LHC update

For those of you who have been following my posts regarding the LHC (and I know thats EVERYONE that read the blog, right?!), I have updated news!! Basically, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was scheduled to build up speed during the winter months (while the CERN was closed for winter maintenance). Unfortunately, there was a liquid helium leak within the LHC & it had to be shut down. Basically, the 1st few months were used to get the LHC to the cold operating temperatures it needed (1.9 Kelvins-VERY COLD). Then once it was cold enough, 1 beam was started. The beam did work but then the leak ensued.

They will have to warm the machine back up to be able to open it & fix the problem (they speculate an electrical problem with the magnets). Since the CERN will be shut down for winter, it will be restarted in Spring 2009 & hopefully then, we have the big bang recreated!

If your interested in any more news, the CERN's press release website is: http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/