There’s never a dull moment for the team at CERN. Once you’ve managed to accelerate a proton beam to 99.99 per cent the speed of light, you could be forgiven for wanting to sit back and contemplate the mysteries of the Universe. But first you’ve got to work out what to do with a stream of energy that could destroy the LHC far more effectively than any amount of dodgy soldering.

Each beam has the force to do significant damage to the magnets of CERN’s rather expensive machine. For up to 12 hours this energy is propelled around the accelerator, producing up to 600 million colliding protons a second. But at the end of this cycle scientists have to extract the remaining protons and safely dispose of their energy. Their solution? A series of magnets, two enormous graphite blocks and a timeframe counted in seconds.

This elaborate process takes place via two tunnels that connect to the accelerator. As the beams complete their final circuit, a kicker magnet pushes them out of their well-worn path and away from the forces that guided them around it. Another magnet then steers them into a straight line down the tunnels. Energy levels are still dangerously high so the beams pass through dilution magnets. These weaken the beam’s intensity by fanning it out into a shape that vaguely resembles an “e”.

The beam now approaches its final destination: an 8m-long, cylindrical block of graphite enclosed in a concrete case. These practically named beam dump blocks absorb the brunt of the energy, preventing the LHC from wreaking havoc on itself. One stands ready at the end of each transfer tunnel.

CERN estimates that each block will last for 20 years. Their chance of failure is vanishingly small. Graphite is the only material with a low enough density and high enough melting point to absorb the beam’s drill-like intensity. Even so, the team fans the beam out in order to prevent it boring cheese-like holes into the block. During the beam’s last stand, the graphite heats up to more than 700C.

In just 100 microseconds the whole thing is over. This gives the scientists almost 12 hours to ponder life’s secrets before it’s time to get ready for the next round.

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