Do you thnk their insurance has a collision waiver?

 

Not a fail at all. They're doing trial runs for this very reason, amongst others. Makes sense really, doesn't it?

 

Might be a while before it's running again though.....didn't it take months to cool to operating temperature?

 

Yeah, it's going to be a minimum of 2 months to warm it to conduct repairs. They weren't going to find anything major in that two months anyway even if it was working. It'll probably be years before anything major is proven.

 

I just love that they call it a "quench" rather than say it's broken

 

Fail would be setting it off at full throttle first time round and blowing up half of France.


It's what science is about - trial and error

 

I'll agree with you on that one point.


Anyone who's ever proven anything has had to endure countless fails before getting it right. We only know about LHC fails due to the media hype surrounding the sheer size of it and the importance it holds to the world as we know it.

Fail would be at the end of it all finding Bosons didn't exist after Mr Higgs spending pretty much half his life trying to prove they did. Or finding out they do exist but the earth being consumed by a black hole as a result.

Hiccups like this are to be expected.

 

Trial and error? at nearly £4bn? How many trials and errors before it becomes a billion dollar white elephant?

 

Great, that means I have 2 more months to live out my miserable life.

 

As many as it takes for them to find out wht they want to know, I guess.

I suppose it doesn't really mean much to some. But this is big, it will potentially change our understanding of the universe and everything in it.

For that sort of knowledge, I think £3bn is a small price to pay.

 

Great, so we (or they) understand the Universe. That will really help solve the problems we have on this planet. It will be wonderful when they anounce "Hey, we know how it all happened" and all wars end, fuel becomes cheaper and poverty ends. That will happen won't it? hello?

 

I suppose some people are more interested than others in discovering what we are and our surroundings; the fundamental laws of nature and and the way it all works It's people with curiosities like that who move us forward, otherwise we'd be stuck in the dark ages. I think it's important we as a human race understand where we come from.

Yes they will; if they create a black hole that swallows us up

We will never be able to stop war and poverty as long as humans are reproducing. Anyone who thinks we can should pull their head out their **** and give themself a shake.

 

I used to work at CERN BTW. I put in place the operating and maintenance procedures for the Helium liquefiers and purifying units. Fortunately I've moved on.

A quench is a controlled event that will happen if the cooling of the magnet or supply cables (operating at upto 20,000 Amps) is not sufficient. It can also be caused by a magnet failure - It's normally the former. The magnets have heaters that warm up the magnet uniformally in milliseconds and the resulting heat inleak into the Helium system means that it vaporises in such quantities that it will be vented into a cavern - it's all controlled no drama. They would have lost a lot more than one tonne of Helium and pure Helium at the moment is not readily available in such quantities.

The project won't probably restart until next Spring, the cost of electricty will be too high over the Winter months and all the utility systems are usually maintained during this period.

BBC News, source of all accurate science information...well, not really. Who else thinks that the quality of BBC has slipped to that of the red-top tabloids?


Nik

 

Actually, no that would be a win for the LHC as it's job is to prove whether they exist or not. Either way, understanding is advanced and science can move on. They either get to add what they learn about Higgs Bosons to the scientific pool or they start to figure out exactly where quantum theory is wrong.

The only possible fail is if it never manages to provide enough high-speed collisions.

 

I don't think we will be able to stop war and poverty either. But I'm also not stupid enough to think that this bloody experiment will be of any use to us as a race at all other than to satisfy idle curiosity. And it will only satisfy idle curiosity if it works. Nearly £4bn for idle suriosity? Finding out where we came from will have no effect on where we are heading.

 

Christ, I've only just seen this thread and that joke is the sort of thing even our Swissy would reject

 

Ahm, no he didn't, not according to this interview.

Stephen Hawking: Large Hadron Collider vital for humanity - Telegraph

 

But, but what about Star Trek - that's based on fact. Everybody knows that!!
I've been casually (and therefore irresponsibly) waiting for the end of all things bad......

Say it ain't so......

 

It probably wont answer the big questions, but the spin offs could well be worth the few billion. Did its predecessor result in the developments of PET and MRI sanners? Anyway - 4 billion to find or not find the God Particle seems cheap in comparison the biloins spent not finding WMD's.


(I personally think they should take it back to the shop they bought it from and ask for a replacement)

 

You are taking his quote ouf context Nat, he also says this

I'd say that's a pretty strong backing of the experiment, the experiment is not only about the Higgs thingy, there are many other things that will be learnt.

 

I am both original and funny. Just never at the same time.

 

No it isn't. The whole point is to find out of it exists or not so that science can move on. There are many scientists who think they'll prove it doesn't exist and this will still be a valid result for the LHC and for science generally.

My completely unqualified view is that they'll find a whole load of other particles they didn't expect and can't explain which will result in them building the RFLHC (as in Really...)

 

My God! Someone on Snet that actually knows what they're talking about

I applaud you sir for your insight