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Revived LHC Could Run Through the Winter
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed May 27, 2009 09:32 PM
from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept.
from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept.
Jack Spine writes "When you are powering nuclear particle beams that could drill a hole through 30 metres of copper, you don't want to be paying a premium for electricity. However, Cern scientists are determined that the delayed experiment will get some workable results, and so are preparing to run the machine throughout the winter."
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Submission: Revived LHC could run through the winter by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Science: Vacuum Leaks Lead To Another LHC Delay 224 comments
suraj.sun tips this story at ZDNet about a new problem with the LHC. Quoting:
"The restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back further, following the discovery of vacuum leaks in two sectors of the experiment. The world's largest particle collider is now unlikely to restart before mid-November, according to a CERN press statement. The project had been expected to start again in October. To repair the leaks, which are from the helium circuit into the insulating vacuum, sectors 8-1 and 2-3 will have to be warmed from 80K to room temperature. Adjacent sub-sectors will act as 'floats,' while the remainder of the surrounding sectors will be kept at 80K, CERN said in the statement. The repair work will not have an impact on the vacuum in the beam pipe. CERN has pushed back the restart a number of times, as repair work has continued. To begin with, scientists said the LHC experiment would restart in April 2009. In May, CERN [said] that the restarted experiment could run through the winter to make up some of the lost time."
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I don't mean to nitpick... (Score:2, Informative)
Cern should be CERN, as it stands for "Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire"
Re:I don't mean to nitpick... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
E, CERN is pretty commonly referred to around here. We talk about the impressive multi-national project all of the time. A moment of editing would have saw that error.
I know this, because I'm very drunk right now. If an inebriated AC can see that, I would at least hope that an editor would.
Then again, I'm new here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't mean to nitpick... (Score:5)
E, CERN is ...
Shouldn't that be 'e'?
Parent
Re:I don't mean to nitpick... (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't just try to nitpick. He actually did it. Get it straight truncated e.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the British follow the universal practice of properly capitalizing acronyms. The literate ones do anyways.
As such, no the writing style is not correct.
British capitalization of acronyms (Score:5, Informative)
This has been discussed previously on Slashdot [slashdot.org]. British writing often uses only initial-caps for pronounceable acronyms. The BBC is especially aggressive about this, resulting in things like "Nasa", which looks like a foreign name at first glance from an American eye. Why the BBC differentiates "BAFTA" from "NASA" in their style guide is a mystery to me; however, in recent BBC articles, it appears that the BBC is writing "Bafta" in actual practice.
BBC House Style and Writing Guidelines, September 2007 (in PDF [bbc.co.uk] or raw HTML [bbc.co.uk]):
Parent
Re:British capitalization of acronyms (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If Chaucer read Shakespeare, he would have thought Shakespeare was butchering the language. If Shakespeare read Dickens, Shakespeare would have thought Dickens had butchered the language.
Language evolves. Saying one rule-based system, (this doesn't apply to colloquialisms or slang) is "butchered" is just a modern day form of prejudice.
Re:I don't mean to nitpick... (Score:5, Funny)
CEPLARN (Conseil Europeen Pour LA Recherche Nucleaire) would be a cooler name, it sounds vaguely Klingon.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't mean to nitpick... (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm... so that's where he got them...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
CINC = Commander-in-Chief
LANT = atLANTic
FLT = Fleet
As opposed to CINCPACFLT, of course.
I nitpick your nitpick (Score:4, Informative)
Cern should be CERN, as it stands for "Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire"
Actually it doesn't. The Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire was a provisional body created in 1952, and no longer exists. In 1954 the European Laboratory for Particle Physics was founded, and the C.E.R.N. was dissolved. The laboratory is named CERN, and although it is conventionally capitalised, it is not an acronym.
Parent
Odd... (Score:3, Interesting)
They were normally going to be closed during the winter?
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's true, they can't read directions for shit.
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Funny)
I should clarify that when I say "I guess", what I mean is that it's in the damn article as well as being good old common sense. I suppose if you didn't read before posting (9 paragraphs is too long?) and you don't have common sense ...
... well then you'd be on /., right?
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Power being more expensive in the winter is only common sense if you pay your own power bill...
Something he probably doesn't have to do living in his mother's basement...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That or living much much closer to the equator in which case you may not have ever needed heat...
An understatement if ever there was. Many of the cars I have seen in Malaysia don't even have a a switch for the aircon.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
We are not going to shut down LHC for the winter due to high electricity costs. If it never occured to you that we would, since the apparatus and the staff would seemingly cost so much more than the electricity anyways, congratulations, it turns out you were right even when we didn't know it yet, thus we will be running the collider and everything is exactly as you would have assumed had you never read this article at all. Thanks for your time.
