Bad connection likely cause of particle collider shutdown

[Eugene]

Source: CBC News

Bad connection likely cause of particle collider shutdown
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 7, 2008 | 11:49 AM ET

CBC News

A badly soldered electrical connection was likely
responsible for the malfunction that put the world's
largest particle collider out of action until next
year, a senior scientist said Monday.

While it was likely just one poor soldering job out
of the Large Hadron Collider's 10,000 connections,
"it cost dearly", said Lyn Evans, project leader of
the experiment. The particle collider is housed in a
27-kilometre-long tunnel at the European Nuclear
Research Organisation (CERN), located near Geneva,
Switzerland.

The LHC, built at a cost of $3.8 billion and with a
total expected cost of over $9 billion, was officially
launched on Sept. 10 when two beams of super-
accelerated protons were fired in opposite directions
through the 27-km circuit.

-snip-

Scientists will have to wait a month before officially
determining and fixing the problem, as the area where
the problem is operates at a temperature near absolute
zero and needs to warmed before repair crews can
enter.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/10/07/lhc-solder.html

[Faux pas]

1. Boy, what I could do with 9 billion dollars.....