NS: CERN on trial: could a lawsuit shut the LHC down?

[The Code]

CERN on trial: could a lawsuit shut the LHC down?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... -down.html

I got a new game, I put a blind fold on you, and you walk towards the 500 foot cliff edge. You decide when to stop. Closest person wins. Any body in?

Mark

[Chris Peterson]

CERN on trial: could a lawsuit shut the LHC down?

My guess is that it's unlikely. There is an extremely powerful argument for the LHC being incapable of causing any sort of disaster, and it doesn't depend on understanding any complex physics at all. Collisions that are far more powerful than the LHC is capable of producing are fairly common from natural events. Atoms in the Earth have been struck billions of times since the planet formed, with more energy, and we're still here. Likewise for the other objects we see in the Universe. If LHC-scale collisions could result in their destruction, we wouldn't see much.

I think that's an argument that a court can readily accept, and throw out any challenges without causing any delays in the science- just as they've done in the past.