Bad electrical connection cited as cause of LHC shutdown.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Oh well -- it joins the Hubble as "how the hell did that happen" djf

Begin forwarded message:

Bad electrical connection cited as cause of LHC shutdown.
The AP (10/7, Higgins) reports, "A bad electrical connection likely  
caused the malfunction that sidelined the world's largest atom smasher  
days after it was launched with great fanfare." According to Lyn  
Evans, project leader of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the  
European Nuclear Research Organization, "the fault was probably a poor  
soldering job on one of the particle collider's 10,000 connections."  
The AP notes, "It will take at least two months for the repair,  
meaning the collider cannot be restarted until spring, after its  
mandatory shutdown due to high electricity costs during the winter."  
Lyn Evans, LHC project leader, said that "he still hasn't been able to  
examine the damage because the collider is too cold to be opened." The  
atom smasher "operates at extremely cold temperatures to take  
advantage of superconductivity -- the ability of some metals to  
conduct electricity without any resistance near absolute zero degrees."




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