Could I be a clairvoyant?  A seer?  A prophet?

Some recent news stories:

18 Sep 2008:  Transformer Glitch Shuts Down Biggest Atom Amasher
19 Sep 2008:  LHC Shut Down By Transformer
20 Sep 2008:  Helium Leak Forces LHC to Shut Down For Two Months
20 Sep 2008:  LHC Delayed Due to Magnet Failure

To summarize what happened:  Shortly before the LHC was to be powered up, it was discovered that one of the transformers that provides power to the cooling system had malfunctioned.   They managed to replace it with a spare and got the accelerator up and running on time.   However, it only ran for a short period of time before yet another problem came up.

The second problem also appears to have involved a transformer and the LHC was forced to be shut down for a couple of days while a replacement was found.   During that time the cryo system was in standby mode to maintain the temperatures required by the superconducting magnets of the massive collider.   Once the new transformer was in things seemed to be back to normal,

Until… the LHC sprung a leak, and spewed liquid helium into the tunnel that houses the LHC.  It’s believed that the leak was actually caused by a short circuit or faulty electrical connection which caused one of the bus bars to melt, damaging the helium conduit and causing the leak.  When the system was brought to full power, one the bars that carries current to the magnets seems to have almost imediatly melted.

Now if that is not enough, further inspection has apparently found that there has been a failure of at least one of the pairs of magnets on the LHC.   It seems that the failure of the helium cooling system caused an imediate “quenching” of one (and probably more) of the superconducting magnets which was severe enough to cause damage.   At least 100 of the massive superconducting magnets lost cooling while under load and all will now need to be inspected and tested.   There’s a signifficant possibility that a large portion may need to be replaced.

As things now stand, an entire section of the accelerator (1/8th of the total system) has been completely powered down and will need to be drained of coolant so that workers can access the areas to inspect, replace and repair the components.   The repairs are expected to take at least two months.

So while I do feel a bit bummed about these glitches for the LHC, there are two silver linings to this as far as I can tell:

1.   The US still has the most powerful particle accelerator in the world (for now)  GO USA!
2.   I’m a psychic.   And I can offer verifiable proof!

On September 7th 2008, I made the following statement in an E-mail:

My only “kind of concern” for the LHC is that when brought up to full power it might have some other problem that does not endanger the whole earth, but it would not be the first time a ‘Big Science’ project was brought on line and then had something big and expensive and bad happen.   What I mean by that is something like a helium vessel exploding when brought to full pressure and causing a few months setback or having one of the transformers overheat or something – I know they’ve checked it out many times, but anything this big is going to have a reasonable probability of experiencing something like that in the first few weeks of operation.   (Not that it would destroy the earth or anything).

On September 2nd, I made the following statement on an instant message conversation:

DrBuzz0: Yeah, fingers crossed that nothing major breaks when they throw the switch though, because you know, they’ve only been able to test the components so much.  And I mean, some of the stuff has been sitting there for a couple years.
DrBuzz0: Something this huge generally does not go 100% smoothly.  I’d be VERY surprised if they don’t suffer a helium leak or blown transformer or two.   It’s just the fact that they really could not test everything at full power until it was built.  So yeah, I’d be sweating bullets nothing big breaks if I were there.

On September 10th, I made the following statement in a post:

The LHC has not yet been brought up to anywhere near full power, however.  The first test run was relatively small and low power, but has shown the system to be generally sound.  This is definately a relief, as any system this large has a signifficant chance of some bumps in the road at startup, such as coolant leaks or short circuits.   Thus far, it’s been smooth sailing and scientists are enthusiastic about putting the LHC through its paces and begining research experiments.

Okay… just kidding.   Yes, I did say these things, but I’m not really convinced I’m a psycic

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 1:51 am and is filed under Announcements, Good Science, Humor, Misc, Paranormal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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