The Gates of Hell

Source: Reuters

Repairing the giant particle collider built to simulate the “Big Bang” could cost up to 35 million Swiss francs ($29 million), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Friday.

Announcing a further delay to the Large Hadron Collider’s resumption, now expected in summer, CERN spokesman James Gillies said repairs will cost 15 million Swiss francs, and spare parts would cost another 10-20 million Swiss francs.

The massive collider, the largest and most complex machine ever made, has already cost 10 billion Swiss francs to build, supported by CERN’s 20 European member states and other nations including the United States and Russia.

“We will not be going to our member states asking for more money, we will deal with it within the current CERN budget,” Gillies said.

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Technorati Tags: Large Hadron Collider

This doomsday producing supercollider is back in the news again. See Scientists seek to quell doomsday fears over atom-smasher

Source: wnd.com

A European court says the idea a new supercollider project could create a “celestial vacuum” and eventually consume the Earth is worth discussing, but the project can move forward on schedule anyway.

At dispute is what could happen should planned experiments at the supercollider built near Geneva by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, go awry when the massive atomic particle smasher is fired up about this time next week.

Several scientists led by spokesman Otto Rossler, a German chemist, have filed a case in the European Court of Human Rights seeking a delay in the project’s opening while the potential problems are studied further.

Rossler said in a report in the Telegraph that the sponsoring organization has admitted its work will create black holes – but it doesn’t think that will be a risk. He has another opinion.

“My own calculations have shown it is quite plausible that these little black holes survive and will grow exponentially and eat the planet from the inside. I have been calling for CERN to hold a safety conference to prove my conclusions wrong but they have not been willing,” he said.

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