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In this thread I would like to explore the legal and ethical basis of pandemic (or public health in general) related restrictions of human rights. I will focus on human rights as outlined by the universal declaration of human rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx. Specifically Article 12 of the covenant is important here: In a specific comment the office of the high commissioner for human rights outlined that: In other words, they see a close connection between these rights. Yet certain health measures might curb rights. The basic framework to realize health within a human rights framework is therefore that any restrictions need to be implemented in a way that maximizes the outcome but must also be lawful, proportionate, necessary and applied fairly. These limitations have been outlined in the Siracusa Principles https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/1984/07/Siracusa-principles-ICCPR-legal-submission-1985-eng.pdf So independent of the actual implementation in the last years, there are guiding principles for the lawful implementation of public health measures. As such implementing public health measures, including isolation or other mandates are not necessary at odds with human rights principles. In fact, I would argue it is dangerous to frame it that way as it would necessarily decrease compliance and delegitimize the measures themselves. That being said, it can be argued that many implementations might have been insufficient in following these guidelines. Fore example, self-isolation can result in the loss of job. While many countries have provided some worker benefits, that may be insufficient. Likewise, it can be argued that many of these measures are not applied equally. Low-income folks have a harder time following many measures as they are strapped for means, while higher income folks or folks with jobs that allow remote work are barely affected. This is not only exclusively a human rights argument, but also one of public health, as folks with economic constraints are often less likely to get tested in the first place, in fear of losing their jobs. We can explore the intersection of each of these rights with a view on public health and discuss their implementation (and potential violation) of a given right. For example: Quarantines and lockdowns are obviously a limitation of the the freedom of movement. In order to ensure lawful implementation several aspects must be safeguarded. These include: - only implement mandatory restrictions when scientifically warranted and only when individual health and safety can be safeguarded. This includes ensuring that folks can continue to secure their livelihood, have access to necessities and have access to other necessary services (e.g. support for disabled). Fundamentally speaking, mostly voluntary measures in conjunction with education, widespread screening and contact tracing are in fact likely to work better in most areas as it will increase cooperation. Erosion of public trust on the other hand is likely to result in more folks trying to evade these measures.

A water planet ? Where did the water come from ? With Techtonic plates ? How did they arise on a water planet? Where did I say there would commonality between moons ? But the composition of the Earth, Moon, comets, meteors, asteroids, and of course the other planets and moons in the system are all different. But comparisons can be drawn. There was a hypothesis the the opposite happened. The present Moon separated from the Earth, leaving behind the Pacific basin. I think lunar geology has since disproved this one.

People are incarcerated all the time for being a danger to the rest of society. They lose their right to freedom. It may be an unpopular opinion, but rights are not inherent, you are not born with them; they are granted by the society you live in. ( just ask a woman in Saudi Arabia, or a Uyghur in China ) At the beginning of the pandemic, If I were contageous, I could have killed more people in a nursing home than with a fuly loaded Glock 17, because with a virus, you don't run out of ammunition. So what is the difference.

Astronomy uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Weather it out of curriculum or not - there are Master and PhD programs that are popular to continue one's career in UK. Lots of proposals, though I am not to mention exact projects here. Thank you. Best wishes!

I've decided to do my bit and become a surveillance datapoint by lateral flow testing twice a week under NHS guidance. I report the results online. I've had two AZ's and just had a Pfizer booster. Harking to an earlier point of yours, I'm disappointed emphasis is not moving towards less vaccinated countries... rather short-sighted and collectively selfish.

This is hands down one of the silliest ideas I've ever heard. Just to add a couple more to what Studiot already said: What about nicely-deposited billions-year-old sedimentary rocks, and surfaces of rock with the unmistakable fingerprint of ancient tides and water waves? What about the perfectly-preserved fossils (billions of y.o.) of stromatolites? How did they survive the crash? Do you have any idea of the range of collision velocities for astronomical bodies?

I would see a practical line of demarcation being: do you come into contact with other people who have no knowledge of your vaccination status. If so, then you should be required to vax. If you work at home and only hang out with people you know and who have full awareness and acceptance of your position on vaccination, then you can do what you want. Otherwise, not vaxxing is somewhat akin to getting out on a public road after dark without headlights. Your personal risk becomes other people's risk.

Not exactly based on a novel ( script ? ), but C Nolan's movie, Interstellar, would seem to fit admirably. Based on ideas by K Thorne when he was consulting on the movie, Contact, and later adapted into a screenplay by C Nolan's brother Jonathan. It is 'accompanied' by a book by K Thorne, The Science of Interstellar. Koti's suggestion, R L Foreward's Dragon's Egg, provides excellent insight into effects around strongly gravitating objects ( neutron star ) and is a great read that I also highly recommend, but it doesn't provide for passages to elsewhere, or elsewhen.

