Posts tagged physics
Setting Overview My world suffers from an abundance of a particular type of energy. This energy can be safely absorbed and utilized by living cells, enabling, for example, a dragon's flight and fi...
I have an enormous civilization spanning a large amount of the universe. It is able to both travel and send information much faster than the speed of light without violating any laws of physics. Re...
I have a civilization that lives on a planet located inside a nebula (and orbiting a normal, sun-like star). Would this nebula somehow interfere with/ obscure the sight of a rogue neutron star/ b...
I've got a lunar colony that struggles to obtain resources, so they're looking for ways to launch satellites into orbit without using up a bunch of rocket fuel. One plucky engineer has suggested ...
Is it possible for a planet to be heated and illuminated by a black hole due to Hawking radiation at the same intensity as by a star? What mass and size should a black hole have to produce the sam...
I understand it might happen in a weak gravitational field. If I have twins on Earth, but one of them suddenly gets transported to intergalactic medium (without any great mass nearby), then the tra...
Characters with powerful telekinesis are portrayed as being able to exert a superhuman force using only their minds. For example, they can throw a car. Based on what I remember from high school ph...
A messenger from the stars just arrived in peace but has brought horrible news. A vast swarm of planet devouring phototropic insects are approaching from deep space and our only hope is to obscure ...
Premise Suppose an earth-like world in the near-future. Then aliens come and decide to play a mischievous trick on this world on an epic scale. The goal is to disrupt Earth's time by 18 minutes. S...
What sort of force would a railgun need to produce to have a measurable affect on the trajectory of a large spacecraft? In the scifi book I am working on the primary craft of the story is a milita...
As a way to travel fast, my Earth-like planet is going to have a special train, circling it (the axis of the 'tracks' is aligned with the planet's axis of rotation). The thing about this train - i...
I understand that particles such as tachyons don't really exist and are unlikely, but say for the sake of this question they do. Would these particles bond or interact with atoms? By interactions I...
Summary The main idea behind the "cuboverse" is that spacetime distances are measured by (something close to) the sup norm or infinity norm. Under this norm, spheres (the set of points at a fixed ...
In the story Wang's Carpets (and part of the novel Diaspora), Greg Egan sketchily describes a high-dimensional universe which contains no analog for light, such that the aliens who inhabit this uni...
I'm writing a science fiction novel where a linear accelerator buried underground has to explode. Above the linear accelerator is an enormous server room which ideally would be heavily damaged. Ato...
Imagine a planet with two moons that have an orbital pattern similar to that of Janus and Epimetheus of Saturn... Is there a way for one of these moons to keep a stable pair of Trojan sub moons? ...
For the purposes of my story, I have created the following setting. An Earth-like planet orbits a binary star system made up of a Sun-like star and a neutron star. For the majority of time (hundre...
In our universe, in order for a cloud of gas to collapse into a star it needs to release heat energy in the form of radiation, so that it can cool down enough to collapse into a star. I read what ...
A character is on an alien planet that is very much like any one of our large deserts. Sort of a Tatooine like on Star Wars. He needs to cause a diversion. There aren't any explosives on planet o...
Suppose that for some reason gravity magically changes, but only for people. While this goes on, instead of gravity pulling people down, it pushes them East. To be clear, it's just people. Not anim...
So I asked a question before about having two moons. A wise patron suggested my moon be made out of something like blown glass, in order to have a big bright moon that isn't too dense. That has me ...
At the climax of my story, most of the people on the planet have the way they interact with gravity magically altered. Until a week passes or they die (whichever comes first), instead of being pull...
In my world there are mechanical semi-humanoid automata. Would it be possible to make them speak in a fashion that sounds natural (i.e. human)? How might it function? The mechanism should be capa...
Alright so I'm not really a physics person by any stretch so forgive me if I butcher some physics jargon on this post. So I'm making this hard sci-fi interstellar ship with a rotating habitat that...
In my story there are people with super powers, but they only get to have one. So, if someone's power is to start a fire, then they can't also control it once it starts. My problem currently is wi...
