OT Hadron Collider breaks down because a passing bird dropped bread on it

Oh crumbs! Hadron Collider breaks down because a passing bird dropped
bread on it
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:58 AM on 07th November 2009

It's one of the most expensive and technologically-complex machines in
the world, but that didn't prevent the Large Hadron Collider from coming
a cropper thanks to our feathered friends.

The £4.4 billion 'God Machine' overheated after a passing bird dropped a
piece of bread into a high voltage installation which was powering a
cooling unit.

Scientists looking into a failure of the cryogenic cooling plant found a
piece of baguette had caused the malfunction.

The problem was noticed by enthusiasts who were online monitoring data
online and noticed unusual temperature changes.

It's not the first setback for the Collider, buried 100m underground
near Geneva, Switzerland.

The mighty machine was switched on last year in an effort to unlock the
secrets of the origin of the universe, but broke down within days due to
a leak of helium.

The LHC attempts to recreate conditions at the time of the Big Bang by
firing protons round its 16.8 mile tunnel at almost the speed of light
to smash them into each other.

There was concern at the time of its launch last year that the device's
experiments could inadvertently bring about the end of the world.

Scientists say that had the machine been fully operational the results
could have caused a problem similar to the catastrophic breakdown
suffered by the particle accelerator last year, which led to it being
out of action for 14 months.

Scientists say that the machine would have automatically shut down this
time, however, leading to minimal disruption.

The series of technical glitches the LHC has suffered has resulted in
some members of the scientific world speculating the machine is being
sabotaged - by itself.

Some physicists have said that time-travelling particles from the future
could be damaging the machine in an attempt to thwart any experiments.

Find this story at
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225830/Hadron-Collider-breaks-thanks-bread-dropped-passi
ng-bird.html

[ Auf dieses Posting antworten ]