Peckish bird briefly downs big atom smasher

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The LHC tunnel

A peckish bird briefly knocked out part of the world's biggest atom smasher by causing a chain reaction with a piece of bread, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said Monday.

Bits of a French loaf dropped on an external electrical power supply caused a short circuit last week, triggering failsafe devices that shut down part of the cooling system of the giant experiment to probe the secrets of the universe, CERN said.

The system was restored several hours after the incident last Tuesday while the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was barely affected, a spokeswoman said.

"The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread," CERN said in a statement.

"On Tuesday 3 November, a bird carrying a baguette bread caused a short circuit in an electrical outdoor installation that serves sectors 7-8 and 8-1 of the LHC," it added.

"The knock-on effects included an interruption to the operation of the LHC cryogenics system."

The 27 kilometre-long (17 mile) particle collider, which runs in a circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border near the city of Geneva, has been plagued by problems since it was briefly started up in September 2008.

However, CERN said the latest incident was minor and did not affect attempts to restart the accelerator later this month following repairs.

"It made for a small warming from absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius, minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Celsius scale to minus 268 degrees but the machine was not stopped," CERN spokesman Renilde Vanden Broek told AFP.

"Everything returned to normal a few hours later and operations were able to resume in the night of November 5," she added.

Designed to shed light on the origins of the universe, the LHC at CERN took nearly 20 years to complete and cost six billion Swiss francs (3.9 billion euros, 4.9 billion dollars) to build.

The bird was believed to be an owl.

(c) 2009 AFP

   

• Going - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (7)
  Electricity grids have extensive outdoor components yet are not knocked out by bird activity. Don't blame the bird, this is poor design of exterior equipment.
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• SincerelyTwo - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 3.8 / 5 (5)
  ""The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread," CERN said in a statement."
  
  Awww...
  
  And Going; well, I was going to be all in your face about it since we clearly don't know the reasons for why it might be that way but... that is kinda stupid actually. Achilles' heel.
  
  They could put a giant metal mesh net around it, or have laser sentries activated by motion to attack shit. >:\
  
  We better not find ourselves moments from finding the higgs when a squirrel decides to charge at the power supplies.
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• Doug_Huffman - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 4 / 5 (4)
  @Going, reeally? You're not evidently a distribution engineer. The vast majority of unplanned neighborhood outages are due to birds' and squirrels' suicide by self-immolation.
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• JIMBO - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 2.8 / 5 (4)
  Is this a news story from fox or enquirer....?
  "Chain reaction" is as wrong as "Atom Smasher".
  PHYSORG readers know the difference. Why not the writer ? The former pertains to fission reactors, and the latter term from pre-WWII accelerators, both irrelevant here.
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• Dinotron - Nov 09, 2009
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  "plagued by problems..."
  oh please!!!
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• ealex - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
  He might not be a distribution engineer, but you WOULD think that they would have consider this problem when they designed those power sources. I mean if a piece of bread dropped in by a bird can cause a short-circuit I'd hate to find out how it fares again other elements of nature.
  
  Bummer for the bird though.
  
  Also, if any extraterrestrial beings are watching us, they are, yet again, laughing their ass off.
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• axemaster - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (4)
  I have to say, if I were working on the LHC... I would have loled.
  
  Seriously, this stuff is hilarious. Someone should write a book entitled, "Woes of a Physicist" after this is over.
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• lugdunum - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 4.2 / 5 (5)
  It's the Higgs Boson reaching through time to avoid being detected: http://www.nytime...tml?_r=1
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• Wkd_Angel - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 1.2 / 5 (9)
  Just my opinion,here,but the Project itself is a waste of money,effort,and brilliant minds;that could be used in a constructive manner;)
  Could it be? That what they're trying to DO,the very thing they're looking FOR? Is stopping this whole project from succeeding? lol A Bird? It's always the *machine's fault*or... in this case,*bird*...lol and NOT the Operators fault lol
  All your comments here are funny,won't quote them all,but I agree,100%;)lol
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• SincerelyTwo - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
  The bird didn't stop it, it's still running and doing fine.
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• NotAsleep - Nov 09, 2009
  • Rank: 3.7 / 5 (3)
  Forum administrators should remove all comments that have "lol" in their body. Except this one.
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• Mr_Man - Nov 10, 2009
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  How long until some rogue group of attention seeking scientists say the bird was sent from the future to help sabotage the LHC before it can be run at full strength?
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• bhiestand - Nov 10, 2009
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  How long until some rogue group of attention seeking scientists say the bird was sent from the future to help sabotage the LHC before it can be run at full strength?

  
  They already did, this merely confirms their theory and shall prompt a new press release!
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• ac04605 - Nov 10, 2009
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  I attend a culinary college and french bread is well known for splintering the skin and throwing off your entire day. Glad to see I'm not the only one...
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• Truth - Nov 10, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
  I believe the reason there are so many negative comments concerning this report is that it is so implausible. After a century of electrical grid and power supply constructions, a bird dropping a piece of bread and "wounding" a massive 21st. century large hadron collider sounds VERY suspicious. I wonder if there isn't some other reason the system was affected, a reason that wouldn't go over very well with the people funding the project.
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• Alizee - Nov 11, 2009
  • Rank: 1 / 5 (1)

  It's the Higgs Boson reaching through time to avoid being detected?

  IMO Higgs boson was observed already as a dilepton channel of top-quark decay. From Standard model follows, the product of Higgs boson Yukawa coupling to the left- and right-handed top quarks have nearly the same rest mass (173.1±1.3 GeV/c2) like those predicted for Higgs boson (178.0 ± 4.3 GeV/c2). You can compare the way, in which Higgs is expected to be detected on LHC: Higgs boson decay and the way, in which top-quark pairs were detected already: top quark decay.
  
  http://www.hep.ma...-txt.gif
  
  http://www.physik..._new.jpg
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• Alizee - Nov 11, 2009
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  I wonder if there isn't some other reason the system was affected.

  I don't think so - it wouldn't be quite difficult to keep whole event in secret. I admit, the ways, in which whole LHC could be stopped are somewhat trivial in my eyes.
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• Tachyon8491 - Nov 12, 2009
  • Rank: 3 / 5 (1)
  Now Zargon, let's morph this robotic probe into the local avian variety they call "owl" and pass a hunk of that disgusting fare referred to as "baguette" will you? Next time we can use the "eagle" form and drop something a little more potent perhaps...
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• Magus - Nov 15, 2009
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  Where did the bread come from?
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• antialias_physorg - Nov 15, 2009
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  Is that important? Do you want to sue the bakery?
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• scratchydog - Nov 15, 2009
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  All your questions will be answered here http://cdsweb.cer.../47/News Articles/1221806?ln=en
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• scratchydog - Nov 15, 2009
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  Sry bad link try http://cdsweb.cer.../1221806
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