WHAT EXPERTS SAY
The following was posted on the Misunderstood Universe web-site by its authors:
On Tuesday, March 27, 2007, there was a devastating explosion deep in the tunnel at the CERN particle accelerator complex that actually blew a 20 ton magnet right off its mountings. The explosion filled the tunnel with helium and forced a mass evacuation of the facility.
While the facility was supposed to go online during the summer of 2007, the new startup is tentatively summer of 2008 after 17 miles of magnets have been repaired or replaced. This explosion, to those of us who count ourselves among the worried masses, appears to be an ominous foreshadowing of what could eventually become the Second-Coming of the Big Bang...
Even Dr. Lyn Evans, who heads the accelerator project at CERN, said the explosion had been potentially very dangerous. "There was a hell of a bang, the tunnel housing the machine filled with helium and dust and we had to call in the fire brigade to evacuate the place," he said. "The people working on the test were frightened to death but they were all in a safe place so no-one was hurt."
An investigation by the researchers found that basic math flaws had caused the explosion -- which gives one pause in contemplating how much faith can be bestowed upon 6,000 scientists who can overlook basic math mistakes. Not only was this mistake made in the original design phase, but it was also missed on four engineering reviews carried out over a period of four years. The director of Fermilab, Pier Oddone, blithely wrote about the disaster stating that they had caused "a pratfall on the world stage". A “pratfall”? Should these Keystone-scientists be entrusted with the fate of the world in their hands?