The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most complicated machine that was felled by a single faulty solder joint last month, won't be back until summer 2009 now, at the earliest—a few months later than CERN last speculated. And at what cost? $21 million in repairs. A drop in the bucket when the full $10 billion budget is considered, yes, but let's hope some of this dough is spent on a bit more magnet-meltdown-preventing solder redundancy. [AP]
DISCUSSION
This is ridiculous. I built my small hadron collider with off the shelf parts, plus a Ron Popiel Pocket Fisherman for true Rube Goldergian controls, for a grand total of $72.95
And the only thing it did was create a small black hole that made a hissing noise for about 10 seconds, and then Tom Servo's ass got stuck and stopped the leak. Humanity saved by robot buttocks once again.