The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has suffered some setbacks in recent months, but they aren't letting that hold them back:
CERN has announced that the Large Hadron Collider will switch on in May 2008, with collisions at full energy starting in summer 2008.
"We'll be starting up for physics in May 2008, as always foreseen, and will commission the machine to full energy in one go," said LHC project leader Lyn Evans.
Of course, they're currently working to repair a magnet that was damaged during a pressure test, so starting on schedule will mean some corners have to be cut. Specifically, they're cancelling the "engineering run":
Although repair of the faulty magnet is currently in progress, CERN spokesperson James Gillies told Physics Web earlier this month that the delay would force CERN to cancel the low-energy "engineering run", which was scheduled to take place in November. The machine's operators were planning to use the low-energy run as an opportunity to gain experience steering the protons and detecting collisions before high-energy collisions take place.
They're just going to turn everything on, and hope for the best. Because that usually works.
Good luck with that.
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Interesting. I'm here at CERN and everyone I talk to is saying at least 2009, and that's being optimistic. I also heard a rumor about someone who looked at the history of delays and pushbacks and extrapolated an operational date of 2011, but that could have been just us students joking around.
2009 sounds much more realistic to me. I suspect that there's political pressure to stay on schedule, given the vast sums of money involved, and there's probably some risk that a postponement would cause exploding heads in theorists around the world, but I don't really believe that they're just going to turn the thing on, and have everything work right on schedule.
Mike:
Interesting. I'm here at CERN and everyone I talk to is saying at least 2009, and that's being optimistic. I also heard a rumor about someone who looked at the history of delays and pushbacks and extrapolated an operational date of 2011, but that could have been just us students joking around.
I don't work on physics big iron prototypes, but I do work on engineering big iron prototypes. And there's always a distinct difference between the fantasies that the program managers and directors put out there for their own managers and customers... and the reality known by the grunts down in engineering integrate and test.
My current project (which, having shot itself in the feet many times is now hobbling along on bloody ankle-stumps but is Too Important To Die) is very much like that. At six months behind schedule(*) in Januray for a February delivery, I still saw people claiming we were going to pull it all out of the hat at the last minute.
Needless to say this didn't happen. Needless to say, our scheduling techniques have not changed.
No one will admit to blowing a deadline until it's actually past. Usually by two weeks. This is almost certainly more of the same. Find the oldest, crustiest, longest-haired, feet-up-on-the-desk kinda guy you can tolerate without slashing your wrists (e.g., not one who is so fatalistic that he predicts everyone is going to be fired at the end of the year... every year) and get his opinion. Then add three months.
* I would say two months behind schedule because it was two months behind what engineering design stipulated before someone arbitrarily took four months away from us....
You didn't really need those four months, John, you guys were just slacking...