Parent
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Funny)
Translation: "Fuck! D-zero [wikipedia.org]'s collected like 6 inverse femtobarns [wikipedia.org] of integrated luminosity and we're just sitting on our asses looking at cosmic ray hits!!! Who gives a shit about power $$$?! Switch the fucker on!!"
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe not that obvious.
Most major experiments shut down for at least a few months out of the year for scheduled maintenance and/or improvements. Additionally, most big projects don't have the funding to operate 24/7/365 -- cryo expenses are particularly staggering.
Given the amount of time it takes to warm/cool the LHC, it makes sense to schedule all of this maintenance all in one go. Once you're in that frame of mind, you can reschedule your operations to reduce electricity costs...and why wouldn't you?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mods: Engage humor detectors (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately in the southern hemisphere the spin is reversed, which could result in the anti-god particle. They'll play with black holes, but there are limits to their hubris.
The next version is the Trans-equator Hadron Collider (THC) which will circle the equator and have a branch that passes through the core in an attempt to discover stuff that's like, really cool, man. Here's a diagram. [wikimedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am currently working in IT at the trading arm of a major European energy supplier. Large variations in seasonal power demands are normal. Major consumers often attempt to hedge their consumption on the market (they may also link to the weather indices as one element is clearly ambient temperature).
Normally, reserves have to be used over the winter peaks. One of Cern's suppliers, EDF uses a lot of nuclear but that tends to run at a fairly constant rate. Power tends to get balanced by the use of hydroelectr
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well clearly they do have a concept of "the cost of lost opportunity" since they are running the thing over winter. CERN has a deal with a French power provider in which they are provided with power at reduced rates for most of the year, except for 22 days in winter. During this time the rate is very high. These are the days they are planning to run it anyway. Why did they make this deal?
Big experiments often require lots of scheduled maintenance for upgrades, repairs, fixing annoying design bugs that stop
LHC Could Run Through the Winter ... (Score:5, Funny)
Or till Earth is destroyed. Whichever comes first...
Re:LHC Could Run Through the Winter ... (Score:5, Funny)
They've spotted Gordon Freeman running around the LHC.
http://skipsjunk.net/linked-pics/LHC_Gordon-Freeman_2.JPG [skipsjunk.net]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
heh heh (Score:2, Funny)
I'm a tag
Re: (Score:2)
Also a shitty (though somewhat underrated, IMO) Schwarzenegger flick.
Great! (Score:2)
So what will cause the delay next time? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't find the paper on Google though, I really need to read it it'll help me figure out why the time machine I'm building doesn't work.
Thrice Upon A Time (Score:2)
competition with Fermilab (Score:5, Informative)
Re:competition with Fermilab (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, Fermilab is unable to probe the highest possible mass ranges of the Higgs. Not without running indefinitely, that is.
The LHC is capable of this, probably by the end of next year we'll have either fully excluded or discovered the Higgs. And a bunch of other stuff
The biggest reason to run through winter is so that we can better understand the experiment. More run time = more interesting stuff for physicists to do! The more time we run uninterrupted, the more quickly we'll be able to fine tune the instruments.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:competition with Fermilab (Score:5, Insightful)
This is absurd. We're talking about the cutting edge of physical discovery, and you're complaining about cost? The total cost is a few billion, and it has been spread out over 15 years.
It might make the most startling discoveries in scientific history, but apparently that's not important!
Parent
We announced this over 6 months ago (Score:4, Informative)
Is it a slow news day or what?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why ask for 1 trillion when we can ask for 1 billion? *raises pinky*
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The beam wouldn't blow a huge crater in the copper, it doesn't have that much power, but it is very tightly focused, so it would drill a small hole 30 meters deep.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
What they ended up doing is running the beam through a "fuzzifier" to make it's cross section larger, and then rapidly scanning it back and forth across a target of some very heat resistant material... either carbon or space shuttle tile type stuff. That way they're not blowing holes in their beam dump.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I read some while ago that the LHC was the first particle accelerator powerful enough to basically destroy itself if the beam was dumped directly into the walls.
The energy stored in the entire beam will be [web.cern.ch] around 350MJ, which, if I did the conversion correctly, is equivalent to about 83kg TNT. Of course it won't be able to dump all of it in an instant (at least not in the same location), but I imagine it could still be quite destructive if it fails.