Weasel Apparently Shuts Down World's Most Powerful Particle Collider

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Extinct.

It's not, it's just sleeping.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: berenike
A mongoose perhaps?
Unlikely, yes. But when in the realm of quantum mechanics...

Yep, just that, but sleeping.

a reply to: smurfy

Bwaaaaahaaaaaa!

I don't think the next of kin has been notified. They have not released the victim's name😮

A new Super Hero!
The Weasel... Saves the Earth.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: Kester

Oh, that is clever! Almost all large spaces have other critters utilizing the unused portions. 17 mile long ring would be pretty tempting to any rodents.

yes, but its realy deep?
they should be no food?
some ones pet! escape?

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: smurfy

Bwaaaaahaaaaaa!

I don't think the next of kin has been notified. They have not released the victim's name😮

That's because there was only carbon black left, and they couldn't measure the free radicals left because some arse opened the port'oles.

a reply to: smurfy

Graphene weasel? Should of been superconductive!

originally posted by: smurfy

originally posted by: berenike
The creature could have been a stoat which is similar to a weasel.

Although under normal circumstances a weasel would be weasily recognised and a stoat would be stoatally different, a charred one might be a bit trickier to identify.

I take it then you have a culinary interest in one but not the other by the look of that tongue of yours, with an anxiety to know which.

Je preferer mon goose saute.

And you'd be surprised what this tongue has ferreted out, but rat's another story.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to gopher walkies.

Rodents. Uh...

Humans... ? Conspiracy?

(Drinking much beer, please x-cuse)

S n F, if I could 2 ya'ĺl, all contributers, 2 the thread so far!

www.reddit.com...

I'm having difficulty wording this.

Perhaps I should just suggest you take note of the location of the charring.


Edit to add.
In case the picture isn't clear enough, the charring isn't around the chewing end.

reply to: Kester

Which is why we wonder about the "official" story. It is "funny" in MSM but what do you thiñk?

Btw, what else can 66kV leave behind of a Beech martin?

a reply to: Kester

Not being nit-picky, just drunk, so please don't take it personal!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

No worries.

If I took things personally on ATS I'd shrivel up like an electrified marten poop.

I don't understand how the weasel or any other animal could survive the temperatures to chew the electrical wires, or get access to them so easily. It sounds like a complex setup to me...not one a creature could easily get into.

Especially after the fiasco that occurred with the bird incident in 2009...you'd think they would of taken extra precautions now to prevent this type of thing on their 12 billion dollar project that is so precious for research.

Superconducting wires to save energy The main line, made of copper, has high energy yields, but it loses some energy on its journey to the internal magnet feeders through electrical resistance, and when it is cooled to the temperatures needed in the LHC. To tackle this energy-loss problem, superconducting wires made of niobium-titanium (NbTi) are used on the LHC to connect electromagnets to their power supply. The wires can conduct 100 times the current of traditional copper wire because when cooled to close to absolute zero they offer no resistance to electricity. This greatly cuts down on the energy lost as electricity travels down the wire. To reach a superconducting state, LHC magnets are maintained at 1.9 K (-271.3°C) – temperatures colder than outer space – by a closed liquid-helium circuit. The copper wire on the left is 11 centimetres high, 8 cm wide and 28 cm long. It can conduct a current of 12,500 amps at room temperature. When cooled to 1.9 K, the niobium-titanium coil on the right enters a superconducting state and can conduct the same current (Image: CERN) As electricity courses from its source to the LHC, it passes through a temperature gradient. Water cools the copper cables to ease the conversion from room temperature to the cryogenic atmosphere maintained around the accelerator. Currently, the main cost of superconductivity is the cooling process. Whatever energy is earned through the use of superconducting wires is lost in the energy needed to cool the wires. But CERN researchers are working on a way to use superconducting cables for the entire journey from source to magnet, which would lower the energy required to cool the wires.

Powering CERN

Their story appears to belong in RATS...

leolady

originally posted by: chrismarco
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

If a gopher can wreak havoc at a golf course called Bushwood one can only imagine the damage a weasel could do at a collider...

Where the hell was Carl?

