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Q&A

General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.

10.5k posts ·
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Theory If I am understanding this history of this correctly, in the 1920s the mathematical process of converting measurements with a certain amount of measurement error into numbers, then doing yo...

0 answers  ·  posted 3mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  edited 3mo ago by James McLellan‭

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Low gravity golf was invented by Alan Shepard in 1971 when he hit two golf balls 40 yards on the moon. Surprisingly, this version of the sport with little atmosphere and much lower gravity, is the...

0 answers  ·  posted 2mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  edited 2mo ago by James McLellan‭

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Utility fog is a swarm robotics concept in which a mesh of robots barely larger than a grain of pollen (5 micrometer ( $10^{-6}$ m ) bodies and 50 micrometer arms) are dodecahedrons (12 sided pol...

0 answers  ·  posted 3mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  edited 3mo ago by James McLellan‭

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Living in space can be boring. What are some good home games for people living and working in free fall? I thought of a few - Bocce : in this variant the size of the jack and the player balls i...

0 answers  ·  posted 2mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  closed 2mo ago by Canina‭

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What happens when PVA glue sets? I am curious about the white PVA glue that is commonly used for bonding wood and paper. Although an Internet search find lots of articles they mostly seem to be ne...

1 answer  ·  posted 4mo ago by chris-barry‭  ·  last activity 3mo ago by James McLellan‭

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I was investigating a few ideas on recreational solar sailing, and came up with some interesting things - The primary equation in solar sailing is $F = {{2 R S A} \over {c}} \sin^2{\theta}$ Whe...

0 answers  ·  posted 2mo ago by James McLellan‭

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Price's Law is a hypothesis that in an organization, or across an industry, roughly half the productive output is being generated by a number of people equal to the square root of those participati...

1 answer  ·  posted 6mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by dsr‭

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These WorldFamous companies advertise that their lenses can control myopia for kids, NOT adults. But none of these lenses are approved by FDA. How can they work for adults too? Essilor Stellest ...

0 answers  ·  posted 7mo ago by TextKit‭  ·  closed 7mo ago by Canina‭

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Orbital rings are a proposed megastructure intended to dramatically reduce the cost to enter or exit a planetary gravity well. The ring is a solid structure, belting around the planet like a hula h...

0 answers  ·  posted 3mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  closed 3mo ago by Canina‭

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How would competitive wrestling change in a microgravity environment?

2 answers  ·  posted 3mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  last activity 2mo ago by trichoplax‭

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How could I modify an alternate Earth to have less tornados in the American Great Plains area known as Tornado Alley? Maybe make the Rockies lower? Introduce an east-west range of mountains or high...

1 answer  ·  posted 5mo ago by Aaron‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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I imagined a person who's scapulae is overly developed and extruding outside the shoulder girdle like an elitra or fixed plane wings. They can be moved by shrugging the shoulders or rotated by rai...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by Rhea‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by dsr‭

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Imagine a far-future spacecraft drive that accelerates its reaction mass to a small fraction the speed of light (say, 1,000 km/s). Say the mass flow rate to the drive were 1kg/s, and say the reacti...

1 answer  ·  posted 12mo ago by Josh Hyatt‭  ·  last activity 8mo ago by James McLellan‭

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I was recently introduced to the South Atlantic Anomaly. As I understand, for satellites and space craft, this is a natural feature that can wreck space craft by taking even computers designed fo...

0 answers  ·  posted 8mo ago by James McLellan‭  ·  edited 8mo ago by James McLellan‭

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During the summer of 2022 Europe has had several heat waves. As described in 2022 European heat waves: Climatologists linked the extreme heat to the impact of climate change, and experts predict...

0 answers  ·  posted 5mo ago by fedorqui‭  ·  edited 5mo ago by fedorqui‭

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Under normal circumstances, monolithic diamond is pretty terrible at resisting impact, due to it being weak in certain planes, also known as cleavage planes. To solve this, why don't we just make ...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by Mr. Mistoffelees‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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I understand that both Creatine and Carnosine are amino acid derivates abundant in Animalia muscle tissue and are both occasionally taken by non-aerobic exercisers to enhance performance. The huma...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 1y ago by Pastychomper‭

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So, Second Earth had/has a firearm problem. Since my magic is really just advanced science, I can't create firearm-disabling fields, so instead, I created a spell that should be able to ruin firear...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by Mr. Mistoffelees‭  ·  edited 1y ago by Canina‭

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Should digging Depressions in seafloor to create artificial islands in nearby areas be sustainable And by the way, was it widely done somewhere in this planet already?

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 1y ago by Pastychomper‭

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The question may seem stupid but for someone with both a fear of heights and a collapse anxiety can choose renting/buying an apartment in a very horizontally wide building and a very vertically wid...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 1y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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Imagine a spacecraft in a highly eccentric orbit. Say the craft burns at periapsis towards the planet such that its orbital eccentricity does not change and the craft's periapsis moves with the shi...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Josh Hyatt‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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In a world where pollution and population have drastically reduced the effectiveness of sunlight to grow food, would light-panels be capable of completely replacing the sun? The problem I'm trying...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by JBH‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by KalleMP‭

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Nivea have developed a hair product which I personally found very special among this filled-with-generic-stuff market of products, which is named in German "Creme-Gel": I find Nivea's Creme-Gel sp...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 3mo ago by James McLellan‭

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Years ago I read a letter in a magazine suggesting a method for reducing the fire risk in an enclosed environment such as a space shuttle. The idea was to reduce the oxygen concentration to the po...

