Hadron Collider Fails

The particle accelerator had only succeeded in firing test beams before a fault in the cooling system forced engineers to halt the experiment in order to examine the failure.

The problem, which is called a ‘quench’, consisted of liquid helium leaking from the pipes into the tunnel, which caused the magnets to overheat and vacuum conditions to be lost.

The experiment aims to explore many scientific theories, among which is the search for the ‘Higgs Boson’ particle which has yet to be found and explains gravity. In order to do so, it aims to re-create conditions before the Big Bang, which will allow scientists to observe particles. The current model of the atom is unreliable and only explains a minority of its functions, so this experiment could revolutionize the current theories.

The Hadron Collider was due to begin smashing particles together in an attempt to re-create the big bang next week, but a spokesperson for the experiment stated yesterday that it “would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stage the first trial collisions next week in light of the recent faults.”

So the possibility that the world will disappear in a man-made black hole is thankfully delayed for a little longer.