Posts tagged physics
I asked a question earlier on here concerning Negative and Heavy Matter - hypothetical types of matter I created to have a working FTL drive. With some extra work, I've tweaked the concept and been...
Due to the moon's gravitational pull, objects at Earth's surface directly under the moon are slightly lighter. This tiny lessening of gravity would also take effect if the moon were on the exact op...
I was reading on another question (this one) and was thinking "What if those bullets could return?" What I am looking for is: Practicality Cost effective Combat effective Manufacturability
Could two planets be tidally locked to each other at such a small distance from one another that they share their atmosphere, and material is floating around between the two?
Imagine a world that works mostly like our own: it's built of atoms and quantum particles, there's gravity and conservation of energy, etc. Perhaps the physical laws aren't exactly the same as our ...
I'm thinking of a planet in a Goldilocks zone similar to Earth's, with a similar atmosphere, and similar atmospheric pressure and temperature at the surface. Gravity would be variable, based on the...
My answer to the question Is there a scientifically sound faster-than-light travel system for a spaceship? involved an Alcubierre-drive starship. However, that then got me thinking. What would an ...
Assuming the power source for such acceleration places no limit on things, how quickly can a space craft be accelerated to the speed necessary to cross the distance between Jupiter and the sun in a...
This will be a companion question for How plausible is my monster?. My previous question dealt with a story treatment for a hard science and realistic take on Kaiju/ giant monsters. While that sto...
Handwaving the origin of one such place, imagine a universe where every part of space is filled fully and evenly with liquid water (at, say 1 degree Celsius). What would be the experience of a soli...
I'm struggling with the physics here a bit since I'm a complete novice at this. I'm making a character who's main ability is to subvert/play around with the 3rd Law of motion (For every action, the...
I'm struggling with the physics here a bit since I'm a complete novice at this. I'm making a character whose main ability is to subvert/play around with the 2nd Law of motion. Somehow I understand...
I'm about to break rule seven of superpowers: don't think too hard about what it does to the air. A superhero has the ability to disappear any atoms that come within 2 cm of their skin (atoms that...
In my Conworld's system, There is a porous asteroid large enough to be a dwarf planet (but it's mass is too small to pull it into a spherical shape) that has rings. How they got there, nobody knows...
A civilization wishes to create a wormhole connecting its universe to a universe with a different spacetime metric. For instance if we describe a timelike dimension with $+$ symbol and a spacelike...
In Steven Gould's Jumper series, the main character has the ability to teleport, and he eventually realizes he automatically does frame matching when doing so - no matter where on earth his origin ...
I want you to meet Gary. Gary looks like a human, walks like a human, and talks like a human. But he's not. He's a superhero, or a magician, or... something. He's not really sure. He just knows tha...
I have a scene where an alarm is sounding in an airlock, as the pressure is lowered from normal atmospheric pressure to vacuum (takes a few minutes). How would this alarm sound to an unprotected pe...
I'm talking about this sort of liquid sand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My4RA5I0FKs "Desert-as-sea-analog" is present in many media, but often they lean heavily into fantasy, and it seems not ...
Background: In this scenario assume technology is initially equal to our own, but a method is discovered to render material indestructible. The affected material is treated as requiring infinite o...
If it is even possible, what would the Goldilocks zone be like - in fact is such a system even possible of holding life - around a binary black hole? Could it have planets orbiting it? EDIT 1: Oh ...
When traveling at fast speeds through the galaxy, would it be possible to identify where all the black holes were on your path? I know most black holes are identified by their affect on other nearb...
Following my mutant thread, I'd like some insight on one of them. I wrote this first generation highly powerful mutant whose ability revolves around metal. (Context, skippable if you're only here...
I've been looking over the internet and on here to find some kind of evidence for this, but nothing conclusive, so I was hoping for people with a better understanding of smelting, chemistry and phy...
I'm currently writing this story where an intelligent lifeform, instead of human eye-sight, is able identify the chemical composition of their surroundings, by detecting and "mapping" all the atoms...