1 answer  ·  posted 12mo ago by Pastychomper‭  ·  last activity 11mo ago by dsr‭

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If humanity will cause natural dissolution of all ice in planet earth's poles and the sea level would indeed rise tremendously all over the world --- would it be justified to try to "reverse" the s...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 1y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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Some people straighten their head-hair with what's named: Keratin straightening Keratin smoothening Keratin rebonding Keratin treatment It is an external hair straightening procedure in wh...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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A global epidemic of H1Z2 virus has rendered 95% of the population into zombies. The zombies have lost most of their frontal and temporal lobes so the following capabilities are either severely de...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Green‭  ·  closed as duplicate 2y ago by Canina‭

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Is a colony on earth's moon must be deeply underground to ensure more natural gravity (by getting closer to its core) as well as more natural heat? By natural heat I mean "without the need of arti...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  edited 1y ago by deleted user

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Time travel works...just invented, by you. The tests prove it! After many conversations and significant planning, your epidemiologist significant other has approved your plans for time travel, for...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Green‭

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I distinguish human-identification from bureaucracy-applied-to-humans: There was a period in human history in which no state existed so no bureaucracy-applied-to-humans existed and humans identi...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  closed 1y ago by Canina‭

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The way this would work is by creating lasers &amp; pumping them into a chamber where it can't escape. The power for the lasers to be created is made either with a generator or by charging using an...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by pootis‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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There's apparently a type of transmissible cancer that came from new world dogs thousands of years ago, the Canine transmissible venereal tumor. As I understand, this self replicating surviving ca...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Cazadorro‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by sox‭

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Many physicians apply numbing agent creams/ointments such as Lidocaine+Prilocaine or Benzocaine+Lidocaine+Tetracaine (BLT) preparations topically some 30 minutes before laser hair removal treatment...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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Building on the universe established in this question, what happens to identity verification when someone's physical appearance and genetic code are modifiable at any time? Review of universe rule...

3 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Green‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Pastychomper‭

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In all my reading about laser treatments I always found laser treatments which can be applied either for hair removal or for scar flattening (or other unique uses) but I never came across a laser t...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 1y ago by JBH‭

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The concept of utility fogs is actually pretty old. The idea is a swarm of fairly small micromachines (about 100 micrometers in length) that would be able to mimic most materials and objects. Each...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by Mr. Mistoffelees‭  ·  edited 1y ago by Canina‭

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Let's say I have a bunch of pre-pubescent children (circa 8-12 years old). Let's also say I subjected them to some drug/process/whatever that caused them to stop growing. In particular: Whatever...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Matthew‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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I have an idea for a land based mobile organism that moves and uses photosynthesis for its primary means of energy generation. Can a motile organism conceivably get enough energy from photosyntheti...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Cazadorro‭  ·  edited 2y ago by Cazadorro‭

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My friends and I are building a world with a 50 mile high volcano on it. The mountain is the result of some bored god deciding to play a joke on everyone. Or, some other god got angry and decided ...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Green‭  ·  closed as duplicate 2y ago by Canina‭

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What coloration pattern/ technique could a large mammalian predator employ to evade detection from other mammalian predators at 100 -&gt; 20 meter distances (or close enough so that it could sprint...

3 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Cazadorro‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Lundin‭

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Is it plausible to assume that the total amount of water (edit: water molecules) on planet earth was, in different periods of earth's history, significantly lower or significantly higher, or rather...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by deleted user  ·  last activity 1y ago by Lundin‭

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In an alternate Earth, early or midway in the Eocene Epoch, there debuted a family of angiosperm trees whose roots need to be completely submerged. As a result, the limit is that they can't germin...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by JohnWDailey‭

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In the foreseeable future, a scientific community has discovered an alternate universe in which the solar system centers around a binary system of G-type suns, unlike the one G-type that ours orbit...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Enfield‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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In my world, I plan for an alien pathogen to cause drastic mutations in all lifeforms, reshaping animals and humans alike in a scenario of near inversion of positions, with animals achieving human-...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by ProjectApex‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by ProjectApex‭

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How would it switch between if endothermic and ectothermic and in between and how would it be able to create different temperature in specific areas in the body?

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Random guy‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by wizzwizz4‭

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In the late 23rd century certain groups of mankind stared down the barrel of what may be possible in the future: cross galactic relativistic kill missile storms, gamma-ray Dyson Beams, Kugelblitz b...

3 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by TheDyingOfLight‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by TheDyingOfLight‭

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Imagine a plain made of tall grass that sways in a gentle breeze. Everything is a deep green and there is a riot of life sprouting from the black ground. A few days later, the grasses turn brown an...

3 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by chase leffers‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by chase leffers‭

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I am building a setting that is essentially steampunk,being exact it would be pneumatic punk. What electronics and electronic equivalent exists, are primitive and extremely expensive. Thus the majo...

5 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Trismegistus‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Trismegistus‭

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What possible evolutionary adaptations could you foresee in the sensory organs of wildlife in an environment beset by a nigh-permanent sandstorm? e.g. in the case of vision, ways to protect the ey...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Delirium‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Delirium‭

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This was an idea for a flashback as I pick up my story around 100 trillions years from now at the point where star formation is ceasing and the red dwarf and stellar remnant era begins. Now living ...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by RandySavage‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by RandySavage‭

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