When it comes to running a gigantic machine capable of ripping a hole in the space-time continuum that could suck the entire earth (and more) into oblivion, it’s probably safe to assume that you can never be too careful. This week was supposed to be the week that the Large Hadron Collider sent two proton beams careening at almost the speed of light in opposite directions on a literal crash course of scientific achievement.
However it seems that on Wednesday of this week, testing was “interrupted by the loss of electrical transformers that power the cryogenic cooling system, which chills the LHC’s superconducting magnets to 1.9C above absolute zero,” according to the Times. Everything’s now working again and the first protons should collide next week at 6% of the machine’s maximum power, followed by a 70% collision next month.