Posts tagged technology
Could my civilization use sonoluminescence to create exotic works of art? Someone said on a science forum that future applications of sonoluminescence can be art. Is this feasible or even possibl...
About 200 years from now, a human scientific expedition, lead by a international coalition of Earth nations, is sent to an alien moon around a habitable planet, light years from earth. Like it's pa...
Could you map out all the connections in someones brain just by probing every neuron and tracking them as they send signals to each other (as opposed to every synapse, a much less ambiguous but far...
Background: Most of the population on earth has wings. Wingspans are normally around 13-19ft long depending on the person. Some have lost wings, but I don't want them to be 100% crippled and unable...
It's the future and oil resources have run out. A scientist has suggested using personal fart power to meet our individual power needs. World governments are seriously considering this. They have ...
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 ...
Dateline: 2067 Setting: A research base at the bottom of the Marianas Trench Depth: 10,000 meters. Mission Duration: Thirty days A research base lies at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, housi...
For reference: I am thinking of a story where travel between worlds exists, but people have to "start over" on each world. So they can't just take their current computers to a new world. The monit...
Modern cities are built from concrete with steel rebar because it is abundantly available and provides enough tensile strength. Concrete requires cement. Cement is made from limestone. Limestone is...
Imagine a waste heat driven pressure swing adsorption device is used to treat automobile exhaust gas. Further it aggressively scrubs nitrate, sulphate and CO2 emissions. Note: tanks and filters wou...
I previously asked What measures might an ancient civilization take to protect itself from extreme heat? The answers gave some useful suggestions as to how cities could be adapted. For convenience...
An ancient human like civilization exists on a planet like our own but warmer, with more deserts and smaller oceans. Climate change is forcing the daytime temperature slowly upwards. What measures ...
Following on from my previous question here concerning the ancient civilization I have called the Androy and their struggle to survive terrible drought conditions on their planet. After years of s...
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...
So last year I started writing a post-apocalyptic story, and then realized I had no idea what the world was really like, and quite a few things just didn't seem to make sense. One of the biggest t...
I'm really in doubt if a fusion thruster could be used inside a planet (populated places). As i saw in the TV show "The Expanse", their fusion engines are really, really hot, hotter than the surfac...
When I was a kid, I conceptualized a post-apocalyptic story entirely starring Barbie dolls. One idea I had about how they would live and get around involved transmission towers, or power towers. Im...
In Stephen Baxter's science fiction Novel Ultima humans discover mysterious "kernels" which allow high speed space propulsion units to be built. The problem is that these kernels are only to be fo...
Scenario The straits of Gibraltar never quite opened and the entire Mediterranean basin is dry land apart from a few large salt water lakes at the lowest points ~5% by area. The Europe "“ Africa la...
I am currently searching for a new execution method to be used in my fictional psychotic dictatorship. After introducing methods such as decompression, boiling, surgical torture (being dissected al...
I am running a sci-fi RPG. One of my players (the Engineer) has expressed interest in having a gold hammer. This seems pretty ridiculous to me as gold is soft and softness doesn't seem like a qua...
It is still a myth as far as our modern civilization is concerned, Atlantis located somewhere within the devil's triangle and it's inhabitants had struck down many planes and vessels daring to dist...
Spaceships are a peculiar thing. We've got them in all forms, sizes & colours. They run on nuclear fusion, creating loads of power driving all sorts of shenanigans... but they still generate lo...
Following up on my Martian canals theme from this question and assuming the canals can be constructed, I would now like to ask what level of technology is required to do that. The basic problem Th...
I was working on a relatively near future time-line (20-30 years), and there is a scene in which the POV character has to sabotage the local power supply. Now my initial guess was that it'd be a ...
The Setting I'm doing background work on a story involving a civilization about as advanced as ours materiologically. A significant part of their military operates along the continental shelf zone...
How could you feasibly extract hydrogen from a star to power a plasma fusion reactor, with as little handwavium as possible? This takes place in a sci-fi setting, but isn't necessarily hard science...
The purpose of a magnetic field is to shield against solar winds, which are relativistic ions produced by our Sun. This is a typical O'Neill cylinder with 4 islands. I'm looking for a cost effectiv...
Is there any real technology, experimental or conceptual, that can prolong a person's survivability in outer space in case of sudden life support failure? Something that is also easy to wear or imp...
In real life, "open mike" terminals are becoming popular, that listen for commands addressed to them and answer questions, perform online actions, or operate compatible smart-home controllers or an...
Realistically, if we are ever going to mine asteroids, it would be drones and robots that do it, not humans, because of safety and cost reasons. What reason could justify the participation of human...
I have always wondered if a kind of blimp-like spacecraft would not be our answer for some kind of futuristic spacecraft design. Imagine this: a blimp-like spacecraft is loaded with cargo on the g...
See, I'm a low-g cargo shipper by trade. We get all sorts of containers in all kinds of shapes that we need to fasten to the deck plating, and to do that we use magnetic clamps. Now, these clamps ...
I am wondering how possible (and also, how it might work) something like nanobots would be. The technology level definitely would be higher than it is currently, to the point of pocket universe tec...
Basically I am trying to build a mass surveillance and MRI mental condition analysis network to manage law enforcement at small and medium scale inside threats to national and civilian security. I...
In my story, technologically advanced aliens create a "white hole" at the center of the sun that constantly spits out matter (hydrogen) from a parallel universe, increasing the star's mass quickly....
I'm designing a world in which starships have renewable energy, refueled by parking around black holes or stars and recharging batteries with solar panels, but what fuel for an engine could be extr...
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...
In a different question, someone mentioned "technology dichotomy", where they said "you can't invent time travel without first inventing the wheel". Then I read the question In a society of flying ...
Premise The motivation as to why one would want to give a tidal locked moon a spin is out of the scope of this question. I only want to focus on the feasibility. Suffice to say there could be a fe...
In my space western setting, I went nuts with the time scale, so now I have a faction living entirely in space stations (with planets used for transit and agriculture, but that's irrelevant for now...
My source of inspiration and imagination... StarGate Atlantis Tv-Series: Wraith hive-ships were mainly biological. Genesis Rising Pc-game: The game itself, storyline, human technology, etc based ar...
For my sci-fi world, which spans the entire galaxy, I was wondering if an advanced civilization would build a space probe to explore a star. Would it be necessary and have any scientific benefits, ...
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...
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...
Say you have an interstellar spacecraft packed full of advanced technology, such as: Fusion generators Androids A sublight drive capable of ~0.5C Various robots, holograms, and other automated sy...
"The most sophisticated of the galactic elite crave the most exotic delicacies and few come more exotic or delicious than diamond cheese. This cheese made only on a small agrarian world on the oute...
In a world where people are not allowed to (or choose not to) make use of electron flow current, would it be possible to construct an electric generator using ionic conductors such as tubes with sa...
I need you guys to help me out here. I'm developing clothing ideas and I need to understand what animals and plants may be used to create such clothes. Part of a story that I'm creating is a wate...
The grey goo end-of-the-world scenario in which lots of little microscopic Von Neumann self-replicating machines basically eat everything to make more of themselves. Eventually everything is grey ...
