred years time this experiment will look primitive.
This planet has urgent problems to solve yet these guys are hoping they can understand the secrets of the universe.
Instead of spending billions to satisfy intellectual curiosity, try to solve the urgent problems this planet faces first.
Terry, London, UK
who cares about this machine? the money used to build this dinosaur would have been better spent on so many more worthwhile causes. who is really behind this enterprise and what really do they want? DO SOME RESEARCH AND YOU WILL
BE SURPRISED.
patricia bennett, Lulea,
Good, one last Christmas before the end of the world!
Jackfall, Grantham, England
Or maybe we are alone and just not very bright.
Nick, Perth, Western Australia
This is, by far, the largest and most complex machine ever built by mankind. Many of its technical performance specifications are so far ahead of anything ever seen anywhere that it is unbelievable.
It is a miracle that this machine works at all. Glitches were to be expected. They will be sorted.
qed, Hurst, UK
Have they tried plugging it back in? That usually works with my computer...
Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, Scotland
Will the alarmists please stop with the over the top assertions about the LHC. Look, the world isn't going to end over it, and this failure is not new no more than it is a sign from God. It's a big, tempermental piece of kit, but when the test is done the results shall be very interesting.
Christopher Faherty, Spiddal, Co.Galway,Ireland
I was under the impression that this was one of the most huge and complex engineering projects ever undertaken. Did anybody really expect it to work on the first go?
I hope they get it sorted out soon though! I can't wait to see what they find out with their experiements!
Martin, York, U.K.
Its difficult not to wonder wether a certin cloud dwelling bieng i laughing at this point...
Thomas, Hull, Englnd
my sympathy to all the scientists involved in this great endeavour of mankind. don't give up.
jamiu, mbabane, swaziland
The Most complicated and advanced scientific machine ever created by man..... didnt honestly expect it to work first time did you??
One of the greatest discoveries to come from the LHC could be a better understanding of the processes & science required to make it work!! aliens wud be better thou!
josh, leeds,
While the LHC is shut down, the oerating scientists might study the Upanishads and Vedas of ancient India. They'll find most of what they want to know there.
Geraldine Leale, Ascot, England
Elijah of Northampton is right. Everything simply cannot be create out of nothing. And precisely where in nowhere anyway? That which exists exists, it always has and it always will. It's a challenging, even painful fact, that instead says Santa and God haven't always existed.
David, Cambridge, UK
"as much as a tonne of Helium escaped"
????
I thought Helium weighed less than air?
craig, Nottingham, UK
They will never be successful in recreating the 'Big Bang' because there was never such a thing. Laugh at me for believing in Creation; but have you ever wondered why, of all the name science gives to things,medicines etc, why BIG BANG? A kid came up with that?? Big Bang? please
Elijah, Northampton, UK,
IT'S A SIGN FROM GOD THAT THIS SHOULD STOP !!!
Peter, Bangkok,
4$ Billion Big Bang blown? Big deal. Bush delivered a 12 TRILLION $ Big Bang.
Eugene, heidelberg, germany
Obviously we are not alone. "Them" out there have seen what we are up to and are saving us from ourselves.
Pauline, Perth, Western Australia
disagree steveh, it's very clear to me that the malfunction of the CERN machinary has created an intense anomaly in the financial markets certainly leading to the pending fall of western civilization as we know it....
JY, manchester,
Phew! at least we get to see another Christmas!
Anni, Melbourne, Australia
The short-sightedness of Atlanta Dean is typical of modern-day materialism.
Pete F, Hong Kong
Peter Fargher, Hong Kong, China
If only we could put this much effort into something that I can imagine ever using.
Dean, Atlanta, GA, USA
The end of the world is not nigh....that's a relief. I can put away my heavy bill-board until the snowdrops appear. I needed a holiday....
steveh, Halesworth, Suffolk, England