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We are in a future where genetics has advanced to a point where arbitrary modifications can be done to living beings. Now a geneticist wants to make a flying human. That is, he wants to modify a hu...
A really simple question - if you built a space elevator then you continue building past the geostationary point to put tension onto the tether. Now if you keep building out further and further the...
Let's say that the world has successfully converted and only depends on renewable resources for our home energy needs. In fact, we have a massive surplus - currently in the form of raw electricity ...
This question is a sort of follow-up to Samuel's previous world map question, Creating a realistic world(s) map - planetary systems. Lots of science fiction stories involve journeying to nearby st...
In this question about a Mars battle set up in 2100-ish, we decided, that the best battle devices would be drones. In that setup the whole "drone" thing was hand-waved, but I would like to know if ...
An x-ray binary is a binary star system consisting of a star and a stellar remnant. As matter is ripped from the star and is then accelerated into the neutron star/black hole by its gravity, x-ray...
It's been 21 years Ms. Frizzle has been doing her best to educate the masses. Even with all the knowledge available provided on the internet, not only do people not take advantage, they choose to ...
This question asked about aliens launching meteors at major metropolitan areas on Earth, but explicitly excluded the accuracy of the meteors from the question. In this specific scenario aliens ...
In the near future, drones replace military fighter jets that require human pilots. These drones will be travelling at many times the speed of sound. Highly sophisticated drones will be able to eva...
Many fantasy stories involve large spiders like in Harry Potter. These creatures behave almost exactly like normal spiders despite their size. My question is: can large spiders still walk upside d...
Vertebrate tooth enamel is made from Hydroxylapatite, however this need not be the only material available that an alien species could use to make teeth or tooth-like structures. Given that an ide...
Note: I am aware of a previous question Physiological effects of living on a world close to a black hole As I understand it, that question refers specifically to a planet that is in a non-ideal ...
So this was done in Starship Troopers and I am curious if it is realistic for interplanetary warfare. The idea is that aliens launch meteors at major metropolitan areas...and it ends poorly for th...
Stars generate their energy by fusing lighter elements into heavier elements. The most common reaction in Sun-like stars is the conversion of hydrogen to helium via the proton-proton chain, but hea...
Based on this question and answer about a human sized creature that lives completely on textiles, how feasible is it for a creature to consume nylon and polyester to derive fats/lipids useful for b...
What's the easiest way for your stereotypical aliens to destroy civilization from orbit? I'm taking "destroy civilization" to mean the destruction of all large-scale forms of governance, but bonus ...
This question prompts me to evaluate the possibility that the romans or greeks could be blown in a storm to the Americas and survive if they had enough water provisions? Or maybe not provisions bu...
All the worlds I've seen built by me or others have surfaces that are mainly water. Is it possible for a habitable world to exist if the world is mainly land? I'm only talking about 55-65 percent l...
In this question, it's pointed out that the L3 Lagrange point, where a "true" Counter-Earth would lie, is in fact unstable, and over time any object there would drift into a different orbit. Obvio...
Based on this question about an impossible barbell planet, how hot would the bar be if it extended from halfway in the Earth's mantle to an altitude of 2r of Earth's radius? The diameter of the bar...
Once the geography of the world is designed, it needs a planetary system to inhabit. But how should that solar system look? The only constraint is that the system needs the new world to be placed i...
Okay, my first trial run, How would humans and society react to a superhero existing and saving the earth?, of social sciences with hard-science is looking some what sickly at the moment (maybe som...
This is going to be a test run of hard-science, social science edition. This is in accordance with http://meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/2348/8914. Okay, so a meteor is about to hit the ea...
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 ...
This is the first question in a series on the physical limits of the human body. The intent of this series is to, illustrate the upper and lower limits of human biology for the purpose of buil...
In the world I'm building, the day lasts 9 of their years. This means that they are almost always on the move, living in blimp-like cities and houses. I've been designing these and I am having trou...