Lovely. +1 Meanwhile back to the 1960s, us thick and uncultered scientists had to do an auxiliary O level in History of Art, for the good of our souls. To my suprise I discovered the art teacher ran an after school project hand grinding and polishing lenses and mirrors for an astronomical telescope for the school. The project had being going for a couple of years by my time and was not expected to be finished before I left.

You misunderstand. There are other threads, in at least two he promotes a commercial website called spaceadventures.com, using language that is not "typos," but which puts the lie to him being Kevin Hall from the UK. (as for "polution," is it a typo if you repeat the misspellings in the OP and elsewhere?) I don't give a rat's ass about credentials or harmless typos, but I don't like being bullshitted, and I am going to call people on posing and fakery about who they are. It is distracting and insults our intelligence. After a president who bullshitted and lied for four years, and encouraged millions to do that same, my patience with this kind of crap is wearing really thin. Here is how "Kevin Hall" writes in another post in a "Space News" thread. That's not a typo. That is Asian-style spam English. If I'm wrong, fine, you all can sue me or whatever. I will eat crow and flagellate myself. And that is my such interesting news for today's moment!

We don't have a human right to drive drunk or to avoid stopping at red lights. All rights have reasonable restrictions, and a request to wear a mask, avoid entry if lacking vaccination, or stay home for a bit if sick isn't the tyrannical oppression and removal of freedom that some people seem to think it is. That said, some regulations and rules CAN go too far. Where that threshold exists is where the debate is best focused, IMO. "Your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of your neighbors nose."

Great OP CharonY! It is my opinion that for the most part, in most countries, governmental response during this pandemic has been adequate as outlined above. It is a fine balancing act trying to weigh certain rights against other (freedom of movement vs. right to be healthy) and any of numerous scenarios on which way we tilted would have been fine. There is no 'perfect' response to a pandemic. While someone who knows they are infected and purposely attempts to infect others as we've seen a few do with coughing on others in public deserves to be restrained, the thought of jailing people because they flaunt regulations by taking a walk around the neighborhood or other minor violations, seems extreme. We cannot control all risk and that should not be our goal.

I think this is the overall MO of the forum: when you open your mouth, your brains are on parade. It is that which is judged, along with any evidence. Markus is a case in point, being a rather good autodidact without a PhD iirc.

There are perhaps lessons we can learn from cellular automata - take rule 30 for instance. The generating process is perfectly known and simple, yet the manifestations of it are anything but. The central column the rule produces can only be modelled as a stochastic process (currently - £10k prize if you prove otherwise), so much so it is used as the random number generator in Mathematica. We could say that, in this case, the randomness is emergent from the rule. There was an interesting Royal Institute lecture on time - the lecturer ended by speculating that time was an emergent property based on our psychology - or something close to that effect..

I think the topic is worth exploring, but should probably be in a different thread. If it is alright with everyone, I am going to sketch out a very rough OP and post it in the Ethics section. Edit: Done, not very well thought out (as usual) but contains some reading material to set a baseline.

Putting aside that i know no physics - perhaps we can think of it in terms of how we model phenomena. Taking the Mexican wave as an example, each person could be understood in terms of simple up and down motions, but to capture the wave we might want to use sinusoids (ignoring that we might use sinusoids to understand the initial up and down motion). So a property is emergent when we decide, for whatever reason, to apply a new model to understand it. Emergence then isn't a property of the universe, but a property of how we understand it.

Related to points one and two is to what metrics are any algorithms optimising? Is it simply ad revenue for something like facebook, is it view time or click rate for something like youtube. And, perhaps more important, are the metrics transparent?

I think it is a bit of a false dichotomy to pit quarantine measures vs human rights. There are a couple of good discussions out there and I can link some once I am bit less tired. But fundamentally the argument is that in order to prevent serious harm (and millions of deaths clearly qualify), such measures can be justified, as long as certain limitations are in place (e.g. scientifically justified, time limited, non-discriminatory application, etc.)

Prometheus, it does seem like BH are used more as devices or sentient beings - Greg Benford's Eater was what first sprang to mind. Fredrick Pohl's Beyond the Blue Event Horizon another famous use of a BH -- as a hiding place for aliens. What you are after seems rarer and I have only the vaguest dimmest memory of a short story, read decades ago, which fits your description. I will look around, see if I can bring anything to light. Did Paul McAuley write something like that?

Dragon's Egg - Not a black hole but close, a neutron star with billions times the gravity than Earth, inhabited by tiny creatures who think and live millions times faster than we do.

(chuckle) I myself am currently tutoring various members of the royal families of Europe in quantum field theory!

OK, so contrary to what your profile says, you do not teach astronomy at a school in the UK. Correct?

We all have heard of the Island of Pangea, but was it a "collision of continents" or as I have found it forms a ball, was it a Moon that lost orbit?