Posts tagged nuclear
Can electricity be generated directly from nuclear decay? It occurred to me that in alpha decay two protons fly off rapidly, leaving their associated electrons behind. If the alpha particle was ca...
Could nuclear energy be a basis for energy storage with foreseeable technology? One approach would be to use excited nuclear states, but I suspect they would be too unstable to ever be useful. Al...
In 1958 the United States Air Force considered a mission to detonate a nuclear device on the surface of the Moon. The endeavour was framed as a booster to American public morale in the wake of the ...
I'm writing a story about a town whose residents all work at a nuclear reprocessing site. Some teenagers begin to hang out near a small body of water close to the site that they call "the swamp". T...
I want to write a story about a thought experiment that I have on the other day : What kind of catastrophe will happen if an asteroid, let just say about 70 meters in diameter, penetrated Earth's a...
Those of you who are familiar with the DC Comics hero Firestorm know that he can alter the chemical structure of any form of inorganic matter, provided he knows the chemical equation. In my story, ...
So I was recently inspired by the answers that I saw on this stack exchange to the following question: Feasibility of H.G. Wells' Continuously-Exploding Atomic Bombs And it occurred to me that you...
"Aliens used uranium and plutonium to generate energy for thousands of years. However, by the time they got into space exploration, they've used up every last bit of it. That's why they'll have to ...
I'm attempting to flesh out the history to a sci-fi novel I'm currently writing, which is set in the future. Several hundred years prior to the beginning of the story, lack of resources lead to s...
What is a possible event${^*}$ that would cause a spike in the speed of $^{235}$U fission and reduce its average concentration in ore worldwide? As I understand the physics of the process, it is i...
The exoplanet in question is Proxima Centauri b. How might the mid-to-upper-level atmosphere of that planet be dangerously radioactive and full of airborne nuclear reagents, without it being the do...
Dear top secret science network, Humanity was visited by visitors from another universe altogether (one which doesn't obey our laws of physics) - the D'jini. A diplomatic convoy of them apperead o...
I wanted to have characters that can control energy and matter, so Dr Manhattan came to mind as a great example of a character that does that. Information on him says that he has complete awarenes...
Would it even be feasible under science fiction logic? It would allow nuclear weapons to be mass produced if the nuclear pasta could actually be collected and contained safely.
Need help with a topic for a sci-fi book. Basic premise is 200yr in future, mining facility on small Mars moon of Phobos. Power source we would like is an Sodium Fast Reactor breeder as we think th...
First let me say that I know almost nothing but the basics about nuclear fission. I know more about nano robotics but I've got no degree in the matter, just a rather in depth curiosity and a lot of...
Have a creature that doesn't really need vitamins or minerals, it only requires energy which goes through a energy-matter conversion to build what it needs. Radioactive materials would be great sou...
As conclusion of this question it seems that under a dense atmosphere it would be a good idea to place the main city in mountains. Just there is the inconvenient issue that top of mountains lack fl...
What would cause a nuclear power plant to break down after 2000 years, but not sooner? The setting is a society in a dark age. Their ancestors were considerably more advanced than earth currently...
I was doing some research on how to design a scientifically possible alien, when I came across an interesting section on metabolism. I found it very interesting and read about the weak force, as op...
This is a world building question in a preventative context because those people or countries would be left fully functional while others gone and the safe areas is where the world building would b...
I am trying to design a single seat fighter capable of achieving (or getting close to) hypersonic velocities at high altitude. In this universe I am assuming compact fusion is a common technology. ...
Trying to develop a fictional scenario with a 'believable' theory as to how a Nuclear War and resulting Nuclear Winter could turn into a millennial scale ice age. By 'believable', I mean that it p...
Ok so I was thinking about a way to hypothetically have undiscovered elements with bizarre properties (for unobtainium purposes). And an idea hit me: replace nucleons with heavier but stable counte...
In the year 2069AD, a spaceship is transporting hundreds of people in cryogenic sleep to a distant star. The spaceship engine is a nuclear fission reactor and its thruster is based on an ion drive ...
