Posts tagged physics
How would you contain a small star in order to draw energy from it, and power a ship? I'm thinking along the lines of a force field. I need the star visible from the exterior of the ship for aes...
Using our world's physics, how could one explain the mechanics behind a witch on a broomstick? Not just the propelling part, but even the most basic fact - sitting on a broomstick - seems problemat...
In Larry Niven's short story "Bordered in Black", there's a planet (Sirius B-IV) with much lower gravity than Earth. As a result, the planet has a gentler atmospheric pressure gradient, i.e., the a...
I am hoping to create a planet with a greater rotational speed, making it oblong, thus causing differential gravitaion from the equator to the poles. I am hoping for the gravitarion to be lighter t...
Belsaria is the City of Fountains. The capital of Nowheria, it's truly a civic marvel, due to the thousands of fountains that jet water into the air at every intersection and in the courtyards of a...
Two days ago I asked how we can detect a (really) small black hole. The best answer (to me) was "gamma rays". Since this black hole is relatively close to our planet (a few AUs), this could be a pr...
Premise In a world set 10^40 years from now, or in cosmological decade 60 (a cosmological decade is a long term measure of time such that each successive increment represents a ten-fold increase i...
Assume that Handwavium is a gas many times lighter than Hydrogen. Is it realistic to use this gas to make relatively heavy full-body armor (say, brass) lighter and/or more maneuverable? This seems ...
What would be the effects of high or low gravity on human body development? How would the human body develop under a different gravity? Many science fiction stories explore the idea that people fro...
Global warming is awful, we all agree. The problem is that there exists materials that warm up easily naturally or artificially. But, why isn't there cold materials? Cooling something requires ene...
In my universe a 4th SPACIAL dimension exists around our 3 dimensions. I'm playing with ideas for a society that has access to a 4th spacial dimension and am currently thinking of what they would b...
In IRL, reactive armor is a type of armor, that is created to defend the tank from non-explosives kinetic perpetrators penetrators, by blowing away the projectile with the detonation of a high expl...
This is for a story line that I would prefer to be based on known science as much as possible. Is there a known compound that can phase shift from gas to solid or liquid, or the other way around, ...
Working on a bit of a story that includes the ejection of the planet Jupiter from the solar system rather suddenly with all of the planets staying generally within it. I understand this is complica...
First contact with an alien life form often goes badly. In the case of Biothanata, it always goes badly. The first glimpse of this alien blob is in the form of a falling star, a meteorite. After bu...
I'm building a fantasy world with a planetary core that gains and loses mass in a predictable manner. I want the gravity to increase and decrease by 50% in both directions over a period lasting 2-3...
I've been wondering, would it be possible to achieve levitation of an object in the center of mass of a planet? I ask this because the gravity is the attraction between bodies and theoretically th...
The question Could we still live if Earth's spin speed slowed down by 90% assumed Earth's spin speed slowed down by undefined human activities (as if climate change was not bad enough). One answer ...
I swear I saw this question elsewhere. Let me know if this is a dupe. Photons are great. They're little bundles of energy that Reflect off of nearly everything, allowing us to see faraway obj...
A couple friends and I have started a world called Lothaucan. On this world there is a continent called Novara with a circle of islands as its key feature. (seen in the mid-left of the image) I...
This is specifically about the climate, and where on the planet it would be mildest. Imagine Earth, rotating at the usual distance from the sun. Except, it is tidally locked to the sun; a so-calle...
I am writing a story in which a planet has a moon that orbits it about once a minute. In the story, the moon is pretty bright too, so the night sky has a little bit of a slow strobe light effect: 3...
Lets indulge in a bit of Mad Science, here. Assuming the world described here: Making the Enterprise Fly (60% of earth's gravity, 50% denser atmosphere) what is the wingspan needed to allow an ave...
This question is specifically about the mechanics of an alien creature swimming in highly viscous magma, the unlikeliness of life surviving at magma temperatures etc isn't relevant. Just imagine it...
