A bit of a baguette that was most likely dropped by a passing bird caused some of the magnets to malfunction shutting down the collider.

Some scientists have taken this event as further proof that nature itself is thwarting man's efforts to make this work.  Some have even suggested that the bird in question flew through time to drop its load in just the right place to halt the LHC in its tracks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599193737000;_ylt=AoKF.8R0ErD6h8Zm0Pjt3aKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTMzdDkxbGczBGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAwOTExMTEvMDg1OTkxOTM3MzcwMDAEY3BvcwMxMARwb3MDNwRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX2hlYWRsaW5lX2xpc3QEc2xrA2xhcmdlaGFkcm9uYw--

L

Regardless od whatever else changes in the world -- idiots abide.

I don't know which is weirder though, someone actually postulating that birds can travel through time to sabatoge an experiment at the direction of Gaia,

or that a Nine Billion Dollar construct can be rendered useless by a small piece of french bread.

I guess it proves, scientists cannot anticipate every possible outcome.

One has to wonder why a bird would be flying around inside the facility (open door/window).  If this was outside the facility and a bit of bread shorted out a system, what will happen in bad weather.  Now I'm starting to wonder if design by committee is a smart move .  Nine Billion dollars.

Ray 

 Shermer's Eskeptic had a mini debate about this today.  Not the bit of bread, but the wisdom of firing the machine all the way up... 

ESkeptic

The theory about the future not allowing the present to unleash a Higgs Boson is interesting as well.  I wonder why people assume the future would be so gentle as to have a bird drop a tiny piece of bread into the LHC?  Why not just make the sun blow up and eliminate any possibility we humans will build another LHC down the line? Just kidding...errrr...I hope so, anyway.

Scene at the next committee meeting:

Let's see now........................$9billion for everything called collider

............................................$14.99 screen windows

Ok, someone trot on over to Lowes and pick us up a 10' by 10' section of screen. Oh yeah, who brought the bagget down here.

To me it seems more like an act of sabotage, remember the spy that they just discovered a litle while ago that was working there?

I can't help but to think that there may be more involved than what they released to the press.

Dennis

Here is a recent article that made me smile.  The pictures of the LHC and its nemisis were a nice touch.  At first I thought that maybe the bird dropped its crusty burden on a bit of transformer outside the underground facility but it was in fact inside the underground compound.  Amazing.  I wonder if the next short will be due to a rat acting on Gaia's behalf?

Please note the link to an article about a girl wanting to do something before the LHC is fully operational and her fear that it destroys the world.

Got to love our species.

http://bread-news.newslib.com/story/7926-13834/

L

What was a bird doing ajacent to such a micro-temperature area in the first place?    Clearly the bird and bread must have been at a much lower temperature, or the air itself would have heated up the elements.    Presumably the air in that area couldn't be at livable temperatures.   How could the bird be alive let alone be dropping bread?   

Cryo-resistant birds !   

 In an article about the LHC, found here, the author talks about vacuum instability as a possible catastrophe from the LHC's experiments. How is this possible? I know there's stuff in the vacuum but the vacuum itself is nothingness, isn't it? how do you turn nothing into something?