The idea is to build a cybernetic body for a human. Only the brain and a few glands related to emotions, like adrenal glands, will be kept. The brain and the glands will be in a closed, plug-and-p...
Scenario: Deadly virus wiped out 80 - 90% world population and it did it pretty quickly (in 2 months) Although it is plausible that among these 10 - 20% of survivors will be people who actually kn...
Is it possible to directly convert radioactivity to turn it into electricity? If yes, then what is the conversion rate?
To be more specific, I mean what if every wire, every power cable and transformer on the connected grids to the nuclear power plants all ruptured at once. The transformers literally exploding, the ...
Follow-up of Could the entire world have been destroyed by the existing nuclear arsenal in 1962? Is it safe to grow food on land that was hit by nuclear bombs? Or will such food kill/fatally s...
I am a post-human adapted for permanent life in vacuum and micro-gravity. How might my physiology and biochemistry overcome the following challenges? Please note I have a strong cultural aversion ...
I'm working on building a post nuclear war society in a nuclear winter where northern countries have risen to dominance through a combination of being non-primary targets in the nuclear war and hav...
Solid Core Nuclear Thermal rocketry has existed for a while and I was thinking about using it as the primary propulsion in my setting. Now most Solid Core rockets still have fairly long transit tim...
So, I'm writing about the siege of an asteroid base. This asteroid is near the outer edge an asteroid belt at the solar radiation equivalent of Saturn's orbit from its star (although the raw distan...
Bear with me. I have a villain who wants to get ahold of a nuke, except I'm not sure why exactly. I think he thinks he can create a singularity that would swallow up the entire universe (which beli...
[![enter image description here][5]][5] Model Lightcraft under laser power While sadly the funding for this research has not been forthcoming, there have been proof of principle flights and ope...
On a timescale of 1e11 years, all uranium and thorium will have decayed, but planets will still exist, orbiting red dwarf stars. Would it be possible to use lead as a nuclear fuel? In principle, t...
Would it be possible for a fully modern civilization (i.e. quite like our own, perhaps slightly more advanced, with near-future tech) to arise on an Earth-like planet devoid of uranium, plutonium, ...
...no, I mean, supposedly, I believe there is more about it than mere kans on our part. Installations like this one are found all along the spoorwegs, and yes, around some you should tread light...
In a previous question, it was established that antimatter could be "mined" through positron-emitting isotopes. By gathering positrons from decaying positron-emitting isotopes (potassium-40 and al...
...It's paradox. They left us these technological marvels, yet with all their might and knowledge they failed to prevent their own doom... Excerpt from a lecture by the High Historian of Berli...
Imagine we had an easy way to produce antimatter, we could use it for interstellar travel, deadly weapons or more; but I've thought: How could we use it to produce electricity? As Antimatter annih...
I'm trying (failing) to write a story set within the exclusion zone around a nuclear power plant incident set in the near future. The 'incident' that leads to the exclusion zone being set up isn't ...
As stated in the topic: I would like to have Project Olympus-style space stations served by Apollo-like spacecraft in a world where neither nuclear power (and weapons) nor transistors were develope...
There are many stories of converting one element into another (such as the story of the Philosopher's Stone), but to actually mutate one material into another (at least with our our current underst...
In my world, all terrestrial bodies in the solar-system of over 900 km size have a significant human presence. Earth-moon Travel is as common as an interstate road trip, and Interplanetary travel i...
A colony ship is sent to Enceladus. It has a nuclear reactor to provide power to life support, electric engines etc... Upon arrival, the colonists also need a reactor to melt holes into the ice and...
I'm trying to build a setting in which humankind would have no other choice than to live underwater to survive. Suppose there was a nuclear war in which a huge part of the human population died, ...
Could anyone could survive a nuclear war and all that follows? I have read many things saying they would, and read other science-based answers, but they all talked about a nuclear war that was re...
Is it possible for an organism to evolve to biologically generate its own nuclear power? If so, how would this evolution occur?