Equipment failure at world's top particle accelerator

Oh well was it sabotage, or just that the pressure test was over the max limit expected by the guys at Fermilab?. IE: design error. Either way it will cost the European tax payer a whole lot more to put right. We are all strapped for cash and this may have to be the final reason to scrap the project.

Note to editor: Yet another spell check failure Fermilab rejected. Fermi lab Fermi-lab

offered up instead.

I was wondering why the pressure was set so high, and if it exceeded the design parameters. I cant see why the pressure would need to go so high.

Yes I always thought these systems worked under hard vacuum. May be they miss read the drawing. These high tech guys can some times get it really, really, wrong for all their knowledge of physics.

As with all media articles it pays to go to other sources and try to get all the pieces (as some are usually missing).

Here is another link which provides some more information.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/070403_cern_prob.html

There is another article I read somewhere but have lost the link. Apparently it was a normal operation simulation test only, the support just did not handle the force that would normally be exerted upon it during the operation of the collider.

Hurray for single stage commissioning testing.