End Of World Postponed
Minor meltdown inside the Large Hadron Collider:
After the initial success of threading protons through the machine on Sept. 10, physicists had hoped they could move ahead quickly to low energy collisions at 450 billion electron volts and then 5-trillion-electron volt collisions as early as mid-October.
A series of mishaps, including the failure of a 30-ton electrical transformer, have slowed progress since then. In the worst incident yet, on Friday, one of the giant superconducting magnets that guide the protons failed during a test. A large amount of helium, which is used to cool the magnets to within 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit of absolute zero, leaked into the collider tunnel.
In a terse statement, the lab said that an electrical connection between the magnets had melted due to the high current running through it. In order to fix it, engineers will have to warm up that section of the tunnel, and then cool it all the way down again.
The LHC should be making some seriously cool discoveries — hurry up and get it going again, guys.
