Australian news source The Age is reporting that copper connectors will be the reason the Large Hadron Collider will close for a year's worth of repair. "Scientists have discovered that copper connectors are unlikely to handle the maximum output and so will close the machine at the end of 2011 to fix the connectors," the news agency reported, adding that the particle accelerator will run at half power until that time.
The Age quoted a director within the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) as saying, "We are pushing technologies towards their limits."
Other than that they are copper, there is no immediate word on exactly what connector types have been deemed unfit for the task.
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