No Canary in the Quanta: Who Gets to Decide If the Large Hadron Collider Is Worth Gambling Our Planet? - Softcover

Public interest trial attorney Harry Lehmann is on the case of what could become the greatest gamble our planet has ever faced. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is housed in a tunnel 17 miles in circumference, more than 500 feet underground, at the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was built by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to collide opposing beams of protons at near light speed. LHC was shut down days after its September 2008 launch by a serious fault between two superconducting bending magnets. Now CERN claims it has repaired the original defects and resulting damage, so that it can "safely" fire up the LHC again. But this is the largest science experiment in our planet's history, and its "laboratory" is the planet itself. The stakes could not be higher. No Canary In The Quanta illuminates crucial questions that must be asked by the people of the world about what could be, if anything goes wrong, a true Doomsday machine.

Harry V. Lehmann attended public schools in his hometown of Novato, California, and then attended the College of Marin, San Francisco State, and University of San Francisco Law School. In late 1972, keeping an oath made after the self inflicted death of a close friend resultant from depression after small weight felony arrests for marijuana, Mr. Lehmann joined former Reagan and Nixon senior campaign professional Gordon S. Brownell, in drug reform efforts which led to greatly reduced and misdemeanor penalties for the same conduct where arrests had led to the loss of his friend. Mr. Lehmann has as of November of 2009 practiced law for more than 32 years, with a specialty focus since 1983 in litigation involving engineering and scientific proof, including matters involving accident reconstruction in aircraft and vehicle crashes, where he was a long time student of famed reconstruction expert H. Howard Hasbrook, a pioneer of that field. The firm also conducted a specialty practice in level failures and engineering cases involving failed foundations and similar structural engineering issues. Mr. Lehmann estimates that he has handled or personally supervised more than 1600 civil actions, including, for example, serving as Class Counsel in the Chevron Aviation Gasoline class action, which resulted in new engines for roughly 1647 aircraft and the resultant avoidance of many crashes. Mr. Lehmann then served as co-Class Counsel in the Mobil AV-1 class action, resulting in major engine repairs or overhauls for 850 aircraft; from these two cases, in company with aircraft crash litigation, Mr. Lehmann has represented more aircraft owners in U. S. litigation than any lawyer in the United States. Long fascinated by his legal work relating to the sciences and engineering, Mr. Lehmann has so far won five patents; those interested engine physics may find recently granted U. S. Patent 7,581,526 of interest.