Scientists Searching for Secrets of the Universe Instead Find Large Explosion

You know how we're always blathering at you about the Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland that's going to smack protons together at nearly the speed of light to find the fundamental components of the universe?

Well, it blew up the other day.

Not that it's totally destroyed or anything, and nobody was hurt, but...apparently the designers forgot to carry the two or something. Turns out the physicists were tampering with forces beyond their understanding!

The asymmetric force generated by the pressure of the test broke the supports in magnet Q1 that hold the magnet’s cold mass inside the cryostat, which also resulted in damage to the electrical connections.

[snips]

The magnet supports are made of a material called G-11, a glass cloth-epoxy laminate. The specifications for the magnet designate 20 atmospheres as the design pressure criterion and 25 atmospheres as the acceptance test criterion. However, computer-aided engineering calculations completed independently by
Fermilab and CERN on March 28 show that the G-11 support structure in the magnets was inadequate to withstand the associated longitudinal forces. CERN and Fermilab now know that this is an intrinsic design flaw that must be addressed in all triplet magnets assembled at
Fermilab.

Allow me to translate: Oops. We built an accelerator more powerful than the bits that hold the accelerator together. And we didn't realize it even though we had four design reviews.

Everyone in a particular section of the LHC had to evacuate; it filled with helium gas. Now they're shut down.

Hey, science is hard. These things happen. Glad no one was hurt. Glad they didn't accidentally destroy the universe.

Big Bang at the Atomic Lab After Scientists Get Their Maths Wrong. The Sunday Times

Fermilab Update on Inner Triplet Magnets at the LHC. CERN press release

The God Particle and the Grid. Wired

What is the Large Hadron Collider? Wired