October 3, 2008

Champagne and Tears for Major Physics Experiment

Even though the $10-billion machine isn’t working at the moment, physicists and science administrators are throwing an Oktoberfest of sorts for the Large Hadron Collider, the giant factory for subatomic particles that was supposed to start producing data this month.

To mark the start of the project, the European laboratory known as CERN, where the collider is located, will stage a gala on October 21, complete with music by Philip Glass, performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. There will also be a meal of “molecular gastronomy,” designed by the renowned chefs Ferran Adria and Ettore Bocchia. Today, CERN inaugurated the worldwide computing grid, involving 33 countries, that will crunch the unprecedented amount of data flowing out of the experiments.

For now, though, the collider sits idle. After engineers circulated proton beams for the first time last month through the 17-mile-long circular collider, a large helium leak developed because of problems with some of the 1,200 supercold magnets used to steer the proton beams. CERN is now fixing the collider and will not start it up again until next spring, following its normal winter hiatus in experiments.

Meanwhile, a judge in Hawaii has dismissed a lawsuit designed to shut down the collider. The suit alleged that the collider could destroy the earth by producing miniature black holes that could gobble up the globe, a contention that most scientists reject. —Richard Monastersky

Comments

1. For man has invented his doom
   First step was touching the moon
   —-Bob Dylan

   — DeeDee Pontiac    Oct 3, 03:19 PM    #

2. It would be surprising if a machine as large and complex as the LHC didn’t have some startup glitches. And the screwball brigade, always looking for a sensational end of the world, was certain to show up.

   — Lawrence S. Lerner    Oct 3, 03:48 PM    #

3. Never was so much money been wasted on something with so little of importance to so few. Oliver is right. We need to seriously look at our values and human needs in these kinds of moments and situations.

   — sigmund    Oct 3, 04:23 PM    #

4. Oliver and the Flat Earth Society are so right about it—there has never in history been any benefit from any scientific experiment. For a higher education publication, why does the Chronicle attract such goof-ball comments?

   Have a happy day!

   — Cal    Oct 3, 04:43 PM    #

5. Attempts to answer big questions cost biggggg bucks!.

   — Byron Smyrd    Oct 3, 04:49 PM    #

6. Well sigmund, it is a lot of money (although it pales in comparison to the $700b Congress is dumping on Wall Street to questionable benefit), and it is possible it won’t lead to much, but past experience says it will. Increased understanding of how things work at molecular levels already stands behind a lot of things we now take for granted, medical treatment being a prominent example. Exploring the unknown has never been cheap. Will it give us a cure for cancer or aids? No, but it just might provide the kind of molecular level understanding the leads to one.

   — CW    Oct 3, 05:13 PM    #

7. Some of the comments confirm that having a college degree does NOT assure being well educated. Imagine the cost already paid for that.

   I’ll stick with the hadron collider and expect real change.

   — Bob S.    Oct 4, 11:22 PM    #

8. THANK YOU BOB S.!!!

   — John    Oct 6, 06:51 AM    #

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