Alternative factor: minor setback could delay LHC start-up by as much as five weeks

March 2015 – TECHNOLOGY – It may have been two years since the Large Hadron Collider went to sleep at the CERN headquarters but scientists are stirring to get it back up and running. Unfortunately all the experiments that have been waiting for the power up will have to wait as a short circuit has delayed the restart of the machine. Indeed, officials say that a minor glitch has forced a delay in the re-start of the world’s largest particle smasher, Europe’s multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider.

Actually the team found that a small metallic piece near one of the magnetic components needs to be removed before they can really get the machine going again; and this could take a week or so. But while this mishap is unexpected it is somewhat understandable, as CERN Director for Accelerators Frédérick Bordry explains: “Any cryogenic machine is a time amplifier, so what would have taken hours in a warm machine could end up taking us weeks.”

And even with this tiny snafu all systems are still go; no one on the team seems to be phased by it. As a matter of fact CERN Director General Rolf Heuer explains, “All the signs are good for a great run 2. In the grand scheme of things, a few weeks delay in humankind’s quest to understand our universe is little more than the blink of an eye.” Hopefully removing this small piece of metal will be easy. If the removal process is simple, the machine could be ready to fire up again in just a matter of days. If, however, the machine needs significant repairs it could take as many as five weeks before it will be ready for another attempt. –Pioneer News