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode The Die is Cast. A planetary bombardment scene occured where 17 shots was stated to have destroyed 30% of a planet's crust. Now obviously that's a HUGE amo...
I want the surface of my fantasy planet to be made hostile every few thousand years for long enough to make every species go extinct that breeds on land. The easiest explanation seems to be other p...
While building my sifi world I dug into ftl-travel and encountered these mean bullies, causality and relativity. They told me I can't have faster than light travel, because effect can't precede cau...
Imagine an Earth-like planet with oceans that are comprised roughly 50/50 of heavy water and normal water. My understanding is that while heavy water ice sinks in normal water, it would float on he...
I want to achieve the following. Jet + secret base underwater + blow up water with bomb to gain entry to tunnel at bottom of the sea, see image: Say that the depth is 1000m, then Based on calcul...
Is it possible to use a power plant-like machine to create small amounts of electrical (or other) energy directly inside the human body, making it such that the human has energy for activity withou...
Suppose Ship A is being targeted by Ship B, which intends to use a laser weapon in an attempt to destroy Ship A. Ship A has special technology that allows it to alter gravity (mainly used for gen...
My question is this: can excess mass be bled off into hyperspace (the large and compact extra dimensions, not the Star Wars-esque swirling vortex), yet the matter remains in our universe? Is mass ...
I have been trying to figure out a way of explaining how an advanced society some time in the past built an artificial planet with a black hole at its core and the effects that would have on the pe...
In my semi-realistic science fantasy RPG, I want there to be a newly discovered chemical element that is perfect at generating plasma for use in various futuristic weapons and to increase the lifes...
An alien race was rubbed the wrong way by humans being humans and decided that humankind has to go. However, unlike many other science fiction stories, they do not intend to give the humans even a ...
I'm building a world that happens to be flat. Well, it has hills and mountains, but no curvature. However, I still want to limit the eyesight to a few kilometers even if there are no hills around....
Imagine a single, long, straight stretch of track. On the track there is a train heading in one direction at 100 km/h and a second train heading towards it at 200 km/h. The latter train is a specia...
Warning This question is the first of a series about specific use of teleportation. It will concern only about momemtum and speed: other subjects will be exposed later. Context The story happens...
My planet is a 20% larger than the earth, assume a similar atmosphere, but it can be changed to fit the narrative. My ship is not so large as in the original question, a cylinder shape, about a mi...
You have a material that greatly enhances electric and magnetic sources or electro-magnetism in general. In this world, the material, is known to be a naturally occurring liquid found in geologic...
A holy man lives down a cylindrical well that is 2 metres in diameter. There is no water in the bottom and all the walls are of solid impermeable rock. He is protected from rain by a roof on suppor...
In an upcoming writing project, I will be focusing on an autonomous drone that picks through space wreckage. It has access to intermittent star light, but has no source of chemical propellant. The ...
Imagine that humanity builds mining facilities on the moon. We know that the moon has Helium-3 which could be used as fuel for fusion reactors. Also, there are a lot of other resources which could ...
I recently came across a game called dead space and a certain main antagonist species inside of the game. In this game you play as the main character who is trying to protect humanity from sentient...
There is something that can stand that much temperatures ? or that kind of Welding can evaporate or melt everything ? I read that nothing could stand more than 7000 ° C, but i want to be sure, als...
I've read comics in which someone with pyrokinetic powers was able to block bullets with a sheet of fire. I have three questions How hot would the fire have to be to melt a bullet passing through...
I'm envisioning a double-planet system where both orbit around a central point. One planet is approximately Earth-sized, while the other is about one-tenth the size. One of the planets (the smalle...
I'm trying to figure out how quickly a planet could rotate while also having a single air flow cell, such as Hadley cells, that would circle from hot pole to cold pole, etc. as in the case of Tidal...
While recently reading a physics textbook and thinking about magic systems, I tried to perform a thought experiment I had problems with concluding, so I thought of asking for help. Here I explain t...
