Guswa labored at the chalkboard that morning. True to Schlichtmann’s prediction, Guswa had groundwater flowing deep into the bedrock, a hundred feet down, three hundred feet, a thousand feet, in all directions along cracks and fissures that existed only in hypothesis. He culled dozens of numbers, changing gradients and permeability, multiplying and dividing numbers in an effort to salvage his theory. He stood at the board in front of the jury box and muttered numbers to himself, punching them into his calculator. “Now, how am I going to do this here?” he said under his breath at one point.

Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, loc. 2176