Posts tagged physics
I wish to clarify my doubts regarding time dilation Is it possible for a planet to be habitable like Edmund's planet from interstellar, which has somewhat similar gravitational force as Earth (9....
The setting I'm thinking of is in the not-so-distant future where humanity has become an interplanetary species using conventional propulsion. The solar system is largely colonized with human settl...
On Earth we don't really notice many effects of the Earth spinning, apart from the day-night cycle. It took a long time for people of Earth to realise that it even was spinning, but there are measu...
I recently watched a special on cave divers in the Yucatan Peninsula and part way through that show the divers encountered a feature called a Halocline, a meeting of two different water masses of d...
I create a world having three moons. Since precession cycle is influenced by our moon, how do I calculate the duration of the cycle with three moons? Thanks
I am trying to build a hard science-fiction world where the interstellar travel might work like this: Travellers bodies are scanned and all relevant information regarding body structure, neural c...
Is there any way for a large civilization to get objects into space without using rockets or explosions? I'm considering a planet roughly equivalent to Earth, where (for whatever reason) rockets ...
Imagine you had a flat earth scenario, in which the world is essentially a giant disc floating in space (I know that in reality any such world would be pulled into a sphere by gravity, but for the ...
Inspired by this question on putting massive capacitor-banks on spaceships I have been wondering about alternative ways to store excess energy from ever-running reactors. In this question I would ...
Let's say that something horrible has happened and a Mars-sized planet is knocked out of orbit and is hurtling towards an Earth-sized planet. How much time will they have? How will this affect the ...
Using only existing technologies, can we shoot 4-5 kg bullets into a stable, specific Low Earth Orbit (at least 1000 km)? The bullets don't contain "hardware" such as electronics, so acceleration ...
Obviously the greater a planet's gravity, the stronger the material of the space elevator's cable would need to be in order to support its own weight. However, doesn't greater rotation speed reduce...
EDIT: Yup, totally misguided here: http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae429.cfm Drifting away. So, no lunar catastrophe for me (without some other handwavium) I've read somewhere tha...
Information and Context I'm working on a story, based 220 or so years in the future in a hard-science universe (where a quantum jump drive has been invented). I was wondering if anyone could giv...
Story starts out about 100 years from now. While in orbit around Earth preparing for an interstellar mission, our spacecraft encounters some hand-wavey spacetime anomaly such that we're still in o...
Superheroes! Everybody loves them! (Though maybe not as much as magic.) The point is, I have a world with super heroes in it. I have a pretty good system of power granting, and have basically divid...
This is a sequel to my previous question How big could a moon be before its orbit became too unstable or tidally locked to its planet OK, let's imagine that the thing everyone thought was a moon w...
Supposing there is a system of several (four to twelve) celestial bodies which are orbiting a star. In this system of bodies, each body is similar enough in size that no single body has a dominant ...
What planetary conditions would make flight easiest for both lighter than air and heavier than air craft together? The planet is earth like and habitable, but the conditions can be adjusted to sui...
I love watching cartoons and I love when they feature cool science gadgets. In an episode of Spongebob, Patrick and Spongebob buy invisible spray to pull pranks on people. They spray themselves and...
Are gases altered by live electricity, such as might be found along a humming electric fence? They could be formed directly or indirectly through effects on EM field, ionization, or hydrolysis - My...
Sister question to How do you communicate with antimatter beings? Defining dark matter for this question According to NASA, 27% of the universe is dark matter - and about 5% of the unive...
I'm assuming that to hold onto more atmosphere, the planet would have to have more gravity, or the atmosphere itself would have to be comprised of denser gasses. So, assuming that the planet has a...
The situation: the good guys are attempting to infiltrate an enemy base, and cause mayhem either in person and/or by planting explosives and running away. They know there is a big dust storm on the...
This is my first post, I apologize in advance if my English is not accurate, it is not my first language. My question is: in a world where very advanced civilizations have achieved intergalactic t...
