Law and fact

It is sometimes necessary to distinguish between questions of law and questions of fact. 

A jury will decide only questions of fact. Questions of fact are about events or the state of affairs and may be proved by evidence. Questions of law seek to discover what the law is, and are determined by legal argument. However, the distinction is not always clear-cut. There are more opportunities to appeal on a question of law than on a question of fact. 

Regulation 12 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 (WHSW) requires an employer (and others, to the extent of their control) to keep, so far as reasonably practicable, every floor in the workplace free from obstructions and from any article which may cause a person to slip, trip or fall. In the Hazards incident Bertha s tripping, her injury, the wire being there, the routine of Hazards, are questions of fact. However, the meaning of obstruction, of floor, of reasonably practicable are questions of law. 

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Whether claim construction is a mix of law and fact is an important distinction since a federal court of appeals will review a district court s findings of fact with deference and reverse on a finding of clear error only, whereas matters of law are reviewed completely again (de novo) on appeal. Since each appeal on claim construction is reviewed without deference to the district court s finding and claim construction is a very nuanced, complex (and dare we say, often fact based) undertaking, the net result is that many of the district court s claim constructions are modified or reversed on appeal. 

Dag Hammarskjdld, International Civil Service Law and Fact , lecture delivered at Oxford University, 1961, in Robert Jordan, ed.. International Administration Its Evolution and Contemporary Applications (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 245-271. 

I am not sure that this is what is reallyhu m Kim, but I do think that Fodor is asking an excellent question. If the laws of physics are complete and closed and everything supervenes on the physical, how is there is room for additional laws Fiow can there be laws other than the laws of physics At places, Fodor seems to suggest that for there to be special science laws there must be more in the world than can in principle be accounted for by physics that the fact that certain special science generalizations are laws is a fact that does fail to supervene on the physical laws and facts. But if physicalism is true, then if it is a law that Fs are followed by Gs, the laws of physics together with additional solely physical facts entails that it is a law that Fs are followed by Gs. The story of what additional facts are needed and why it is plausible that they do entail special science laws that are not reducible to laws of physics (in the sense of reduction at issue in the dispute between RP and NRP) is a complex issue that 1 address elsewhere. But even without an answer to Fodor s question one can see that there is... 

What Russell has in mind is that the fundamental laws and facts of physics do not mention causality. Further, those laws relate the totality of the physical state at one instance to the totality at later instances. [Foomote Or a little more correctly a region of the state at time t is related by law to the states in its backward light cone. This point which is often neglected by philosophers is forcefully made in Latham (1987) and Field (ms.). (661)]. They do not single out parts of states at different times as being causally related. If one wants to think of causation as production then one has to say that the entire micro physical state at t produces the state at t. (p. 661)... 

The production conception of causation seems to involve facts that fail to supervene on the fundamental laws and facts. It seems to allow the existence of two universes that match perfectly and yet differ in which events produce which others. (2002a, p. 661)... 

The second paragraph of sect. 2d. art. 3, is in these words In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. ... 

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Con-XIV suls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. 

The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science liave all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote, ... 

Environmental information is available extensively on the free Internet. Two main reasons aeeount for this. First, the freedom of environmental information law and, secondly, the fact that many environmental databases which used to be available only commercially are now accessible on the free Internet. This section focuses on environmental information which is available free of charge on the Internet. Three main paths are distinguished for searching environmental information effectively. In general, all three routes should be taken into consideration for achieving a sound search result for environmental information on chemical stibstances... 

The mathematical form of the PEF is in almost every case a compromise between speed and accuracy. As computer power continually increases, ideally following Moore s Law, and the cost/performance ratio is getting better, one might think that there is no longer a need to sacrifice accuracy to save computational time. This is not really true, because in direct proportion to the CPU speed is the rise in the scientists interest in calculating larger and larger molecules (in fact, their interest always rises faster than the CPU speed). 

From a statistical viewpoint, there is often little to choose between power law and hyperbohc equations as representations of data over an experimental range. The fact, however, that a particular hyperbolic equation is based on some land of possible mechanism may lead to a belief that such an equation may be extrapolated more safely outside the experimental range, although there may be no guarantee that the controlling mechanism will remain the same in the extrapolated region. 

The OCV of any circuit consisting only of metals or other electronic conductors that are all at the same temperature and not subjected to external force helds is always zero (Volta s law). In fact, at any interface the Galvani potential is dehned as the chemical potential difference of the electrons (P(j = Ap, (for electrons, Zj = 1). 

Multiparticle collision dynamics describes the interactions in a many-body system in terms of effective collisions that occur at discrete time intervals. Although the dynamics is a simplified representation of real dynamics, it conserves mass, momentum, and energy and preserves phase space volumes. Consequently, it retains many of the basic characteristics of classical Newtonian dynamics. The statistical mechanical basis of multiparticle collision dynamics is well established. Starting with the specification of the dynamics and the collision model, one may verify its dynamical properties, derive macroscopic laws, and, perhaps most importantly, obtain expressions for the transport coefficients. These features distinguish MPC dynamics from a number of other mesoscopic schemes. In order to describe solute motion in solution, MPC dynamics may be combined with molecular dynamics to construct hybrid schemes that can be used to explore a variety of phenomena. The fact that hydrodynamic interactions are properly accounted for in hybrid MPC-MD dynamics makes it a useful tool for the investigation of polymer and colloid dynamics. Since it is a particle-based scheme it incorporates fluctuations so that the reactive and nonreactive dynamics in small systems where such effects are important can be studied. 

This law, which is a criminal law, is so loosely worded that it is at the moment impossible to establish criteria for paints, varnishes, or lacquers to be placed on children s furniture or toys to be sold in Maryland. Further, the Maryland law has little protective value, since anyone can repaint children s furniture or toys with any material regardless of its suitability for the purpose and its inherent toxicity. This law, as it stands, places a heavy and complex burden on the manufacturer and marketer of children s toys and furniture—and necessarily on the manufacturer of paints, lacquers, and varnishes. The Maryland law has greater significance as a piece of troublesome legislation in that in the courts of the state of Maryland, the jury is the judge of the law as well as the facts under the law, and since under criminal law each case would be argued on its own merits, two different juries might reach contradictory decisions on the same set of circumstances. 

We will first consider the simple case of diffusion of a non-electrolyte. The course of the diffusion (i.e. the dependence of the concentration of the diffusing substance on time and spatial coordinates) cannot be derived directly from Eq. (2.3.18) or Eq. (2.3.19) it is necessary to obtain a differential equation where the dependent variable is the concentration c while the time and the spatial coordinates are independent variables. The derivation is thus based on Eq. (2.2.10) or Eq. (2.2.5), where we set xj> = c and substitute from Eq. (2.3.18) or Eq. (2.3.19) for the fluxes. This yields Fick s second law (in fact, this is only a consequence of Fick s first law respecting the material balance—Eq. 2.2.10), which has the form of a partial differential equation... 

Besides its problems in undermining putative macromolecular explanations of (PS), (G) and what (G) explains, antireductionism faces some problems in substantiating its claims that (PS) explains (G) and (G) explains individual cases of genetic recombination. The problems, of course, stem from the fact that neither (PS) nor (G) are laws, and therefore an account is owing of how statements like these can explain. This, in fact, is a problem that any revision of a thesis of reductionism must come to grips with as well. So, perhaps we should turn to this problem directly, and then reformulate and reassess both reductionism and antireductionism as explanatory theses in its light. 

From the material balance (equation 14.3-5) applied to C2H4(A), together with the rate law, and the fact that cA = cB, since PAo FB o and vA = Pg in the chemical equation,... 

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