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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aye_sha90" data-source="post: 2903053" data-attributes="member: 11913">Mr Myers has experience of the latter problem. While working on the LHC's predecessor, a machine called the Large-Electron Positron Collider, engineers found two beer bottles wedged into the beam pipe - a deliberate, one-off act of sabotage. The culprits - who were drinking a particular brand that advertising once claimed would "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach" - were never found. After the beam makes one turn, engineers are due to "close the orbit", allowing the beam to circulate continuously around the LHC. Engineers will then try to "capture" it. The beam which circles the LHC is not continuous; it is composed of several packets - each about a metre long - containing billions of protons. The protons would disperse if left to their own devices, so engineers use electrical forces to "grab" them, keeping the particles tightly huddled in packets. Once the beam has been captured, the same system of electrical forces is used to give the particles an energetic kick, accelerating them to greater and greater speeds. After Wednesday's test, engineers will need to get two beams running in opposite directions around the LHC. They can then carry out collisions by smashing them together. Long haul The idea of the Large Hadron Collider emerged in the early 1980s. The project was eventually approved in 1996 at a cost of 2.6bn Swiss Francs, which amounts to about £1.3bn at present exchange rates. However, Cern underestimated equipment and engineering costs when it set out its original budget, plunging the lab into a cash crisis.Cern had to borrow hundreds of millions of euros in bank loans to get the LHC completed. The current price is nearly four times that originally envisaged. During winter, the LHC will be shut down, allowing equipment to be fine-tuned for collisions at full energy. "What's so exciting is that we haven't had a large new facility starting up for years," explained Dr Shears. "Our experiments are so huge, so complex and so expensive that they don't come along very often. When they do, we get all the physics out of them that we can." Engineers celebrated the success with champagne, but a certain brand of beer was not on the menu.</blockquote>

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