Word: hadrons
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Sometime on Nov. 3, the supercooled magnets in sector 81 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), outside Geneva, began to dangerously overheat. Scientists rushed to diagnose the problem, since the particle accelerator has to maintain a temperature colder than deep space in order to work. The culprit? "A bit of baguette," says Mike Lamont of the control center of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which built and maintains the LHC. Apparently, a passing bird may have dropped the chunk of bread on an electrical substation above the accelerator, causing a power cut. The baguette was removed, power...
...French-Algerian physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was arrested Oct. 8 after French officials discovered encoded e-mails between him and members of an al-Qaeda cell based in North Africa. Adlène Hicheur, who worked at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, allegedly offered to help the group plan attacks in France. Initial news reports focused on Hicheur's work at the high-energy research lab, prompting speculation that al-Qaeda might be attempting to create nuclear or radioactive weapons. But a spokesman for CERN said the lab has been closed since last September...
...nuclear weapon. Neither was true: CERN says it has nothing on its property that could be used to build a nuclear bomb, and Hicheur's limited security access didn't allow him close enough to the main collider to launch an attack on it. (See pictures of the Large Hadron Collider...
Public fanfare greeted the activation last year of the Large Hadron Collider, the massive particle accelerator that physicists hope will herald a leap forward for the field...
...biggest, most complicated machine ever made. But when you look at the details there are enough reassuring aspects to say that it isn't going to destroy the world. And if you are going to spend a lot of money on science, I think something like the Large Hadron Collider is a better investment than perhaps the space program. In terms of science, the space program really didn't deliver a lot - things like going to the moon, going to Mars - it's mostly political. (Read "Kepler Space Probe: A Shot at Finding New Earths...