Second chance for Collider to deliver universe's secrets

Sunday, November 1, 2009 - 09:07 in Physics & Chemistry

One year after £30m meltdown, 'God Machine' is ready to run again in Switzerland At first glance, the piece of metal in Steve Myers's hands could be taken for a harmonica or a pen. Only on closer inspection can you make out its true nature. Myers, director of accelerators at the Cern particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, is clutching a section of copper piping from which a flat electrical cable is protruding. It looks unremarkable. Yet a piece of cable like this one was responsible last year for the world's most expensive short-circuit. More than £30m-worth of damage was done to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most advanced particle accelerator ever built, a few days after its ceremonial opening. It has taken Myers – and hundreds of other Cern scientists – more than a year to...

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