Paper presented at our Colloquium Testing Expertise on 21st October 2004 The discussion at the end of the day on the significance of mathematical proof outside the domain of mathematics reminded me why I took the non-state society as default position to look into the transformation of proof as a means to reach closure. I have slightly revised the text to make this more explicit. Provisional version, not for quotation. Do only refer to the final published version: Hildebrandt, M.,The Trial (...)