In the paper, Krioukov argued that the cop had been tricked into thinking he was seeing him blow past a stop sign due to three conditions specific to the case, as stated in the abstract: "(1) The observer measures not the linear but angular speed of the car; (2) The car decelerates and subsequently accelerates relatively fast; and (3) There is a short-time obstruction of the observer's view of the car by an external object, e.g., another car, at the moment when both cars are near the stop sign."
He followed that up with a whole mess of very convincing sciencey-sounding stuff. I'm dumb, so there's no chance I'm ever going to understand it well enough to explain it. Luckily for Krioukov, the judge didn't get it either and dismissed the ticket after reading the paper. That had to have been his intended purpose. A traffic court judge who sits nakedly under robes all day listening to people argue that a twig made an oncoming school bus difficult to see isn't going to understand a legit physics paper written by a guy who is cited in more physics papers than most of us have brain cells. It's a ran STOP sign, not the Kennedy assassination. So Krioukov probably got some "A" for Effort sprinkled on top of his Benefit of the Doubt, and the ticket was wiped away.
Brand X Pictures/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"My other gavel is a penis."
416 Comments