LHC startup : totally OT

B

Bruce Varley

Guest
Interesting to follow the twist and turns of the LHC 'startup'. Huge PR
effort leading up to it, then the leak, then zippo. I visited the website
last night, not a thing on how things are going. It just stops after the
announcements of first beam injection.

Amazing how such a large and presumably well-resourced project can stuff
things up like that. Anyone who's been involved with getting a major piece
of plant up and going knows that there will be lots of problems and false
starts, and that you keep the exercise quiet as much as possible until
things are settling out. Anyway, they seem to have learnt that lesson
finally.
 
"Bruce Varley" <bxvarley@weastnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:8L-dnZ8xOrMOmGLVnZ2dnUVZ8j2dnZ2d@westnet.com.au...
Interesting to follow the twist and turns of the LHC 'startup'. Huge PR
effort leading up to it, then the leak, then zippo. I visited the website
last night, not a thing on how things are going. It just stops after the
announcements of first beam injection.

Amazing how such a large and presumably well-resourced project can stuff
things up like that. Anyone who's been involved with getting a major piece
of plant up and going knows that there will be lots of problems and false
starts, and that you keep the exercise quiet as much as possible until
things are settling out. Anyway, they seem to have learnt that lesson
finally.
Click to expand...

IIRC it is now down for their winter. Apparently it is not run in winter. I
heard one report saying it was not run in winter due to the amount of power
available (or unavailable) and another report that said it was not run in
winter due to energy costs.

I reckon there'd be lots of fun jobs - like a giant toyshop!
 
"Den" <hjplease@hogwart.org> wrote in message
news:48ff0ca2$0$10574$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
"Bruce Varley" <bxvarley@weastnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:8L-dnZ8xOrMOmGLVnZ2dnUVZ8j2dnZ2d@westnet.com.au...
Interesting to follow the twist and turns of the LHC 'startup'. Huge PR
effort leading up to it, then the leak, then zippo. I visited the website
last night, not a thing on how things are going. It just stops after the
announcements of first beam injection.

Amazing how such a large and presumably well-resourced project can stuff
things up like that. Anyone who's been involved with getting a major
piece of plant up and going knows that there will be lots of problems and
false starts, and that you keep the exercise quiet as much as possible
until things are settling out. Anyway, they seem to have learnt that
lesson finally.



IIRC it is now down for their winter. Apparently it is not run in winter.
I heard one report saying it was not run in winter due to the amount of
power available (or unavailable) and another report that said it was not
run in winter due to energy costs.

I reckon there'd be lots of fun jobs - like a giant toyshop!
Click to expand...
Aren't they looking for LHA techs? (Large Hadron Absorber)
;-)
 
"Bruce Varley" <bxvarley@weastnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:8L-dnZ8xOrMOmGLVnZ2dnUVZ8j2dnZ2d@westnet.com.au...
Interesting to follow the twist and turns of the LHC 'startup'. Huge PR
effort leading up to it, then the leak, then zippo. I visited the website
last night, not a thing on how things are going. It just stops after the
announcements of first beam injection.

Amazing how such a large and presumably well-resourced project can stuff
things up like that. Anyone who's been involved with getting a major piece
of plant up and going knows that there will be lots of problems and false
starts, and that you keep the exercise quiet as much as possible until
things are settling out. Anyway, they seem to have learnt that lesson
finally.


I like to think that some oddity turned up during the first run they didn't
Click to expand...
like the look of.
Sufficient to switch it off and issue a cover story.
A selected group are now repondering the meaning of life the universe and
everything :)
 
Bruce Varley wrote:
Interesting to follow the twist and turns of the LHC 'startup'. Huge PR
effort leading up to it, then the leak, then zippo. I visited the website
last night, not a thing on how things are going. It just stops after the
announcements of first beam injection.

Amazing how such a large and presumably well-resourced project can stuff
things up like that. Anyone who's been involved with getting a major piece
of plant up and going knows that there will be lots of problems and false
starts, and that you keep the exercise quiet as much as possible until
things are settling out. Anyway, they seem to have learnt that lesson
finally.
Click to expand...
It's not hard to find info on what actually happened:
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=lhc-helium-leak-will-shut-collider-2008-09-20

30-ton magnets(!) *will* take time to warm up (and cool again when
repaired).

In a live interview I heard on the radio on the day of switch-on, the
scientist being interviewed said words to the effect of:

"If the LHC works on the first try, then it will be the only time this
has happened in the history of building these devices".

In this case 'works' meant getting the protons to go round the ring
without hitting the walls.

As usual the media hyped it up to the point where any real information
about the whole to-do was completely lost.
 
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