There an atmospheres in which I can live, like Earth's. There are atmospheres in which I can float, like if it were a really heavy gas. Is there some atmospheric composition where I could both be a...
I have a fictional map for an Earth-like planet, with Renaissance-era humanoid populations. Also, Luna, that is, the exact same moon that we had, pre-Space-Race, is orbiting the planet. My map jus...
The idea of uploading one's personality and consciousness to a computer is a semi-common science fiction trope. It has been suggested as a way to essential immortality. In a story I'm working on, ...
I was wondering if a small black hole would make a feasible/possible propulsion source, and if so, how. Pros Black holes release Hawking radiation, would should be easy to direct in a certain ...
Inspired by this question, and my own answer to it: Avoiding galactic pandemics. World ending pandemics are a common disaster/after-the-end story trope, I'm trying to determine if plausible, and h...
In many science fiction stories, crystals where used by ancient alien civilisations to store information that could last millions of years. For example, in Stargate, "control crystals" that looke...
Setting: we have a fantasy world which is a planet with much of the same conditions that can be seen on Earth, but with the difference that it is orbited by a moon with a mean diameter of 3 500 km....
If the ozone layer of planet Earth was completely depleted (to near-zero concentrations), what would the average summer UV-index rise to in New York City? If relevant, other changes anticipated ar...
The Milky Way and Andromeda will collide a few billion years in the future. Stellar collisions will be rare because - as Douglas Adams put it - "Space is big. Really, really big." In the galactic d...
A good summary of the Zerg race is given on wikipedia as follows: The Zerg are a collective consciousness of a variety of different races assimilated into the Zerg genome. The Zerg were origina...
The Sun has nowhere near enough mass to enter the branch of stellar evolution that would lead to a supernova, fortunately for us. However, there are planets that orbit stars that are destined to go...
Variations of this question have been asked and answered previously but I am looking for something specific. Situation: Earth's body (mantel and crust) rotate at different rates than it's core (I ...
Let's say that an advanced civilisation once existed on Mars millions of years ago at a time when water existed in liquid form and that life was abundant on the planet. (Say this civilisation is a ...
What single chemical element (get out your periodic tables) could most efficiently destroy all life on the planet. Restrictions: Natural elements only, and no anti-matter...nice try. Looking for...
So here is the situation. I have a character who is a trained modern gunsmith and he finds himself thrown into a setting where the most advanced firearm is the flintlock. I know some of the most a...
Suppose there was a ternary system where the stars are effectively identical in mass, luminosity, radius, etc. These three stars circle a central point rather than two orbiting a larger third. At t...
Would a spoked, rotating torus work as a method of colonizing space? If so, how feasible would it be? As in, what would be the cost, where would we get the materials for it, how fast does it have t...
It is some small number of years into the future. We are regularly using beamed energy, as defined in this answer: large arrays of microwave transmitters. We have developed this so that these array...
Is it possible to contain similarly charged particles in a magnetic field or traps, in generally large scale (say, all of them have positive charge), and could be utilized as power reserves quite e...
As mentioned in this discussion: How to keep humans pilots instead of AI in sci-fi future? the ability to handle G forces is a limiting factor on what pilots can do. Some of my solutions to addres...
Suppose our alien neighbors woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided humans would be less annoying if their home planet was hit with a giant artillery shell travelling at half the speed of ...
Suppose we have a rocky planet (somewhere between Earth- and Super-Earth- sized) orbiting a star far enough away that it would be around Pluto's temperature if sunlight was the only heat source. If...
Is there a way to create a nuclear explosion that only destroys things within a few feet of the bomb? The point is to completely eradicate something relatively small, leaving no trace. Let's assum...
I am working on a 2D platformer game, and I'm trying to introduce a jetpack which would give a shinespark-like ability from Metroid series, i.e. it needs a run-up to a certain speed, at which the e...
