Answer Happy

35. You are in an archery competition, taking aim at a distant target. Suddenly a spaceship flies by at near light speed and you are so startled you inadvertently hit the spaceship with your arrow. The spaceship's automated defenses are activated and, as it flies by the target it annihilates it in a burst of laser fire. An argument develops with your opponents concerning whether you have won the competition since your shot clearly led to the target being struck. A more serious legal argument later arises between you and the alien driver of the spaceship concerning liability for damages done by and to the spaceship as a result of the incident. The theory of relativity proves central to the case and it tells us that you a You and the alien on board the spaceship will disagree about how much time elapsed between you hitting the spaceship and it shooting the target (because you are traveling at different speeds), but you will agree about the order of events that took place, because one event clearly caused the other. The result is that you are found liable for all damages but avoid having to pay up when your lawyer uncovers an obscure inter-galactic statute exempting from legal damages all "technologically challenged" people still dependent on muscle power. b) You and the alien disagree about whether his ship opened fire before or after your arrow struck it (because you are moving at different speeds) and, by inducing the jury to accept your point of view as the legitimate one because the spaceship was clearly traveling too fast in a sub-half- light-speed traffic zone, you win a landmark legal decision c) You and the other archery contestants cannot agree about how much time elapsed between the arrow hitting the spaceship and the spaceship shooting the target, because you are all standing in different places and the light from these events reaches you are different times. Because of your contradictory testimonies the alien succeeds with an injunction finding all earthlings legally incompetent and the entire planet Earth is made a ward of the court d) The court case is easily won by the alien, because after passing you by he simply accelerated to a speed greater than the speed of light in a vacuum, went back in time and left a note at the scene apparently signed by you accepting full responsibility e) You win the court case after pointing out that as the spaceship was moving at near light speed the laser light it emitted was moving at nearly twice the speed of light, as measured by you, and so you couldn't even see what went on and can't be held responsible for the destruction to the target (unfortunately as a result of this admission your fellow competitors strip you of your title as archery champion on the grounds you admitted you had no control over the winning shot)