We’re still here [LHC]
For any of you who might have expressed some concern at the firing of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, you can put your mind at rest for at least the next year, CERN successfully fired the LHC last night at 8:26 GMT (12:26 AM Pacific) and according to the news reports today, not only are we still here, the control room was flowing with blubbly.
Although, to help you re-ignite your doomsaying and pessimism, the LHC was not fired at full strength and probably won’t be for the next year. Also, scientists underestimated the heating effect of firing the LHC and had to re-cool the super-conductors used to bend the particle stream before firing it a second time this morning.
Scientists said that the worst that could happen (as far as damage from using the LHC goes) would be if the super-conductors failed to bend the particle stream and it instead lanced through a wall of the LHC causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage (and burning a hole through the Earth’s crust of undefined depth/length.)
As someone pointed out in the commentaries of one of the many articles I’ve read on the LHC, it’s better to be an optimist about these kinds of things than a pessimist. ‘You might as well keep a positive outlook, because if it all goes wrong, not even the pessimists will live to regret it.’ (Granted that might not be comforting to some.)
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Funny, someone saw Gordon Freeman of Half-Life fame at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.