back to article Boffins riot as Hadron Collider upgrade is delayed

Budget cuts are forcing international science alliance CERN to postpone upgrades to the most potent particle-punisher currently operated by the human race - the subterranean Large Hadron Collider (LHC) outside Geneva. CERN has also been compelled to temporarily shut down other accelerators, and has seen "protests" from boffins …

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  1. codemonkey
    FAIL

    Driving with the brakes on...

    Just more evidence that the current system, capitalism, is holding humanity back.

    Research budgets cut...so we'll have to wait for our time travelling hover boots then?

    1. Cameron Colley

      Hugo Boss suits all around then!!!

      Quick! Let's kill a few people and steal their property so we can /almost/ invent the atomic bomb and make a few basic missiles!

      Or were you referring to the great science breakthroughs made in the USSR during the years of communism like, erm, something I'm sure*?

      *Yes, I know something was bound to have been discovered or invented, but you could hardly call it worth the reducing of most of the population to a life of drudgery akin to slavery worth it.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        FAIL

        Despite the late hour

        I'm refraining from my first epithet. Please don't confuse invention with commercialisation. There was plenty of invention in the Soviet Union.

  2. Toastan Buttar
    Alert

    Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated

    "Hey, where's Pery?"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    They're looking in the wrong place anyway

    They should to go looking in the cafeteria for the so called God particle - start in the pepper pots.

    After all, everyone knows that the universe was sneezed into existence.

  4. NHS IT guy
    Troll

    Seriously

    It can't be *just me* who reads the name of this place as the 'large hardon collider', or is my mind elsewhere? Either way, almost chocked on my lunch,,,,

  5. Velv
    Coat

    Turn up The Big Red Knob

    "now up and running with beam energies of 3.5 tera-electron-volts (TeV), half the design maximum of 7TeV"

    Surely the design maximum is 11 ?

  6. Rogerborg
    Jobs Horns

    #logicfail

    Options:

    1) Spend nothing, find nothing.

    2) Spend half what you need to find anything, find nothing.

    Thank Dawkins that they used Science! to find the most efficient use of resources.

  7. Richard 23
    Coffee/keyboard

    Splendid stuff Lewis...

    But you owe me a new keyboard for "elusive deiton"

  8. zenkaon

    @NHS IT guy

    Oh, you must mean:

    http://largehardoncollider.com/

    1. NHS IT guy
      Troll

      Yes...

      Something like that, but I'm sure it was in movie form....

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What will they do...

    if they dont find the elusive particle with this toy?

    Sort of reminds me of Deep Thought!!!

  10. kneedragon

    No good will come.

    How did Wowbanger the Infinitely Prolonged get started again? Something about a cup of tea, pop sticks, rubber bands and boredom, wasn't it?

    Douglas, Elvis doesn't really love you! Please come back and sort this lot out for us.

  11. Daniel von Asmuth
    Black Helicopters

    Doomsday machine

    Will CERN finish the LHC upgrade in 2012 as predicted by the ancient Maya people?

  12. M Gale

    Deiton

    The Higgs Boson and all such related particles must be referred to with this moniker from now on.

  13. Luther Blissett

    re 'God particle' - a slight terminological inexactitude?

    Shurely 'Flying Spaghetti Monster particle', because (1) it flies about (apparently), (2) it's (probably) quantum entangled somewhere just now, and (3) it's such a whopper you have to look thru the wrong end of a telescope to see it.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Porn vs. News

    Lewis, I'm not sure about your claim that Greatest Living Briton Tim Berners-Lee devastated the porn industry by inventing the interweb.

    News services might have suffered, I don't really know, but the internet has turned out to be a goldmine for smut barons.

  15. FozzyBear
    Thumb Up

    Where, What title

    "In that case the consequences were no more serious than global devastation of the porn and news industries. But things could be a great deal worse this time"

    If you know your history of BOFH, you will know there is nothing more dangerous than a bored techie, but with the possibility of heralding in a whole new era of smut surfing I am willing to take the risk

  16. Michael Noonan
    Alert

    No risk oh really

    From the article "Obviously concerns that the LHC might destroy the world, unleash some form of interdimensional portal invasion etc are baseless".

    The most important duty of the teckkies is to keep the beam on track.

    Risk in ten easy steps:-

    1 Nuclear fusion of hydrogen gas by energy beam, proven.

    2 Lots of energy in beam of aging under funded facility. presumably the point of the article.

    3 Grumpy scientists searching job ads (or protesting) not keeping eye on the job.

    4 Beam with several mile punching power.

    5 Lake Geneva in range (or wet earth aquifer under Geneva).

    6 Thousands of tonnes of nuclear fuel to fuse when reaction gets going.

    7 Blast to shake the planet (like slapping a soggy pudding cos most of it is molten).

    8 Oceans slop around for a while and London gets a soaking.

    9 Combine captured carbon in lake mixes with nitrogen in air to form cyanide (many types non-toxic)

    10 Glucose sugar shortages fail to offset long term cyanide health effects like paralysis.

    No risk. Sure apples and almonds and cassava fruit carry small doses of cyanide and pose little risk. Industrial chemical prussian blue (dark blue) is a cyanide. Stock up on the sweets, floaties and don't drink the blue liquid.

    1. M Gale

      You get +1

      Mostly for describing an earth-shaking kaboom as "like slapping a soggy pudding".

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