lhc

Much beset by magnet quenches, birds, bread, black holes, evil time travelers, and fools, the Large Hadron Collider successfully came online and orbited a proton beam today!

Photographs of the triumphant moment are within.

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A bird dropping a baguette temporarily shut down the $5 billion Large Hadron Collider earlier this month. But scientists have a good feeling about the restart, which is slated for Friday, the The Guardian reports.

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The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. 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.

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Before scientists can put the Large Hadron Collider back to work this month solving the mysteries of particle physics, the LHC’s engineers face critical repairs to the $5-billion device. First up: Fix the 53 superconducting magnets trashed in September 2008 when a power cable broke, causing the magnets to warm above their –458˚F operating temperature and lose conductivity, or “quench.” Then pipes for helium coolant melted, further damaging the magnets.

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Over the weekend, Cern ran particle beams through the Large Hadron Collider for the first time since it was shut down last September. After a helium leak caused magnets to overheat, operations at the LHC were suspended for cleanup and repairs. After tests on October 23 and 25, scientists hope to have the LHC running again in full by November.

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While the LHC's in the shop for repairs from its massive breakdown last September, an older particle accelerator might beat them to finding the Higgs boson, the fundamental particle thought to give matter mass.

At a conference last week, Tevatron physicists threw down the gauntlet, vowing that by 2011, the Tevatron accelerator (located at Fermi National Accelerator Lab outside Chicago) will be able to definitively prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson.

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The troubled Large Hadron Collider, switched on last fall and then off again when its magnets broke, has a bright future.

Tom Hanks, star of Big and The Polar Express, has been invited to turn on the system when its repairs are complete, in what may be history's first celebrity restarting of a particle accelerator.

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All those planning for the end of the world in July, rest easy and enjoy the summer.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is delaying the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) startup another two months. According to CERN, the LHC will go live in September and collisions will begin in October.

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