SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Large Hadron Collider to Get Helium Leak Warning System

from the Times (London)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is to have an early-warning system installed to guard against a repeat of the catastrophic fault that caused the world’s largest atom-smasher to break down nine days after it was switched on in September.

CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, is to fit the accelerator with 100 miles (160km) of cables and 2,000 crates of electronic monitors, so that engineers will be alerted to potentially hazardous abnormalities before they can cause serious damage.

The £4 billion “big bang machine,” which was switched on to global acclaim on September 10, was shut down after a huge helium leak caused extensive damage to many of its magnets.