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It's a good indication of the rabid anticipation surrounding the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that any tidbit about the giant particle accelerator's restart is scrutinized as if it were the Zapruder film. A case in point is a single image from a 52-slide presentation given recently by Jörg Wenninger, a member of the operations group at CERN, the European lab for particle physics, where the LHC sits dormant. (An electrical malfunction that caused a helium leak crippled the accelerator shortly after it came online in September.)

The slide in question provides two scenarios, one in which the LHC starts up again as planned next summer and another in which the beam is not switched on until 2010 to allow for a full upgrade of pressure relief systems. Several blogs made note of the slide, fueling speculation that it would be a full year before the world's biggest science experiment gets under way in earnest. Not true, CERN spokesperson James Gillies told ScientificAmerican.com in an e-mail, insisting that "the LHC will start up in 2009."

Gillies acknowledges that the lab's priority to begin collecting data from collisions "will probably entail a period of reduced energy running," meaning that some of the more exotic phenomena physicists hope to probe at the accelerator's highest energies may have to wait. He says that more details will be made available in a report set to be released later this week.

Of course, skeptical observers will point out that many target dates for the LHC's start-up have come and gone, so it's not inconceivable to think that another delay could arise from an unexpected quarter. But for the moment, CERN is gunning for collisions before the end of next year.

CREDIT: Maximilien Brice/CERN

3 Comments

1. 1. nismail 05:47 AM 12/6/08

   In religion, folks built large temples to impress the herd but in reality failed in proving that God exists. It remains a faith however large the temple is.
   
   The LHC is a modern temple of a faith that will reveal no more truth of nature than Sir Rutherford did with his first synchrotron a century ago. The toy gets bigger, more expensive, more complex, higher profile but so what ?
   
   Stacking technology on top of one another does not make science. We need to go back to basics and fundamentals to find radically new insights.

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2. 2. Robert Houston 12:29 AM 12/12/08

   By choosing Plan A for an earlier start-up rather than Plan B (full upgrade of pressure-relief safety systems and start-up in 2010), it's obvious that CERN is sacrificing safety in another fool's rush. A Dec. 5th press release quotes their current director-general: "The top priority for CERN today is to provide collision data for the experiments as soon as reasonably possible." As usual, safety takes a backseat in favor of "collision."
   
   The lower priority given to safety is the major problem of the Large Hadron Collider. This giant project, which threatens us with potential production of world-destroying black holes and strangelet matter, lacks any full-scale public risk-assessment by unaffiliated scientists. The European Union has allowed CERN to function as an autonomous, unmonitored agency, even though it has violated 18 of the EU's recommended safety procedures, according to a March 2008 affidavit by Prof. Mark Leggett, a foremost risk-assessment expert: http://www.lhcdefense.org/lhc_legal.php
   ( <A HREF="http://www.lhcdefense.org/lhc_legal.php">Click here</A>.)
   
   Because CERN is a source of potential funding and career opportunities, only a few physicists have dared to object. A heroic example is Rainer Plaga, Ph.D., who has been a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Physics. His Sept. 26, 2008 paper, "On the potential castastrophic risk from metasatable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders," concludes that the LHC may produce nuclear explosions and "radiation that would be harmful to Earth and/or CERN and its surroundings." See: http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1415
   ( <A HREF="http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1415">Click here</A>.)
   
   Let's hope it keeps breaking down.
   
   

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3. 3. nismail 11:33 AM 12/12/08

   It is rather delusional to use Earth bound conditions to simulate reactions that occur on an entirely different plane. How long have we tried in MHD to emulate solar temperatures that last ? How little did we learn from TRIUMF and SNO and many similar types of projects ? How successful are we in reproducing clouds under control inside a laboratory ?
   
   Had the LHC money been portioned out in smaller chunks to more basic studies, we might have learnt something collectively by now. It is a simple matter of probability. When one is hungry, chances of eating are better looking for minnows that gunning for the big whale. In science, betting it all is a foolish act of hubris. Civilization is a slow process, not to be rushed.

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