Need to Test the World's Largest Particle Accelerator? Try a
Ping-Pong Ball  By Megan Garber [optional image description]
CERN scientists introduce a ball into one of the LHC's two
vacuum pipes. (CERN)  The Large Hadron Collider, the largest and
highest-energy particle accelerator in the world -- the thing
some people once feared would destroy the Earth, and the thing
which so far has not -- is a complicated piece of machinery. It
is composed of eight straight sections joined together by eight
arcs -- 17 miles in circumference, in all -- and it features
more than 1,600 magnets that bend and focus beams of particles
as they travel close to the speed of light. Imagine all the
maintenance. And complicating things even more is the fact that
the LHC, when it's operating, does so at a temperature well
below freezing, which causes its many metal elements to contract
ever-so-slightly. Occasionally, the contraction leads to
equipment buckling and then bulging and, in turn, blocking
particle beams.  Which is not good,