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Published online 22 September 2008 | 455, 436-437 (2008) | doi:10.1038/455436a

News

LHC meltdown before first collision

Europe's largest particle accelerator might not produce data until 2009.

Geoff Brumfiel

A mechanical failure has shut down the world's largest particle accelerator for at least two months.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a US$4.

Comments

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    • 23 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: Maurice Needham

  • No body is perfect :-))

    • 24 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: Ehab Mohamed

  • This is very unfortunate. Hopefully everything will go as planned when they get it back online by early 2009. I'm looking foward to what discoveries the LHC will make in the coming years.

    • 24 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: Michael Backus

  • It is not important to wait, there are condemned to understand the boson of Higgs and his observer :-))

    • 24 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: Angel Fermoselle

  • Dear Sir, Definitely it is a great setback to the whole of scientific community throughout the world. We can only hope that it commences its operation from the declared date. Yes There is a silver lining here that many many graduate students will use the data & complete the work. We can only say " It happens .." !! Shailendra Tiwary,Ph.D.,Professor Physics,India

    • 25 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: Shailendra Kumar Tiwary

  • Does it all mean, that Europe is going to experience the shortage of liquid He in around couple of month from now?

    • 25 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: He Lium

  • Does anybody know if sabotage is being investigated as a possible explanation? Lots of people were scared about the LHC ...

    • 25 Sep, 2008
    • Posted by: Timothy Cronin

  • Please e-mail me at omatumr@yahoo.com if you would like to read the comment that the moderator removed. All is well, Oliver K. Manuel, http://www.omatumr.com/

    • 06 Oct, 2008
    • Posted by: O M

  • Science has no need for censorship because in all cases the end result will be the same: "Truth is victorious, never untruth" [Mundaka Upanishad, III, 1.6; See also Qur'an 17.85].

    • 08 Oct, 2008
    • Posted by: O M