All the bark and no bite because of a helium leak. How unfortunate we must wait longer to unravel the secrets of our reality.

A little recap. The LHC took a time out in September.. nine days after it was first fully powered up. The culprit… a helium leak caused by an electrical fault. The world’s most powerful particle accelerator is designed to crash protons into each other to test fundamental physics theories and help understand the nature of matter and what makes up all that is real to us. The machine is located at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) and extends into France and Switzerland.

The accelerator operations group at CERN has two possible plans to fire up the LHC. According to document Jorg Weninger, a member of the operations group, “Plan A” is to get the action going by late summer 2009, with the beam energy and intensity limited to avoid another accident. “Plan B” delayed switching on the beam until there had been a complete upgrade to the pressure-relief system. Under plan b the LHC wouldn’t be rockin’ and rollin’ until 2010.

Frustrating when so much is at stake here. Stay Deviant.