Then they will shut down in late 2011 for about a year.

It is not busted, neither is this earthshattering news.

With over a year to go before planned downtime I am not quite sure what it is you would expect them to do?

While it is possible to follow and reconstruct the events leading to whatever information is out there, even within the documentation you provide it is clearly stated that there was no press release. The fact is that this all has to be reconstructed post hoc, and that is annoying.

I think the press and the public CAN manage to understand that this is a complex machine. They can even understand that “not working” or being off schedule is not the same thing as “broken” but is rather expected given the complexities. It almost seems like CERN wants to avoid directly dealing with what they may think others will always see as bad news.

The shutdown schedule, with the hugely long run at 7 TeV and a break before the upgrade (of some copper connectors, and various security) to the maximum 14 TeV, has been known since January 2010.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/lhc-1femtobarn-of-2x-35-tev-collisions.html
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/03/11/de-mystifying-the-lhc-shutdown/
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-03/10/don%27t-worry-the-large-hadron-collider-isn%27t-broken.aspx

It’s old information, not “news”, and moreover, it was a good news, not bad news, when it was news.

The LHC is doing well.

http://sify.com/news/large-hadron-collider-performing-well-news-international-kdjqaceibgc.html

It will start to collide at 7 TeV within two weeks or so. It’s an amazing energy, tripling the previous record, that is already likely to bring new discoveries pretty soon.

Cheers
Lumo

Stop the presses.

There is a notable discordance between the standard CERN outlets and the actual information, and it is a bit disconcerting to see CERN people blaming the fact that the press reported what was on their site without knowing about the other information as sloppy reporting.

The activities at CERN need not be some deeply hidden mystery that can only be known by investigative reporters!

I certainly did not mean to diss Brian Cox as some guy on twitter. What I mean by that is simply that a source (no matter who) on twitter poitning to something that points to something that indicates that there was a meeting at which something was said that utterly contradicts what the main web site says … is not well managed information and public outreach.

The initial test magnets they made were a lot better than the ones that came out of mass production. Why? No one was quite sure. There is also hysteresis in the magnets, there is some “conditioning” that goes on, magnets brought up to full power slowly seem to work better, exactly why is not clear.

I think they are doing the physics now at lower power (which is still higher than anything else can reach) in part so that people can get thesis work done.

The reporting on that announcement really was misleading.

And I wouldn’t dismiss Brian Cox as “some guy on Twitter”, he’s currently one of the better known scientists in the UK due to his efforts to promote public understanding of science, among other things. He also works at CERN, spends a lot of time explaining to people just what it is that they’re doing there, and is easily accessible to reporters.

The BBC (who seem to be among the initial culprits) had no excuse for messing up their article, after all Prof Cox actually does work for them as well. His 5-part series “Wonders of the Solar System” has just started on BBC 2.

If I were a reporter covering CERN-related stories he’s a resource I would not ignore.

Mind you I heard on the news that the LHC was trying to “recreate the Big Bang”. In that case I hope they get shut down before they succeed 🙂

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR13.09E.html