The LHC, Black Holes, and the Law

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."

Comments

Re:oh well

[arminw]

....find the true answer to life...
for those of us who believe Jesus Christ is who he said he is, God come to earth, there is nothing to worry about.

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, I am the Resurrection and the Life! He who believes in Me, though he die, yet he shall live.
John 11:26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?

His followers asked him specifically when he would return and end the world. Here is a short excerpt from his answer:

Matt 24:3 And as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world?
Matt 24:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Matt 24:5 For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
Matt 24:6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet.
Matt 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places.
Matt 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Nowhere does he say anything about a black hole swallowing up the earth. Christians believe that it will happen exactly as Jesus Christ predicted.

This is not our earth. Mankind is not in charge of it. Jesus Christ is. We did not make the earth and we are not going to destroy it either. Jesus will return, be in charge and help mankind make our planet into the paradise it once was. To me that is a better future to think about than getting swallowed up by a black hole.

Besides that, nobody has ever directly observed a black hole. They are only inferred by the motion of stars and other objects.

Re:US LAW ?

[imakemusic]

1776 LOL