Knocking on Heaven's Door - Lisa Randall [76]
Unfortunately, however, although European funding is more stable than that of the United States, unforeseen pressures introduced uncertainties for CERN’s finances as well. The budget for Germany, which contributes the most to CERN, suffered from the 1990 reunification. Germany therefore reduced its contributions to CERN, and, along with the United Kingdom, didn’t want to see any major increase in the CERN budget. Christopher Llewellyn Smith—the British theoretical physicist who succeeded the Nobel Prize—winning physicist Carlo Rubbia as CERN director general—was, like his predecessor, strongly supportive of the LHC. By acquiring funding from Switzerland and France, the two host states that stood to benefit the most from the LHC’s construction and operation in their home territory, Llewellyn Smith partially alleviated the serious budget issues.
The CERN Council was appropriately impressed—both with the technology and with the budget resolution—and approved the LHC soon afterward on December 16, 1994. Llewellyn Smith and CERN furthermore convinced nonmember states to join and participate. Japan came on board in 1995, India in 1996, and soon after Russia and Canada, with the United States following in 1997.
With all the contributions from Europe and other nations, the LHC could override a proviso in the original charter that called for construction and operation in two phases, the first of which would involve only two-thirds of the magnets. Both scientifically and in terms of total cost, the reduced magnetic field would have been a poor choice. But the original intention was to allow budgets to balance every year. In 1996, when Germany again reduced its contribution due to its reunification costs, the budget situation again looked grim. However, in 1997, CERN was allowed to compensate for the loss by financing construction with loans for the first time.
After the budget history lowdown, Lyn’s talk turned to more happy news. He described the first test string of dipoles—a test of magnets combined together in a workable configuration—that took place in December 1998. The successful completion of this test demonstrated the viability and coordination of several of the ultimate LHC components and was a critical milestone in its development.
In 2000, when LEP, the electron-positron collider, had run its course, it was dismantled to pave the way for LHC installation. Yet even though the LHC was ultimately built in a preexisting tunnel and used some of the staff, facilities, and infrastructure that were already in place, a lot of man-hours and resources would be necessary before the transformation from LEP to the LHC could occur.
The five phases of the LHC’s development included civil engineering to build caverns and structures for experiments, the installation of general services so that everything could run, the insertion of a cryogenic line to keep the accelerator cold, putting in place all the machine elements including the dipoles and all the associated connections and cables, and ultimately the commissioning of all the hardware to make sure everything worked as anticipated.
The CERN planners started off with a careful schedule to coordinate these construction phases. But as everyone knows, “the best laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” Needless to say, this applied all too well.
Budget issues were a constant nuisance. I remember the frustration and concern of the particle physics community in 2001 as we waited to find out how quickly some serious budget problems at the time could