Using a "top kill" to plug the Macondo well of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Much could go wrong. The pressure of the injected mud could damage the blowout preventer and exacerbate the leaks. The mud will go wherever it can, and not necessarily where the engineers would prefer.

"There's a hole, but it's kind of like pushing toothpaste through an obstacle course," said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University.

"I feel for the guys who are doing it, the people whose hands are actually on the throttles there," said energy analyst Byron King. "It's like doing brain surgery using robots under a mile of water with equipment that's got 30,000 horsepower of energy inside of it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701957_2.html

restarting the large hadron collider at cern

There's a long way to go between getting the first bunches of protons to go around and actually getting the machine to its top working levels," Sutton said.

"It's a lot like having designed a Formula One racing car. The first time you send it out, the guy doesn't go round the circuit as fast as he can. You have to learn about the controls, how the car handles."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/28/large-hadron-collider-restarts