In a parallel universe, death is physically impossible so nothing can ever die but this universe has lots of life. It is also physically impossible for any life form in this hypothetical universe t...
I'm in the process of writing a speculative evolution book which is based on the natural history of the nine tailed foxes that suppose form a structure for a novel series I'm also doing (rather as ...
Is there a way that, on an Earth-like planet (similar size, mass, composition, resources, moon, climate, star orbit, etc.) some natural process could create and continually renew a Kessler Syndrome...
2017, flying islands just appeared in the sky. Different places in the world, different sizes. The biggest one is about the size of the Corsica french island. They have similar ecosystem than Eart...
So, I'm still working on the plasma weaponry, the shape is a: Spheromak: The spheromak is a type of plasma configuration which enables the plasma to contain itself with its own magnetic field, eve...
An exploratory spaceship holding strangers from many cultures and races has a problem leading to escape pods being deployed to a nearby world that is conveniently survivable. The pods crash land in...
I have a plasma rifle, but it's not just any plasma, rifle. This weapon uses accelerates a toroid plasmato incredibly high speeds I can shot the cup down from anyone's head. (and probably smash th...
So say that there is this ridiculously dense object that fits on Earth. It has a bigger gravitational force than the Earth, and for some reason, doesn't break it. It also has a smaller force than t...
I see this in so many maps. Normally, the water flows downhill because of gravity but here it is the opposite, rivers will go above the hills. When you mention this incoherence, the authors refuse ...
I recently came across this paper detailing a plan to use 12 superconducting rings around earth to strengthen our magnetic field. I'm planning on using this same idea for my own worldbuilding. An ...
If for a 'magic' Reason a second planetary mass of roughly equal proportions to earth appeared in the same orbit as earth. Is there any way that both masses could continue to orbit and remain in th...
I saw this old closed question on Physics.SE and thought it would be perfect for here. The original author is long gone, so I thought I'll just have to post it myself. We can consider factors of p...
Short of strapping a giant lightning pole to someone's forehead or covering them in a suit of metal, is there anyway of making a person a susceptible target for lightning in a storm? Prerequisite...
In my world, there is a race of giants, with an average height of 5 meters. Let's assume that every part of their body is proportional to that of a "normal" human being. I want these giants to pul...
I want my world to be set in early to mid Industrial Age but for various reasons that I won't go into here I don't want there to be any gunpowder based weapons. Is it possible for a society to adv...
EDIT: There were some great answers here, and I realize this is a kinda broad question, but I'm accepting Monty Wild answer as it provided me with the info I needed to push this forward. Now I have...
Background: In the world of Krynn (Dragonlance) there was this worldwide catastrophe, the Cataclysm. What happened: Gods became angery to a single person, so they threw an asteroid at him, oblite...
Supposing you took Earth or a planet like it and doubled its mass, the gravity would obviously increase in whatever proportion to that. As a result, humans as we know them would be ... thicker, (...
I thought of two questions regarding ringworld structures in solar systems with results I can't assume, so I will try to describe each (assume stability): If a (toroidal) ringworld were massive e...
So in the story I'm trying to write, I'm having trouble getting the gravity on my fictional to seem realistic, and I would like to know if it seems technically possible? A group of astronauts tra...
While playing old games, I encountered a friend I knew from SciFi series and games alike, the Merculite missile. While thinking about what Merculite might actually be (and linking it to a mineral f...
A gram of vaporized polonium can kill more than a million people and thus is the most potent poison known to Man. Having read this article, my crazy dictator immediately assembled the most experien...
This is the second part of a question here that I've broken up because they are two very distinct problems. Assuming a perfectly stable ringworld: Assume a more traditional flat ringworld that is ...
Here is the situation. A planet fairly similar to Earth is orbiting binary stars, one O or B type and one F type. Sometimes the stars are close together in the sky, sometimes far apart, sometimes o...
Let's say Earth started rotation in the opposite direction without any catastrophic events, would a day on Earth be shorter or longer or just the same considering that speed of rotation and revolut...
