Monday, March 31, 2008

A science suit.

No, not a suit made of science; that's something else. I'm talking about a lawsuit, filed in the US District court of Hawaii, against CERN (roughly, Central European Nuclear Research), asking for an injunction against them that will prevent them from starting up their Large Hadron Collider. It seems that there are some fears that the thing could create a black hole and destroy the solar system.

For legal reasons, the plaintiffs are required to state why they think an injunction is the appropriate relief, instead of waiting for actual harm to occur and, if it does, have monetary or other reparations for the actual harm. I think that's the easiest part of the lawyers' job on this one: I mean, if you don't have a solar system any more, how's the post office going to deliver that check?

(By the way, allow me to alleviate your fears: black holes are caused when a certain body reaches so much density that light passing near the body gets pulled into it. Under current theory, this happens when a massive star collapses in on itself. I'm reasonably certain that there is not enough mass in our solar system to cause this to happen, and the LHC is not adding mass to the solar system. We're safe from this one. Or if we're not, blame me after the world ends.)

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