The most ambitious IT project in the world, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland, suffered a technical glitch just a day after physicists started using the technology.

A faulty transformer, which regulated temperature to near zero on the Kelvin scale - minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit - was faulty, meaning that the operating systems slowed to a halt.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, physics professor at the University of California Steve Giddings said the very nature of the project made the news easier to believe, especially given the brain power and coordination needed to run the unit.

He said: "This is arguably the largest machine built by humankind, it is incredibly complex and involved components of varying ages and origins, so I'm not at all surprised to hear of some glitches."

CERN, or the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, was founded in 1954 and sits on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.

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