🧵 Fun stories about expensive science/engineering projects ruined by surprising causes
If you have more such stories, please share them!
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CERN's LHC, a multi-billion dollar project, was put on pause because of damage to a 66kV high-voltage transformer.
The damage was caused by a weasel and took days to repair, putting the LHC operations at rest during that time.
In 2009 the LHC was taken out by what was suspected to be a bird, though no remains were found.
🐄🍪 An Intel Fab in Arizona was seeing a sharp decline in yields when producing their chips at night.
Engineers were really puzzled why between 1 and 2AM the yields were so bad.
Turned out that at night, the direction of the wind was changing. Methane, from cow farts from nearby dairy farms, ended up in the cleanrooms via the air conditioners.
Intel didn't figure out how to solve the problem, so they just paid the three neighbouring farms to move.
@fj can’t boost cause of awful AI picture. Would have otherwise.
Edit: changed “art” in original post to “picture” because it AI slop doesn’t deserve the term “art.”
@fj oh this story reminds me of the semiconductor grade glass factory I was working at for awhile, where an issue Intel was having with our parts was hypothetically linked to the constant garbage smell emanating from the nearby landfills in “Smellypitas” where our plant was operating (Milpitas)
@fj interesting idea for thread; not finding the source/reference for the above… (search engines these days..)
@RuthMalan All I found was a YouTube video from Marc Hijink, author of The ASML Way, from the DIGITIMES Asia account
@paul @RuthMalan The story was relayed in his ASML book :)
@fj That is what I figured. @RuthMalan