Timeline for particle collider in doubt

USA Today: The world's most ambitious particle collider — which scientists hope could reveal what matter is made of — might not be fully functional until next year, months after its scheduled start-up date, officials at the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Thursday. Scientists have been scrambling to redesign a key U.S.-built part of the collider — located in a tunnel deep beneath the Swiss and French countryside outside Geneva — that broke "with a loud bang and a cloud of dust" during a high-pressure test for the collider last month. Officials at the organization, known by the French initials CERN, said the possible delays are the result of the magnet failure and cooling processes that have been slower than expected for the 17-mile tunnel. The aim of the CERN experiment is to make subatomic particles — in this case protons — travel at nearly the speed of light until they collide, emitting a shower of even smaller particles that will reveal mysteries about the makeup of matter. "It's possible now, even likely that the November date will fall off the map and we will be going straight into high energy running next spring," CERN spokesman James Gillies said. "We're mostly there, actually. There are problems happening here and there and it would be strange if there weren't at a project of this magnitude."