Simpson: An Introduction to the History of the Land Law

A Review of AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE LAND LAW. By A. W. B. Simpson

The Art of Interpretation in Future Interest Cases

Man\u27s quest for an absolute, for a definition of good, for the meaning of justice, carries us back to the beginnings of philosophy. And although these concepts are as elusive as the Questing Beast pursued by King Pellinore in T. H. White\u27s delightful book, The Once and Future King, the history of mankind indicates that the curiosity of thoughtful persons is insatiable and that the search will not end. It continues daily before our eyes-in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, psychology, sociology, economics, philosophy, and other disciplines not the least of which is law. Even Holmes, the supposed skeptic, who rejected absolutes\u27 and who denied the inter-mixture of law and morals, repeatedly affirmed the significance of intellectual achievement and thought it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it has never seen but is to be--that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand. Whether or not it is given to us to catch an echo of the infinite, and though we may be denied the barest glimpse of the unknown, it seems a true observation that the cumulative effect of unveiling tiny parts of the inscrutable whole have at last put us on a course toward the stars

Should the Rule Against Perpetuities Discard Its Vest?

From what has preceded it is apparent that none of those who would reform the rule against perpetuities, excepting Professor Simes, has suggested that the rule\u27s application to remoteness of vesting alone requires investigation. Yet there is little doubt that this aspect of the rule has caused as much if not more litigation than those which have been so harshly condemned. Proof of this assertion will not be undertaken, for every property lawyer knows how frequently courts are called upon to determine whether for purposes of the rule an interest is vested or contingent. Professor Simes put it well when he said, I doubt whether any other question in the law of estates has caused so much litigation as the question of the vested or contingent character of the interest. If all the decisions on the matter were laid end to end, I know not how many times around the globe they would extend. One may justifiably doubt the propriety of testing the very validity of future interests in terms of a conceptual distinction the tenuousness of which is attested by the countless decisions involving it. What is more important, if one concludes that the validation of vested interests and the invalidation of contingent interests do not serve the modern objectives of the rule-furtherance of the fluidity of property, freeing property for risk capital purposes and the restriction of dead-hand control of the living-then validity under the rule ought not to depend upon whether an interest is vested or contingent. This portion of this article will constitute an attempt to demonstrate why the rule\u27s concern with the concept of vesting has caused so much litigation and to analyze the concept in terms of its relationship to present-day purposes served by the rule

Should the Rule Against Perpetuities Discard Its Vest?

The venerable rule of property known as the rule against perpetuities has recently been subjected to numerous searching and critical analyses, some of which will presently be discussed. Thus far nothing has been published dealing with, and only Professor Simes has touched upon, what seems to the present writer to be the most serious problem engendered by the common law rule in its commonly accepted form, i.e., the notion that the rule is concerned only with remoteness of vesting. It is the purpose of the present discussion to examine the concept of vesting as related to the rule and to attempt to answer the question posed by the title of this article. To accomplish this objective it will be necessary first to advert to the history and purpose of the rule, to consider the application and consequences of violation of the rule in its present form and whether or not it performs a function in modern jurisprudence, and also to review the major criticisms which have thus far been launched against the rule. No attempt will be made to treat statutory substitutes which take the form of prohibitions against the restraint of the absolute power of alienation ; what follows will be concerned with the common law rule and certain recent modifications of it

The Formation of Kiloparsec-scale HI Holes in Dwarf Galaxies

The origin of kpc-scale holes in the atomic hydrogen (H i) distributions of some nearby dwarf irregular galaxies presents an intriguing problem. Star formation histories (SFHs) derived from resolved stars give us the unique opportunity to study past star-forming events that may have helped shape the currently visible Hi distribution. Our sample of five nearby dwarf irregular galaxies spans over an order of magnitude in both total Hi mass and absolute B-band magnitude and is at the low-mass end of previously studied systems. We use Very Large Array Hi line data to estimate the energy required to create the centrally dominant hole in each galaxy. We compare this energy estimate to the past energy released by the underlying stellar populations computed from SFHs derived from data taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The inferred integrated stellar energy released within the characteristic ages exceeds our energy estimates for creating the holes in all cases, assuming expected efficiencies. Therefore, it appears that stellar feedback provides sufficient energy to produce the observed holes. However, we find no obvious signature of single star-forming events responsible for the observed structures when comparing the global SFHs of each galaxy in our sample to each other or to those of dwarf irregular galaxies reported in the literature. We also fail to find evidence of a central star cluster in FUV or Hα imaging. We conclude that large Hi holes are likely formed from multiple generations of star formation and only under suitable interstellar medium conditions

