A newsLETTER blog about life for Sarah, Stephen and Alexandria Padre in Our Nation's Capital

Nov 30, 2009

Blame the baguette

In early September 2008, I wrote a post ("The end of Geneva - and the world - as we know it?") on our Africa blog (now closed) about how switching on the Hadron Collider, outside our old home of Geneva, was possibly going to spell the end of the entire world. The concern by some scientists was that in trying to replicate the Big Bang - the origins of our universe - with this enormous atom smasher, the process of Creation would end as quickly as it began by creating a giant black hole that would swallow the earth and bring inhalation to humankind. No small thing, mind you. No "Oops, I guess that was the wrong thing to build. Can we try it again differently next time?"

But because I'm still able to write blog entries, that obviously did not happen. Another item for my Thanksgiving list last week of things that I'm thankful for.

However, in early November this year, there was a somewhat humorous story out of CERN, the scientific facility where this large atom smasher is housed. It seems that this machine, among the most complex scientific instruments ever built by humankind, at the cost of many years of work and many billions of dollars, was sidetracked by a small, insignificant object: a piece of bread. Here is a news report about the incident:

Peckish bird briefly downs big atom smasher

(AFP) – Nov 9, 2009

GENEVA — A peckish bird briefly knocked out part of the world's biggest atom smasher by causing a chain reaction with a piece of bread, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Monday.

Bits of a French loaf dropped on an external electrical power supply caused a short circuit last week, triggering fail-safe devices that shut down part of the cooling system of the giant experiment to probe the secrets of the universe, CERN said.

The system was restored several hours after the incident last Tuesday while the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was barely affected, a spokeswoman said.

"The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread," CERN said in a statement.

"On Tuesday 3 November, a bird carrying a baguette bread caused a short circuit in an electrical outdoor installation that serves sectors 7-8 and 8-1 of the LHC," it added.

"The knock-on effects included an interruption to the operation of the LHC cryogenics system."

The 27 kilometre-long (17 mile) particle collider, which runs in a circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border near the city of Geneva, has been plagued by problems since it was briefly started up in September 2008.

However, CERN said the latest incident was minor and did not affect attempts to restart the accelerator later this month following repairs.

"It made for a small warming from absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius, minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Celsius scale to minus 268 degrees but the machine was not stopped," CERN spokesman Renilde Vanden Broek told AFP.

"Everything returned to normal a few hours later and operations were able to resume in the night of November 5," she added.

Designed to shed light on the origins of the universe, the LHC at CERN took nearly 20 years to complete and cost six billion Swiss francs (3.9 billion euros, 4.9 billion dollars) to build.

The bird was believed to be an owl.

(end)

In other words, the process of discovering the origins of our universe, the most profound question ever asked, was thwarted by a simple French baguette. Moral of the story: Baguettes are bad. Or: Don't feed the birds. What brings down one of the biggest and most complex pieces of science equipment that humankind has ever built? Nature and the humble and common baguette. Remember that it was a nature again - an iceburg - that sunk the Titanic. The real moral of the story: Don't mess with nature. Also, in investigating nature, you just may destroy exactly what you're seeking when you create that black hole that's going to swallow the whole planet in an instant.

Thankfully, however, that group over at CERN is better than rocket scientists, and the other day they were able to fire up this puppy and break a record (whatever that means, i.e., what the significance of this is, I do not know). With a news release from CERN itself, there was a photo, and front and center in that photo was our good friend from church in Geneva, Jeff Steinhagen, one of those brilliant scientists who helps to adjust all the knobs and dials on this machine. Way to go, Jeff! (Apparently breaking this record was big enough that Jeff had to call his wife and wake her up at midnight to tell her the news.) Just don't destroy us all in trying to break new records, okay? And put down that forkful of fondue you're eating - you may cause that machine to malfunction again!

Nov 22, 2009

Busy, Busy

Obviously, we are busy! Too busy to post anything to the blog anyway. What have we been up to?

House projects-weatherizing doors, considering changing thermostats, still unpacking and rearranging furniture, hanging some things up on the walls, buying cabinets/shelving for storage space. We also hung curtains in our room which now really helps to cut out the morning sun. While most of the house faces west, it is still very light in the morning. Plus the usual cleaning, cooking, lawn mowing, car washing, etc.

We have also done some cultural things including concerts and memorials. And did we write about driving through the Shenandoah Valley on Skyline Drive? I can't remember if we did or not - but it was gorgeous. Lots of beautiful leaves and vistas. We would highly recommend it.

Work is also keeping us busy - though maybe me more than Stephen. Our fiscal year ended Sept 30 so we are going through year-end now. It's the quickest close I have ever experienced...and there is still a lot to clean up, I would say. But that means Jan-March should be pretty calm.

We are also starting to get more involved at church. I have joined the choir and am enjoying singing in a group again. Stephen will probably be helping out with their communication stuff - there is a lot that can be improved there. Lexi is going to the nursery during the service and seems to be adjusting to that. She definitely likes coffee hour afterwards.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving. Lexi is looking forward to the airplane ride and Mom to seeing her family and seeing how the girls interact. Stephen will seek advice from the guys on some of our house projects. We leave Wednesday very early (6:20 AM flight!) to MSP through Detroit. My brother's family has generously agreed to host again. I hope we can convince everyone to come east next year so we can host. We have the room!