Pop goes the weasel and $7 billion Large Hadron Collider shuts down
Mankind’s biggest ever platform build to discover the God’s Particle was brought to its knees by a itsy bitsy weasel. The 17-mile Large Hadron Collider, built at a cost of $7 billion and designed to smash protons together close to the speed of light, was shut down after a furry creature chewed its way through the power cable.
When engineers investigated, they discovered the charred remains of the creature next to the cable. Arnaud Marsollier, a spokesperson for CERN, the company that run the collider, said: ‘We had electrical problems, and we are pretty sure this was caused by a small animal.’
The CERN authorities said that they’re still awaiting an in-depth analysis but prima facie, the animal is believed to be ‘a weasel’.
The fault comes at a time when the LHC was preparing to collect information on the Higgs Boson, a fundamental particle it discovered in 2012. The machine is expected to remain offline for a few days while CERN workers will strive to put it back in place.
Marsollier said these types of incidents are not isolated because they’re location, Switzerland, is surrounded by wild animals. Similar case happened in 2009, when a bird is believed to have dropped a baguette onto vital electrical systems.
