God to “God Particle” hunters: “Forget it”…
The Baguette Incident (source: foxypar4/flickr, via PopSci)
Pity the poor Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world, built to find the Higgs Boson— the “God Particle.” It just can’t seem to find its feet.
First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a piece of bread droped by a bird on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.
The bird dropped some bread on an outdoor section of the gigantic device, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic fail-safes would have shut it down.
Was the baguette an accident? Two scientists have theorized that the LHC is sabotaging itself from the future, to prevent mankind discovering the elusive Higgs Boson particle (link to paper at arXiv.org here); others have sued to shut down the LHC “before it destroys the world.”
More, at PopSci.com.
As we spin the arrow of time, we might recall that first Flying Trapeze act was performed in Paris on this date in 1859 by Jules Leotard (who also designed the garment that bears his name).
The link missing in yesterday’s post– to the physics paper suggesting that the Large Hadron Collider may be sabotaging itself from the future– is restored. Apologies.