The Toyota Motor Company today announced it is expanding its recall of products with faulty accelerators to include the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Many operators of CERN’s multi-billion-dollar particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), complained that the futuristic atom smasher would ignore commands while accelerating out of control and crashing headlong into the light-speed barrier.
Though the problem was initially blamed on control panel buttons that tend to stick in the ‘on’ position, it is now clear that the defects in the LHC are due to a bug in the software that interprets signals from the accelerator.
“I was trying to shut it down and it just wouldn’t stop. I was all like ‘Ahhhhh,’ and the particle shooter thingy was like ‘Whirrrrrrrrr,’ and it just kept going,” said a CERN spokesman.
This announcement represents yet another accelerator-related setback for the beleaguered automaker. In recent months, Toyota has been forced to recall the Remington Accelerator, a type of .224 caliber bullet; the Accelerator effect, which describes economic stimulus to private fixed investment due to growth in aggregate demand; and the Saskatoon Accelerators, a professional soccer team based in Saskatoon, Canada.
Toyota Motor Company said in a statement, “Moving forward, we plan to put the pedal to the metal in an attempt to resolve these issues with all possible speed.”
“Wait, seriously, let me rephrase that last bit,” continued the statement.
Many of the incidents reported at the LHC are still under investigation, and authorities have not ruled out operator error in all cases. CERN employees deny any culpability, however.
“No, I was definitely pressing the stop button and not the start button,” said your elderly Asian grandmother.
-JRV ‘12
