The Tevatron shut down yesterday. Before its duties were taken up by the the Large Hadron Collider, it accelerated highly charged particles through 6.4km of electromagnetic coil and vacuum tubes to discover the secrets of the universe. How do you turn a beast like that off?
Two buttons, both specially designed for the express purpose of saying goodbye to this once-great monster machine. The first, labelled BEAM, shut down the particle beam, and the second, labelled RAMP, killed the power. Huh, surprisingly simple. [Slate]