What I wanted to do was push the Tevatron to its design energy. It has been operating at 980 GeV, and never went to 1000 GeV, because reliability was thought to be better a little below that. Nobody wanted to run the risk of damage that might keep the machine off for days or weeks--perhaps merely a quench, perhaps a breakdown that would require replacing one or more magnets.

The alternatives were considered, and the lab management declined a go-for-broke lunge for higher energy. Instead, the Tevatron ran smoothly and gave productive data up until its very last moment.

Another idea Operations had, according to Dave, was to conduct a "24-house quench," which would have made a big noise around the entire ring. But it also would have involved what one cryo expert liked to call "giving the helium back to God."