Setback as ‘big bang’ experiment shut down

 A CHADDERTON-born physicist involved in the world’s most powerful particle experiment will have to wait until next year to see any results after a costly setback.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), near Geneva, which was set to re-create the early conditions of the universe, has been shut down until next spring after a large amount of helium leaked into the tunnel housing the £3.6 billion particle accelerator.

However, Professor Brian Cox (39), a former Hulme Grammar School for Boys pupil and one of Britain’s leading experts in particle physics, and other scientists are determined to overcome the problems.

The 27km-long LHC was turned off last Friday, less than 10 days after its successful switch on.

Initial particle beam injections were successfully carried out as part of the experiment to re-create the conditions in the first billionth of a second after the “Big Bang”.

The first high-energy collisions were due to take place on October 21.

But investigations by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern), which is running the experiment, suggested a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator’s magnets could be to blame for the fault.

Robert Aymar, director general of Cern, said: “The success of the LHC’s first operation with beam is testimony to years of painstaking preparation and the skill of the teams involved in building and running Cern’s accelerator complex.

“I have no doubt that we will overcome this setback with the same degree of rigour and application.”