I was having issues with the "gnawed through" portion of the story. I think NPR stated that to make it sound more salacious than what actually took place. The Beech marten was outside the facility (not gnawing on the superconducting wires--thanks for link leolady! And, "RATS, why did it have to be rats?") scrambling along when it went onto the 66 kV line. It sounds like when it came to the end of the line (hehe) it grounded out with a power transformer.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was halted "following technical issues, including a power cut due to the passage of a weasel on a high voltage electrical transformer," CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier (said)

Source: phys.org - Pop goes the weasel as Hadron Collider shuts down (Update)

That makes more sense than what we were led to believe (shakes fist at NPR). I have learned a valuable lesson about MSM. And I learned that 66,000 volts is serious! Don't play on them! Don't ground yourself out with one.

And do not do a "monkey boy" and climb up a 100 foot pylon to touch one.

Update

Work continues at CERN. According to their website,

A team assessed the situation over the weekend and found no indication of damage inside the transformer. Repairs to the connections are hoped to be completed by the end of the week, as the LHC continues to prepare for the 2016 physics run.

Source: CERN news - Repairs ongoing on electrical installations at CERN

And,

Scientists had been gearing up to resume experiments at the LHC this week, but the plans were delayed after a weasel wandered onto a high-voltage electrical transformer last Friday, causing a short-circuit.

CERN told AFP that experiments were now expected to get underway next week.
...
The unexpected excess pair of photons spotted last year could be a larger cousin of the Higgs, according to one theory.

Source: Phys.org, news, May 6, 2016 - World's largest particle smasher set to push physics into unknown

That is great news! The power transformer was not damaged which means it did not need to be replaced. The original thought was it was fried which led to the "mid-May" quip.

Wonder if that (start up) will coincide with the mysterious "bump" in the data? There were two results which matched up. If there is a new particle the Standard Model either is going to expand or is wrong.

Continued from Phys.org news

After the Higgs discovery, the LHC underwent a two-year upgrade, reopening last year with double energy levels which will vastly expand the potential for groundbreaking discoveries.

The LHC ran for six months last year at the new energy level of 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV), but since the machine was just getting started again, it was not pushed to create the maximum number of collisions.

Once it gets started again, the machine at its peak should see two beams each containing around 273,600 billion protons shoot through the massive collider in opposite directions, slamming into each other with a joint energy level of 13 TeV to produce two billion collisions a second.

The sheer amount of data that is going to be generated when LHC is fully functioning is amazing!

Update:

CERN has started everything back up!

The LHC is running extremely well,” says CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology, Frédérick Bordry. “We now have an ambitious goal for 2016, as we plan to deliver around six times more data than in 2015.”

“The restart of the LHC always brings with it great emotion,” says Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director General. “With the 2016 data, the experiments will be able to perform improved measurements of the Higgs boson and other known particles and phenomena, and look for new physics with an increased discovery potential.”
...
During the first phase of Run 2 in 2015, operators mastered steering the accelerator at this new higher energy [13 Tev] by gradually increasing the intensity of the beams.

Beams are made of “trains” of bunches, each containing around 100 billion protons, moving at almost the speed of light around the 27-kilometre ring of the LHC. These bunch trains circulate in opposite directions and cross each other at the centre of experiments. Last year, operators increased the number of proton bunches up to 2244 per beam, spaced at intervals of 25 nanoseconds.
...
The four largest LHC experimental collaborations, ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb, now start to collect and analyse the 2016 data. Their broad physics programme will be complemented by the measurements of three smaller experiments – TOTEM, LHCf and MoEDAL – which focus with enhanced sensitivity on specific features of proton collisions.

Source: CERN, Updates - The 2016 physics season starts at the LHC

Sorry, misspoke earlier. The groups of ions are only around 2,200 but each is made up many, many more! My bad. They gradually increase power before adding more "trains" with the final goal being 2,200 trains at full power.

Great news that they are back up and running! They had just gotten the low-intensity beams up and running for several hours when the "power perturbation" happened (i.e., marten got whacked--emphasis on the "H").

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Emphasis on the H where? Whacked? whacked?.

a reply to: Kester

Fat Tony says that to Homer! "whacked" so it is kind of a plosive sound (yet another whiff at humor).


BTW, CERN was back up, Monday, May 9, 2016.