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From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: Srtringing cables using rats
Message-ID: <792@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Mar-84 18:12:08 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.792
Posted: Mon Mar 19 18:12:08 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Mar-84 20:51:52 EST
References: <710@seismo.UUCP>
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 24

I can quite believe that the incident in question happened, but it might
also be a distortion of the following true one:

Some years ago Scientific American published an article about the
great nuclear particle accelerator installation at Batavia, IL, which
I believe is called the National Accelerator Lab.  Someone more diligent
than I may look up the reference; the following is from memory (but
accurate in substance).  Anyway, if you find that article, you can read
about the problems they had in getting metal burrs out of the equipment.
This had not been anticipated as a problem until the great accelerator
was started up and did not develop much output; then they realized that
they had a 2-mile-diameter circle of 2-inch-diameter pipe (or some such
numbers) buried deep inside large amounts of heavy magnets and other
apparatus.

So they trained a ferret to pull a brush through a length of pipe of the
appropriate size.  Worked fine.  Then they opened a segment of the real pipe
and put him in it.  No way!  A few feet was one thing, but forget this!
(I don't recall reading what they proposed to do about droppings, by the way.)

The final solution was to build a little cleaning robot that would drag
a brush around the big circle.

Mark Brader