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Published online 17 October 2008 | 455, 1015 (2008) | doi:10.1038/4551015a

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Eight-month delay for LHC

Broken magnets put particle collider in limbo.

Geoff Brumfiel

Details of last month's accident at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's premier particle accelerator, are emerging — and confirm that the machine will not restart before late May or early June 2009.

Officials at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, say that the time is needed to overhaul a sector of the 27-kilometre-long machine, after an electrical failure on 19 September caused some 6 tonnes of ultra-cold liquid helium to leak into its tunnel.

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  • "Not including labour and the spares, the work will cost an estimated 100,000 Swiss francs (US$90,000)." So what is there besides labour and materials; shipping and handling? Thanks for the link to the preliminary accident report.

    • 21 Oct, 2008
    • Posted by: Douglas H. Borsom

  • This comment has been removed by the moderator

    • 22 Oct, 2008
    • Posted by: Oliver Manuel