Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)

The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.

The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.

This incident won't delay the reactivation of the facility later this month, but exposes yet another vulnerability of the what might be the most complex machine ever built. With freak accident after freak accident piling up over at CERN, the idea of time traveling particles returning from the future to prevent their own discovery is beginning to seem less and less far fetched.

www.popsci.com...

Are they sure it was a bird?

It would rather be the aliens having a motive to sabotage the LHC.

My guess is, a UFO dropped the bread bomb.

Ko3

reply to post by 12GaugePermissionSlip


this is strange, the register is normaly very reliable with tech storys, but i just dont buy this... one main reason, it says their that had the beam been on their would have been trouble ... they tested it both directions last week if i remember right.?

I hate it when things are blown out of proportion. I've worked at CERN for a number of years, and it's not unheard of that a silly squirrel would decide to check out a new shiny high voltage transformer, getting very crispy in the process and taking down a power supply for some period of time. CERN is located in the countryside, for gossake.

Big deal.

It happened long before LHC and it will happen again.

I certainly hope they didn't discover it was a baguette by eating it . Do you remember the old butterfly effect? Let's see...

Headline: Homeless man feeds bird his last piece of bread in France, destroys multi-billion dollar particle collider and with it any hope of mankind finding the key to the universe.

or

Bird's bread breaks from beak, basis for big bang boondoggle!!

I don't believe it at all. Any electronics that would be harmed by crumbs dropping on it would be destroyed by any type of water or snow. Anyone not housing the electronic components would have to be an idiot.

[edit on 5-11-2009 by LordBaskettIV]

This is easy to explain in concept. Basically, they're not building a particle accelerator. That's just a cover. What they're really building is a primitive form of the famed infinite improbability drive.

The principle is that as its drive reaches infinite improbability, the ship passes simultaneously through every conceivable and inconceivable point in every conceivable and inconceivable universe (in other words, when one activates the Infinite Improbability Drive, the ship is literally everywhere at once). It is then possible to decide at which point you actually want to be when improbability levels decrease.

This is hard for me to believe as well.
Some how I dint think that they would install something that would break if something as light as bread dropped on it outside not in cased in anything.

I dont know if I believe the whole time traveling particle thing either... I mean how would a particle cause a bird to drop bread? I think they just designed the LHC very poorly. Granted it is very high tech but still, everyone know to in case components that are sensitive.

Did anyone notice the link to the story I placed in the post from Popsci? Are they liars? I didn't know. I certainly hope you guys don't think I made this up. I am just relaying it on to you.

BTW, you know what the scientist said when they discovered the baguette?


-"DOUGH"-

Folks, I tried to reason by giving a real-life example from CERN history... Nobody would listen. Yea, a piece of (wet) bread can cause havoc when dropped onto an outdoor high voltage setup. What else is new?


[edit on 6-11-2009 by buddhasystem]

reply to post by buddhasystem



I'm sorry your "real-life" example was YOU claiming you worked for CERN and something similiar has once happened?

Well... here's my "real-life" example...i've worked for CERN forever and nothing like this has ever happened.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
Folks, I tried to reason by giving a real-life example from CERN history... Nobody would listen. Yea, a piece of (wet) bread can cause havoc when dropped onto an outdoor high voltage setup. What else is new?


[edit on 6-11-2009 by buddhasystem]

hhmm...but wouldn't this have already been considered, since sensitive military installations and high tech businesses use the power grid, or have some of the basic power set-ups also? this obviously wouldn't have been the first time this has happened?
sounds like your talking about some real imcompetance or simply sloppy work. i'm just asking

Originally posted by FAQAmerica
Well... here's my "real-life" example...i've worked for CERN forever and nothing like this has ever happened.

Sure it did, in 1992 a squirrel fried itself in a transformer on the French side and took a major power supply with it. What experiment did you work on at that time? What project are you involved in now?

I was told then that this sort of things does happen, I see no reason to not believe it.

In more recent history, we (again!) have squirrels cutting power in Geneva:

prechiblogtwo.blogspot.com...

If you are at CERN and don't know any of that, you don't get out much.


[edit on 6-11-2009 by buddhasystem]

buddhasystem is right guys. If anything, it's the OP's title and the articles themselves which are a bit misleading. You have to look a bit deeper, and not just rely on knee-jerk reactions to sound-bytes and catchy headlines.

The Popsci article linked to a source article posted in The Register. In that article, a representative for CERN stated that the problem was caused by "a bit of baguette on the busbars".

That's it. That's what caused the problem. The only mention of a bird was in speculation as to a possible source... but that's all it was. Speculation. It could have come from any number of sources. Perhaps stuck to the corner of a workman's mouth, wiped off and forgotten, and then transferred to the BusBars from the glove or hand during routine maintenance. Perhaps it was a squirrel or rat, or blown in by the wind.... who knows.

It doesn't matter, regardless. The way some of you guys make it sound, you'd think they were blaming it on a crumb bouncing off the metal housing surrounding the unit. That wasn't the case, and the entire situation is far more understandable when not twisted into a cartoonish parody. Not to mention that sarcasm and ridicule is sort of a motif of The Register. Easily recognizable there, but can be misleading out of context.

Further, the temperature increase caused by the contamination was exceedingly meager. Only about 11 degrees f over standard. It's not like the contamination caused significant temperature increase... more a case of the temperature tolerances being fairly strict and the fail safes kicking in. "Significant heating" is relative to operational tolerances, not the temp your home PC starts crashing at or anything.

For reference, standard temp according to the Register is about 1.9 Kelvin, or negative 456.25 degrees f.



[edit on 6-11-2009 by Lasheic]

[edit on 6-11-2009 by Lasheic]

someone already made a thread about it

I would say, its the guys frm the future trying to avoid the work of the LHC

reply to post by Lasheic


That is actually one of my favorite movies that comes from. I don't know if the improbability drive would work but it's worth looking into. I don't think that is what the LHC is actually for. Scientists are after the Higgs Bosen!

You're right, this must be a conspiracy. There's no way the designers of the LHC would have made it so easy for something like this to happen! I'm being sarcastic, by the way.

Any number of things can go wrong after something is put into action, no matter how small or insignificant you think they are. I work for a company that designed high-powered software that goes through rigorous testing. Sure enough, as soon as we release the software, regular users of the products always discover bugs that we just wouldn't have been able to find without their "every day" usage tests.

Well I'm sorry but I find this story absurd. I live in the country full of squirrels, etc and I don't believe my electricity has every gone out do to a fried animal. They just fry, they are smaller than the system and the system has fail safes for animal trespassing. The LHC would be a little more careful I would think of things like animals, or should I say the bread dropping of animals. If a piece of baguette can take this thing down, Should it even be started at all? Just my 2 cents as usual.

I'm just waiting for the TARDIS to show up and stop the thing from cranking up.
Of course they wont believe the Doctor at first...
This is just getting too weird.

Originally posted by SunnyDee
Well I'm sorry but I find this story absurd. I live in the country full of squirrels, etc and I don't believe my electricity has every gone out do to a fried animal.

Did you follow that link?

prechiblogtwo.blogspot.com...