We've certainly seen our fair share of crackpot theories regarding the Large Hadron Collider, and quite frankly the whole thing is becoming rather old hat. That said, when the New York Times comes up with something as far out as this, we most certainly have to share it with you. It seems that way back in July, 2007 two theoretical physicists (Danish string theory pioneer Holger Bech Nielsen and the Japanese physicist Masao Ninomiya), proposed an unlikely explanation as to why the LHC and the Superconducting Supercollider before it seem to be particularly accident prone. According to science writer Dennis Overbye, the Higgs boson (which the collider has been designed to observe) "might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather." Makes sense, right? Of course, we don't have any idea how these elementary particles might actually conduct the business of destroying equipment, but that hasn't stopped the duo from proposing a novel way to test this theory.

According to a paper published earlier this month, a simple deck of cards could be made, either out of construction paper or, if you're feeling high tech, simulated on a computer. The deck would have one card indicating that the LHC should be shut down, and a much larger number of cards (maybe 100 million or so) that indicate that everything is good to go. If you draw the death card, as it were, you can bet that the shadowy hand of the Higgs boson is stretching back in time, telling you to halt the operation. Between all this and the proposed hyperdrive propulsion tests we came across a couple days ago, things are starting to get very Philip K. Dick over at CERN. Can we make one suggestion? Instead of a random number generator, why not Tarot cards? Or a Ouija board? You know, go for a Halloween vibe.

[Via New Scientist]

After a series of setbacks, delays, and potential world-ending mishaps, it seems that the scientists at CERN have decided to take it easy with the Large Hadron Collider, and have announced that they plan to operate it at an energy of 3.5 TeV (or trillion electron volts) per beam when they start it up again in November of this year. If that goes well, they'll then cautiously ramp things up to 5 TeV per beam, before starting to shoot for a full 7 TeV per beam by the end of 2010. So, mark your calendars... while you still can.

Still undecided about what to do with those precious few months before the biggest doomsday since Y2K? Then you're in luck, 'cause the much anticipated / feared restart of the Large Hadron Collider has now been delayed yet again, almost exactly a month after the last delay. This time it looks like a couple of vacuum leaks are the culprit, and CERN says that the collider is now unlikely to restart before mid-November, which just so happens to coincide with the peak of the Leonids meteor shower. Coincidence? Yes, yes it is.

Is it possible that shoddy workmanship has once again saved the planet from an untimely demise? Not really, but this next tale should give our paranoiac readers plenty to mull over regardless. CERN has recently released pics of damage wrought when an electrical fault caused a liquid helium leak a mere nine days after the Large Hadron Collider started smashing atoms in September, wrecking interconnects between the magnets in sectors three and four. According to CNET, the doomsday machine will be out of commission until at least summer of 2009. So breathe a sigh of relief, little ones... and pray that the grey goo or the replicant hordes don't get us in the meantime. Hit the read link for all the pics.

Those already fearful of the Large Hadron Collider's potential Earth-ending capabilities may want to turn away for this one, as it looks like the situation has managed to get a bit more perilous, with a team of hackers apparently successful in mounting an attack on a system that is "one step away" from the computer system that controls of one of the LHC's massive detectors. According to The Telegraph newspaper, the group, calling itself the "Greek Security Team," left behind a half a dozen files on the system and damaged one CERN file, in addition to displaying the page above on the cmsmon.cern.ch website, which still remained inaccessible as of Friday. Somewhat disconcertingly, one of the scientists working at CERN simply described the incident as a "scary experience," with a CERN spokesperson further adding that they thought it was just someone "making the point that [the system] was hackable." Um, okaaaay.

[Via CNET News]

Hello? Tap, tap, tap, this thing on?

CERN's $9 billion, 17-mile long atom smasher was just turned on and we're awaiting reports on how the tests have gone. The Large Hadron Collider did experience "small electrical problems" overnight. However, these were not expected to delay the first test firing at 9:30am CEST. As such, the clockwise and counter-clockwise firing of particles should already be in progress.

Remember, no smashing will be done today, for that we'll have to wait until later this month. We'll update you here as things progress.

09:49 -- Confirmed, the first beam of protons has been fired! It took 48-seconds for the pulse to generate and then a tiny flash of light on a computer screen indicated a successful firing around the first 3-km of the 27-km ring -- they will methodically extend the range throughout the day.

10:25 -- The beam just completed the full ring (in stages) in less than an hour. Things are going much more quickly than expected. Counterclockwise test next.

12:18 -- CERN estimates that the LHC will be fully operational for physics work in the next few months. Added NASA-like video of the reaction to the full-loop, first beam success after the break (watch for two flashes on the left-most screen).

Note: Insert, the following string into VLC to watch live: mms://qstream-live.qbrick.com/00862live80910

Read -- small electrical issues
Read -- webcast (currently down)
Read -- First beam fired