The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.Hey, Hey, I feel the physicists' pain. Neighbours feed pigeons, squirrels, and feral cats - and guess what? They become a nuisance.
It's one of the most expensive and technologically-complex machines in the world, but that didn't prevent the Large Hadron Collider from coming a cropper thanks to our feathered friends.
The £4.4 billion 'God Machine' overheated after a passing bird dropped a piece of bread into a high voltage installation which was powering a cooling unit.
Scientists looking into a failure of the cryogenic cooling plant found a piece of baguette had caused the malfunction.
You gotta see the bird here with a mouth crammed with - I would say - too much bread. But birds don't have teeth or shopping bags and - Collider? - I guess the bird would only be interested in getting the bread back or maybe getting a whole baguette.
