LHC started overheating when a cooling unit cut out
The cause was quickly established - a bird apparently dropped a piece of baguette on a high voltage cooling unit - conjectures that it was thrown out of a passing airplane are clearly false: you can't get actual edible french bread on airplanes.
how freakishly unlikely is that...?
ok, so there are thousands of people working on a huge installation covering an area of hundreds of square kilometers, and a perimeter of tens of kilometers, with hundreds of points of vulnerability with thens of thousands of independent failure modes...
But, how freakishly unlikely IS that?
What I want to know is: where is the bird?
We're supposed to believe it just left the baguette?
That's good stuff that is.
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Would this not count as a `small thermal exhaust port only 2 meters wide'?
The bird turned off the targeting computer?
Now, how unlikely is that???
Well, if the next time LHC is disabled by an Oh My God particle hitting the power distribution unit 10 seconds before protons are injected, then it's definitely the time to evacuate this universe.
Clearly birds are inimical to physics research. First they leave white dielectric material all over the radio telescopes, now they break the particle accelerators with dropped pieces of baguettes...