A peckish bird briefly knocked out part of the world’s biggest atom smasher by causing a chain reaction with a piece of bread, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has announced.
Bits of a French loaf dropped on an external electrical power supply caused a short circuit last week, triggering failsafe devices that shut down part of the cooling system of the giant experiment to probe the secrets of the universe, CERN said.
The system was restored several hours after the incident. The multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was barely affected, a spokeswoman said.
“The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread,” CERN said in a statement.
“On Nov. 3, a bird carrying a baguette bread caused a short circuit in an electrical outdoor installation that serves sectors 7-8 and 8-1 of the LHC,” it added.
“The knock-on effects included an interruption to the operation of the LHC cryogenics system.”
The 27km-long particle collider, which runs in a circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border near the city of Geneva, has been plagued by problems since it was briefly started up in September 2008.
However, CERN said the latest incident was minor and did not affect attempts to restart the accelerator later this month following repairs.
“Everything returned to normal a few hours later and operations were able to resume in the night of Nov. 5,” she added.
Designed to shed light on the origins of the universe, the LHC at CERN took nearly 20 years to complete and cost six billion Swiss francs (US$4.9 billion) to build.
The bird was believed to be an owl.
(AFP)
歐洲核子研究組織（簡稱CERN）表示，一隻肚子有點餓的小鳥掉落的一小塊麵包引發連鎖反應 ，導致世上最大的強子對撞機暫停運作。
CERN表示，上週用來探究宇宙奧秘的大型強子對撞機發生短路，原因是法國麵包碎屑掉落在外部供電設施上，觸發安全故障裝置，導致部份冷卻系統停止運轉。
一位女發言人表示，系統在事故發生數小時後便恢復正常運作。這座花費數十億美元打造的大型強子對撞機幾乎沒有受到影響。
CERN在一份聲明中表示：「這隻鳥兒安全脫身，但沒了麵包。」
聲明中還指出：「十一月三日那天，一隻啣著一塊法國棍子麵包的鳥兒，造成供應大型強子對撞機7-8和8-1區電力的戶外電力設施短路。」
「連鎖反應連帶造成大型強子對撞機的低溫系統中斷運作。」
這座長二十七公里的粒子對撞機，在法國和瑞士交界（鄰近日內瓦市）地底的一條圓形隧道內運轉；該對撞機自二ＯＯ八年九月短暫啟動以來一直狀況連連。
然而CERN表示，最近這起事故相當輕微，經維修後，並未影響本月稍晚加速裝置重新啟動的計畫。
她還說：「數小時後一切便恢復正常，並於十一月五日晚間重新運作。」
CERN為了揭開宇宙起源，費時近二十年、耗資六十億瑞士法郎（四十九億美元）才建造完成這座大型核子對撞機。
據信那隻鳥兒是隻貓頭鷹。
（法新社╱翻譯：袁星塵）
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