Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

LHC repair cost £14 million

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • LHC repair cost £14 million

    Ouch! 14 million isn't much considering the total cost of the project. But still...

    BBC NEWS
    Hadron Collider repairs cost £14m

    Repairing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva will cost almost £14m ($21m) and "realistically" take until at least next summer to start back up.

    An electrical failure shut the £3.6bn ($6.6bn) machine down in September.

    The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) thought it would only be out of action until November but the damage was worse than expected.

    It is hoped repairs will be completed by May or early June with the machine restarted at the end of June or later.

    Cern spokesman James Gillies said: "If we can do it sooner, all well and good. But I think we can do it realistically (in) early summer."

    Fundamental questions

    The LHC was built to smash protons together at huge speeds, recreating conditions moments after the Big Bang, and scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics.

    The fault occurred just nine days after it was turned on with Cern blaming the shutdown on the failure of a single, badly soldered electrical connection in one of its super-cooled magnet sections.

    The collider operates at temperatures colder than outer space for maximum efficiency and experts needed to gradually warm the damaged section to assess it.

    "Now the sector is warm so they are able to go in and physically look at each of the interconnections," Mr Gillies told Associated Press.

    The cost of the work will fall within the Cern's existing budget.

    Dr Lyn Evans, the Welsh-born project director has called the collider "a discovery machine, the most sophisticated scientific instrument of our time."
    Story from BBC NEWS:
    BBC, News, BBC News, news online, world, uk, international, foreign, british, online, service


    Published: 2008/11/17 18:17:50 GMT

    © BBC MMVIII
    I love being beaten by women - Lorizael

  • #2
    I like this part of the quote

    The LHC was built to smash potatoes together at huge speeds, recreating conditions moments after the Big Bang, and scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics.
    Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
    GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

    Comment


    • #3
      Shouldn't this be covered in the warranty?
      "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

      Comment


      • #4
        Given that there are at least 3000 physicists wasting their time doing makework between now and whenever the machine gets fixed, I don't think 20 million bucks for the repair is the biggest news here.
        12-17-10 Mohamed Bouazizi NEVER FORGET
        Stadtluft Macht Frei
        Killing it is the new killing it
        Ultima Ratio Regum

        Comment


        • #5
          Make-work? Pssht. Invent us a gluon gun already, and you'll have done something worthwhile.
          1011 1100
          Pyrebound--a free online serial fantasy novel

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by KrazyHorse
            Given that there are at least 3000 physicists wasting their time doing makework between now and whenever the machine gets fixed, I don't think 20 million bucks for the repair is the biggest news here.
            All good things come to those who wait...
            I love being beaten by women - Lorizael

            Comment


            • #7
              3000 physicists (directly; I'm not even including people like me in this calculation). Say 800 faculty-level, 1200 post-doc, 1000 grad students.

              Price grad students at (everything included) 50k p.a., post-docs at 100k, faculty at 150k. Say that for the next 6 months they are reduced to half of useful capacity (since they were planning to have some data of some sort during this time period).

              Come up with 72.5 million dollars in wasted salaries. Does not include support staff and physical facilities sitting idle.
              12-17-10 Mohamed Bouazizi NEVER FORGET
              Stadtluft Macht Frei
              Killing it is the new killing it
              Ultima Ratio Regum

              Comment


              • #8
                Probably the support staff and physical facilities are even more. I think more than 10m is wasted every year we have had to shut down over the summer due to congress not passing a budget, and we are ~5% the size of LHC.

                JM
                Jon Miller-
                I AM.CANADIAN
                GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I agree. But I don't know the numbers on that as well as I know the physics personnel numbers.
                  12-17-10 Mohamed Bouazizi NEVER FORGET
                  Stadtluft Macht Frei
                  Killing it is the new killing it
                  Ultima Ratio Regum

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X