Large Hadron Collider to start up in three weeks

The Observer : 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 $50 million-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 pinpoint the guilty piece of cable and repair the wreckage."It was a very small piece, but it did immense damage,” he said. It remains to be seen whether Myers can fix CERN’s tattered technological reputation in the process—when his team restart their great machine in a few weeks. “I am not a nervous person,” said the 63-year-old Belfast-born engineer. “And that is probably just as well.” Related News Picks Related Politics Congress expresses concern over LHC failures UK prepares for tough science funding environment Related Physics Today articles Mostly recovered, the LHC readies for restart October 2009 Mishap shuts down LHC until April November 2008 Multiple problems push LHC start to next spring September 2007