Paradigms of Risk, Hazards and Danger

*Marek Różycki*

### **Abstract**

In his 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn defined paradigm as a set of concepts constituting the foundations of a field of science. He presents revolutions as shifts in the existing paradigms and the phrase, paradigm shift, has since entered the language of science and business. Risk is a concern in both fields and this chapter considers the paradigms of risk, and whether they require a shift. Although we avoid negative experiences, often interpreted as resulting from hazards, no common risk management methodology exists. This statement may strike as untrue: after all, safety is a vast field; we analyse hazards and manage risk. Yet is it not a delusion, and is risk management not an attempt to charm reality? Don't hazards, risk and danger depend on our perception? Perhaps risk can be viewed through the lens of quantum mechanics, existing in a limbo of potential until our actions and interpretations force events and circumstances to assume a danger state. If so, would managing this potential prior to the wave function collapse-inducing observation make any sense? In this chapter we will use the theory of inertia to attempt an answer to the question: is risk management possible?

**Keywords:** paradigms, risk, hazards, danger, theory of inertia

#### **1. Introduction**

We usurp the right to manage future events: we decide where to meet friends for dinner, to which schools to send our children and where to go on holiday. We choose jobs, hobbies and spouses. We take decisions and change our reality: we feel the masters of our universe, except when a spanner, carelessly thrown, wrecks the carefully planned works. On the way to the dinner, our bus gets stuck in a jam. We miss the holiday flight because we have misplaced the car keys, or worse, a fire breaks out in our DIY shed and spreads to the house, and the roof caves in over our spouse; on the way to a job interview, a tree topples on top of us, or we fall into a manhole.

We try to prevent such misfortunes and proudly call our attempts for risk management. We manage risks in the blind faith that there is a fate which we can outsmart. Yet there is only so much we can control, and it may be that, preoccupied with the robustness of the roof, we do not notice that a spanner has been misplaced on a high shelf. On our way out to dinner, we slam the door to the DIY shed, and the spanner, balancing precariously until now, finally changes state and falls into

a toaster; we get the picture—observe it—after the event and blame fate without noticing that no such thing exists.