You know stuff like Yggdrasil tree but just a normal tree that is the biggest and tallest in the world. If the roots grow to surpass the continental and oceanic plate either it only cover some par...
I'm writing a novella for a school competition. My main character is a shape shifter. I am trying to find a plausible scientific explanation for how shape shifting is possible. I tried finding an...
This question is about the Cube Prison as seen in the 2012 film The Cabin in the Woods. My question is not about the film or its lore, but how the cube prison can be constructed. Specifically, ...
Update (6/20/19): I have received some great answer here and they all mostly point to the fact that while effects on the opposite side of the planet are possible, the deformation may or may not re...
Premise I want to explore the possibility of a planet that is extremely misshapen. If we were to extrapolate what we have observed from our solar system and the extra-solar planets discovered so f...
Say another Earth orbited the Earth, instead of the Moon. What effects would that have? Would gravity change in relation to the planets slightly during their orbits? I am world building and am tryi...
What would the consequences be of a high number of solar systems being within close proximity to one another? I'm mainly interested in the consequences for life on multiple planets. When I say 'clo...
A livescience.com article claims that trees can reach a theoretical height of 400 to 426 feet (122 to 130m). This is due to the tree being unable to carry water up to the top at that certain point ...
How fast can nanites work Tangential to the above question. This is for a novel about a somewhat near future. The conceit is that very advanced nanites, plus computers that are able to read our mi...
In an effort to work out a believable form of faster-than-light communications for my setting, I've ruled out a few things: wormholes (which are in use, but are too random in where they lead, to be...
During an ice age, would it be possible for a great lake to be frozen while a relatively nearby river was still running? To help illustrate my point: Would it be possible for Lake Michigan (or par...
In a sci-fi universe where man has the capability to leave our solar system would metals or alloys above and beyond our own be possible? Or at least within the bounds of reasonable possibility? As ...
In my late-Victorian world there are independently moving automata that may act as pets or servants to those that can afford them. They require a fair amount of energy to run at full capacity, eno...
I was wondering if an object that changes its own mass could exist. But let's try not to fill it up with air or other gas so it feels "lighter". That way you could protect things from being stolen...
In the far future the posthuman successors of mankind have disassembled the stars and live on ultra slow and ultra efficient solar system sized computers, Matrioshka Brains. The last enemy of intel...
A space opera sultan has a problem. Sentient androids are haram, but an unwelcome android spy has saved his life and helped prevent a coup. Rather than have the android destroyed as his ministers d...
Angels are advanced technological beings who are messengers of the gods. These extra-dimensional beings are large, upwards of 30ft tall, and resemble eldritch abominations in their true form, such ...
Wouldn't it be cool if giant monsters were on giant planets? Of course it would be, but unfortunately physics doesn't really like that idea. Big planets make things on them need more support, so be...
I am investigating the possibility of modifying the speed of light in my world. Assuming that the speed of light in a vacuum can (and in my world, is) modified, what lower bound exists that would ...
In a sci-fi RPG I eventually intend to run for a couple of friends, I had the idea of them visiting ancient ruins on a planet orbiting a shedding red giant. Now, ignoring the problem of intelligen...
Once a long long time ago a guy called Newton came up with a law he called his 3rd law. "The laws of motion" Everyone knows about "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" My question her...
In my world, interstellar vessels use a drive whose design mankind learned from an extinct elder civilization. While construction of the drives is possible, the physical principles making them work...
I'm working on a sci-fi setting which includes an aquatic space-faring species. When a human space vessel is ruptured and depressurizes, the gas can escape rapidly and we immediately suffer from t...
I want to render impractical the deployment of satellites by exploiting the Kessler syndrome. Why, you ask? Maybe I'm an evil overlord and I don't want those pesky satellites flying over my lair. ...
Subarenaceous animals are those which can move long distances through dry sand - like sandfish lizards, or Dune's sandworms. The main problem they have to tackle is turning the sand immediately aro...