So, the end-point I want to work towards is a creature that lives on a high-gravity planet that has some sort of adaptation that neutralises the effects of that high gravity, ideally in a way that ...
Could a world similar to that envisioned in the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs / H G exist? And if so would canals be a practical way to make the planet habitable over the long term? For current pu...
I've wondered about this for years. Reading one of the books in the Inheritance Cycle, I came across a stipulation. It stated that if observed enough, a grain of sand could render to the viewer the...
I'm working on some physics questions for dragon riding, mostly regarding changes in temperatures at different altitudes and how that might endanger dragons and their riders. Recently I started won...
I recently came up with an interesting idea for a power: glitch power! I originally thought the idea was great until my brother brought up a valid point: what is there to glitch? Normally glitches...
In ion drive, we use ionized gas. With particle accelerators, we use high-energy particles. Given that colliders expend huge amounts of energy to propell a handful of particles, I speculate the par...
I have heard of gravitational slingshots being used to theoretically accelerate a spacecraft using a planet's gravity and momentum in orbit. But how about decelerating a ship? If it is at all possi...
YA fantasy novel set 350 years in the future under a corporate dictatorship which reanimates dead people to use as disposable slave soldiers. So the setup is a medical/research station orbiting a ...
I find time dilation confusing so I'm not sure if it is a relevant factor. Lets say you have a spaceship. There's no such thing as faster than light travel, but you do have inertial dampener techn...
I got inspired by a recently posted question dealing with an artificial magnetosphere to protect Martian atmosphere during and after terraforming. Earth's magnetic field does funnel solar particle...
Is there any way for a planet to host, even a tiny amount, of matter in a superfluid form, without outside intervention, given that Helium-4 becomes a superfluid below 2.17K, and that according to ...
I am trying to figure out how to build a human colony on a moon (75% of Earth size) of a gas giant. Some details of the planetary system chosen for colonisation: K-type main sequence star (about...
I have a planet which was created by a God, who is experimenting with it by making it spin at an incredible speed. At the equator, the gravity is reduced to half by the centrifugal force generated ...
We have a lot of weird questions come up in chat and fun comments about how we destroy worlds over a lunch break. Here is one that though I might share. You are a power that can affect cosmic bodie...
We have these "magical" items everywhere in fiction; from the classic rabbit coming out of a hat illusion, to the TARDIS from Doctor Who, to Newest Magical Beast Newt Scamander Briefcase. These ite...
I'd like to set a story in our solar system with Earth and the inner planets becoming uninhabitable and a new planet being required. If human beings decided to build a world by making slight deviat...
In a world similar to us, but in which an evil mastermind is trying to create an armour to force their country into submission. Our villain is trying to make it out of a ceramic composite. What wou...
I am constructing a two dimensional world, but ran into a problem with one of the fundamental forces, gravity. I first tried to see what would happen if I just used the normal law of gravity, $\fr...
Having in mind a scene from "Avatar: The Last Airbender" where Aang covers his body in a block of ice to float on water I'm wondering if it was possible to get H2O solid at arbitrary temperatures (...
Many fish have specialized organs called buoyancy bladders which allow them to control their buoyancy - effectively rising or sinking in the water. What if humans adapted this to use in the air? I...
If tiny particles of solid material (the size of sand grains, for instance) were flung into space, would they pose a danger to anything they hit? I'm no physicist, but my understanding is that obj...
Is it reasonably possible for a type of human to exist that rapidly tans in the presence of large amounts of sun/radiation and loses it again afterwards, in a matter of minutes? Also, how might suc...
A society lives on geostationary platforms at some vast height above the ground. The platforms themselves are not affected by gravity, wind, etc. Their technology has only just reached the point wh...
My habitat ring is constructed in orbit around a planet with disconnected sections: (not to scale, obviously) The sections are connected by cables and winched together. As the diameter gets sma...