Recent Star Formation in Sextans A

We investigate the relationship between the spatial distributions of stellar populations and of neutral and ionized gas in the Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy Sextans A. This galaxy is currently experiencing a burst of localized star formation, the trigger of which is unknown. We have resolved various populations of stars via deep UBV(RI)_C imaging over an area with diameter \sim 5.'3. We have compared our photometry with theoretical isochrones appropriate for Sextans A, in order to determine the ages of these populations. We have mapped out the history of star formation, most accurately for times \lesssim 100 Myr. We find that star formation in Sextans A is correlated both in time and space, especially for the most recent (\lesssim 12 Myr) times. The youngest stars in the galaxy are forming primarily along the inner edge of the large H I shell. Somewhat older populations, \lesssim 50 Myr, are found inward of the youngest stars. Progressively older star formation, from \sim 50--100 Myr, appears to have some spatially coherent structure and is more centrally concentrated. The oldest stars we can accurately sample appear to have approximately a uniform spatial distribution, which extends beyond a surface brightness of \mu_B \simeq 25.9 mag arcsec^{-2} (or, a radius r \simeq 2.'3$). Although other processes are also possible, our data provides support for a mechanism of supernova-driven expansion of the neutral gas, resulting in cold gas pileup and compression along the H I shell and sequential star formation in recent times.Comment: 64 pages, 22 figures, to appear in A

Nebular spectroscopy of the nearby Type IIb supernova 2011dh

We present nebular spectra of the nearby Type IIb supernova (SN) 2011dh taken between 201 and 678 d after core collapse. At these late times, SN 2011dh exhibits strong emission lines including a broad and persistent Hα feature. New models of the nebular spectra confirm that the progenitor of SN 2011dh was a low-mass giant (M ≈ 13–15 M_⊙) that ejected ∼ 0.07 M_⊙ of ^(56)Ni and ∼ 0.27 M_⊙ of oxygen at the time of explosion, consistent with the recent disappearance of a candidate yellow supergiant progenitor. We show that light from the SN location is dominated by the fading SN at very late times (∼2 yr) and not, for example, by a binary companion or a background source. We present evidence for interaction between the expanding SN blast wave and a circumstellar medium at late times and show that the SN is likely powered by positron deposition ≳1 yr after explosion. We also examine the geometry of the ejecta and show that the nebular line profiles of SN 2011dh indicate a roughly spherical explosion with aspherical components or clumps

SPIRITS 16tn in NGC 3556: A heavily obscured and low-luminosity supernova at 8.8 Mpc

We present the discovery by the SPitzer InfraRed Intensive Transients Survey (SPIRITS) of a likely supernova (SN) in NGC 3556 at only 8.8 Mpc, which, despite its proximity, was not detected by optical searches. A luminous infrared (IR) transient at $M_{[4.5]} = -16.7$ mag (Vega), SPIRITS 16tn is coincident with a dust lane in the inclined, star-forming disk of the host. Using IR, optical, and radio observations, we attempt to determine the nature of this event. We estimate $A_V \approx$ 8 - 9 mag of extinction, placing it among the three most highly obscured IR-discovered SNe to date. The [4.5] light curve declined at a rate of 0.013 mag day$^{-1}$, and the $[3.6] - [4.5]$ color grew redder from 0.7 to $\gtrsim$ 1.0 mag by 184.7 days post discovery. Optical/IR spectroscopy shows a red continuum, but no clearly discernible features, preventing a definitive spectroscopic classification. Deep radio observations constrain the radio luminosity of SPIRITS 16tn to $L_{\nu} \lesssim 10^{24}$ erg s$^{-1}$ Hz$^{-1}$ between 3 - 15 GHz, excluding many varieties of radio core-collapse SNe. A type Ia SN is ruled out by the observed red IR color, and lack of features normally attributed to Fe-peak elements in the optical and IR spectra. SPIRITS 16tn was fainter at [4.5] than typical stripped-envelope SNe by $\approx$ 1 mag. Comparison of the spectral energy distribution to SNe II suggests SPIRITS 16tn was both highly obscured, and intrinsically dim, possibly akin to the low-luminosity SN 2005cs. We infer the presence of an IR dust echo powered by a peak luminosity of the transient of $5 \times 10^{40}$ erg s$^{-1} < L_{\mathrm{peak}} < 4\times10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$, consistent with the observed range for SNe II. This discovery illustrates the power of IR surveys to overcome the compounding effects of visible extinction and optically sub-luminous events in completing the inventory of nearby SNe.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Ap

Type Ia Supernova Distances at z > 1.5 from the Hubble Space Telescope Multi-Cycle Treasury Programs: The Early Expansion Rate

We present an analysis of 15 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) at redshift z > 1 (9 at 1.5 < z < 2.3) recently discovered in the CANDELS and CLASH Multi-Cycle Treasury programs using WFC3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. We combine these SNe Ia with a new compilation of 1050 SNe Ia, jointly calibrated and corrected for simulated survey biases to produce accurate distance measurements. We present unbiased constraints on the expansion rate at six redshifts in the range 0.07 < z < 1.5 based only on this combined SN Ia sample. The added leverage of our new sample at z > 1.5 leads to a factor of ~3 improvement in the determination of the expansion rate at z = 1.5, reducing its uncertainty to ~20%, a measurement of H(z=1.5)/H0=2.67 (+0.83,-0.52). We then demonstrate that these six measurements alone provide a nearly identical characterization of dark energy as the full SN sample, making them an efficient compression of the SN Ia data. The new sample of SNe Ia at z > 1 usefully distinguishes between alternative cosmological models and unmodeled evolution of the SN Ia distance indicators, placing empirical limits on the latter. Finally, employing a realistic simulation of a potential WFIRST SN survey observing strategy, we forecast optimistic future constraints on the expansion rate from SNe Ia.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 7 tables; submitted to Ap