Sudden technical problem at CERN. The restart of the European Organization for Nuclear Research's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be delayed by a few days to several weeks - exactly how long remains unclearCERN).Literally at the last minute, just before the signal was given for the world's largest machine to move forward, a technical problem was detected.
Specifically, a short circuit in the electrical wiring of one of the large and powerful magnets, which guide the beams of colliding particles and allow the accelerator to be cooled to a temperature close to absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius).
The incident brought back memories of 2008, when shortly after its grand opening, a serious technical failure led to a long-term shutdown of operations until the problem was fixed. Now, at least, the damage was noticed in time.
According to the original plan, in the middle of this week - after almost two years of interruption for technical maintenance and equipment upgrades - the first beams of particles (protons) were to circulate again inside the 27-kilometer underground accelerator, which is located under the French-Swiss border.
CERN announced that, once the technical assessment of the damage is complete, it will announce the new date for the accelerator to restart. However, it assured that the impact will not be serious for its work and ambitious goals during the new period 2015-2018.
“All signs point to a great second period. In the bigger picture, a delay of a few weeks in humanity’s quest to understand the universe is nothing more than the blink of an eye,” said CERN Director General, German physicist Rolf Heuer. For their part, however, many CERN scientists did not hide their disappointment at the unexpected delay.
