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- 2 Oct 2006
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Another shut down!!! We're told by Dr Steve Myers that, 'It's something that, with a lot more resources and with a lot more manpower and quality control, possibly could have been avoided but I have difficulty in thinking that this is something that was a design error'? Why do you have difficulty in thinking that? He went on: "The standard phrase is that the LHC is its own prototype. We are pushing technologies towards their limits. You don't hear about the thousands or hundreds of thousands of other areas that have gone incredibly well. With a machine like the LHC, you only build one and you only build it once."
Well yeah! We don't wanna be building the bloody thing again! And that line 'The standard phrase is that the LHC is its own prototype.' Hmmm, that's not 'strictly' true is it? We've actually built similar machines (granted not as powerful), for a long time now... Bevatron, Tevatron. So why is it that Dr Myers has 'difficulty in thinking that this is something that was a design error'?
The report goes on: 'The atom smasher will reach world record collision energies later this month at 7 trillion electron volts. But the tunnel must be made safe before proton collisions planned at twice that level can commence.' Errm, so you're running this thing at 'half-maximum power before switching it off for a year to carry out improvements to the 27km tunnel.' Can I ask why you didn't build the tunnel to the required specification ie in order to allow the machine to run at 'full speed' in the first place?
This thing may or may not produce enough 'information' to allow scientists to work out how the universe was formed. It may or may not allow us to look at alternative power sources. It may or may not form black holes that swallow mass but it's certainly swallowed a huge sum of money so far and it looks likely to swallow a whole lot more! It may or may not be a total flop and give us very little 'extra information'. I just question it's worth but I hope my questioning is unfounded and it leads to great things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8556621.stm
Well yeah! We don't wanna be building the bloody thing again! And that line 'The standard phrase is that the LHC is its own prototype.' Hmmm, that's not 'strictly' true is it? We've actually built similar machines (granted not as powerful), for a long time now... Bevatron, Tevatron. So why is it that Dr Myers has 'difficulty in thinking that this is something that was a design error'?
The report goes on: 'The atom smasher will reach world record collision energies later this month at 7 trillion electron volts. But the tunnel must be made safe before proton collisions planned at twice that level can commence.' Errm, so you're running this thing at 'half-maximum power before switching it off for a year to carry out improvements to the 27km tunnel.' Can I ask why you didn't build the tunnel to the required specification ie in order to allow the machine to run at 'full speed' in the first place?
This thing may or may not produce enough 'information' to allow scientists to work out how the universe was formed. It may or may not allow us to look at alternative power sources. It may or may not form black holes that swallow mass but it's certainly swallowed a huge sum of money so far and it looks likely to swallow a whole lot more! It may or may not be a total flop and give us very little 'extra information'. I just question it's worth but I hope my questioning is unfounded and it leads to great things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8556621.stm
