The LHC, Black Holes, and the Law 467
KentuckyFC writes "Now that the physicists have had their say over the safety of the Large Hadron Collider, a law professor has produced a comprehensive legal study addressing the legal issue that might arise were a court to deal with a request to halt a multi-billion-dollar particle-physics experiment (abstract). The legal issues make for startling reading. The analysis discusses the problem with expert witnesses, which is that any particle physicists would be afraid for their livelihoods and anybody else afraid for their lives. How can such evidence be relied upon? It examines the well established legal argument that death is not a redressable injury under American tort law, which could imply that the value in any cost-benefit analysis of the future of the Earth after it had been destroyed is zero (there would be nobody to compensate). It asks whether state-of-the-art theoretical physics is really able to say that the LHC is safe given that a scientific theory that seems unassailable in one era may seem naive in the next. But most worrying of all, it points out that the safety analyses so far have all been done by CERN itself. The question left open by the author is what verdict a court might reach."
We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:5, Funny)
Shakespeare called and he doesn't like your scenario.
Re:oh well (Score:4, Funny)
Sssh! We're ok as long as we don't ask.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:US LAW ? (Score:4, Funny)
I think CERN would be declared an Terrorist Organization and the scientists individually deemed Enemy Combatants.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Funny)
So, care to calculate some epicycles for us?
Re:Ugh (Score:1, Funny)
How eccentric of you.
Re:Read the disclaimer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:5, Funny)
Fast enough for ya? [unpronounceable.com]
Re:We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Read the disclaimer (Score:4, Funny)
As long as Magrathea has a backup I say we go for it.
Schrodinger's Attorney? (Score:4, Funny)
I know there's a joke in there somewhere, I just can't quite figure it out.
Re:US LAW ? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:US LAW ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Schrodinger's Attorney? (Score:5, Funny)
I know there's a joke in there somewhere, I just can't quite figure it out.
Not Schrodinger's Attorney. Maxwell's DA [wikipedia.org].
See, when you make humourous reference to Maxwell, the joke and the punchline are effortlessly sorted into the right order. With Schrodinger jokes, on the other hand, you never know whether it's going to be funny or not until you tell it, and by then it's too late.
Re:Interesting and sobering. (Score:5, Funny)
There's plenty of scientists who can discuss these topics rationally and humbly, they just make for really boring television.
The LHC webcams [cyriak.co.uk], on the other hand, make for really panic-inducing television.
Redundant (Score:5, Funny)
I think that "Redundant" mod refers to your use of "cockroaches" and "lawyers" as separate.
Re:We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, in the original context [spectacle.org], that "kill all the lawyers" line is in praise of lawyers, for they are obstacles to a tyrant's plans.
No it was a praise to tyrant's since they kill lawyers. .
Re:US LAW ? (Score:5, Funny)
...its in the France-Switzerland border...
Whoa there bucko. Sweden is next to France?!
I bet I can guess what country you're from.
Re:We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:5, Funny)
Shakespeare called and he doesn't like your scenario.
Shakespeare? I believe it was Ripley that said things about "from orbit" and "to be sure". Although she was talking about something a lot easier to eradicate than lawyers...
Re:In a way I blame certain scientists (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, yeah, I know. I've read three books on it now, and the main support seems to be "but the maths work so well!" :)
Then they get to the part about needing a particle accelerator with a diameter that could contain the Oort Cloud just to do basic tests. After that is the chapter on holographic theory, and I realize the theoretical physics world has basically gone completely wrong in the head.
But, hey, the maths work out! All those nasty zeros in infinities go away.
No, we didn't (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Mr. Layman,
We lawyers often have to quickly develop expertise in this or that technical subject depending on the case, and we have to know the subject matter cold in order to engage in meaningful examination of the witnesses. ("Isn't it true, Mr. Developer, that you typed 'i++' instead of '++i', causing the stack to overflow and necessitating a scram of the atomic pile?") You might remember the episode of "ER" where they had a lawyer who knew his medicine so well that the doctors would let him operate on people.
In the LHC scenario you describe, a successful civil action based on negligence might require service of a summons with near-infinite mass traveling at 0.99C. We're used to this.
Re:STFU (Score:5, Funny)
but ... but ... but ... the LHC is on the French-Swiss border: that must affect the laws of physics somehow ...
Re:US LAW ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We'll save the justice system first.... (Score:5, Funny)
How fast will this lifeboat be traveling? If this lifeboat is to be escaping a black hole.. it'd have to be moving pretty fast.
Is it an African lifeboat or a European lifeboat?
Re:STFU (Score:3, Funny)
</sarcasm>
Re:No (Score:3, Funny)
1. There exist distinguished but elderly scientists who are strong atheists (that is, believe that God cannot exist).
2. Clarke's First Law.
Ergo, God exists.
Something seems a bit flawed there.
Re:Going in circles (Score:3, Funny)
Are you trying to say that only one-fourth of Americans are retarded?
There. I fixed it for you.
Re:Schrodinger's Attorney? (Score:3, Funny)
A 2 :The cat.
Would you want to spend half of an eternity locked up with a lawyer?
No.
Neither would the cat (assuming that the cat is an intelligent rational being; their ready acquisition of staff instead of masters supports the idea that they are intelligent and rational). So, the cat would do something about the situation.
This same logic has been used to show that (Schrodinger's) cat has learned how to travel in time. Presumably our new (old) time travelling feline overlords, (of whom I have been a welcoming devoted slave since before they will have had declared themselves) are also protecting us from the LHC universe-melting attempts.