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I'm designing a world with earthlike gravity where the human colonists are intended to live on top of a gigantic shield volcano as tall as Mount Everest. What would the pressure be at the bottom? ...
My heroine has been stabbed - run through the abdomen by a foot-long dagger - and is bleeding to death. She is currently crawling toward her salvation through a very cold place. She is magically ...
Little side project on fantasy story with dragons (or wyverns to be exact, but they're equivalent for the purpose). I have dragons roaming the country side, laying waste and ruin in their wake. As...
A fictional starship that I am designing functions via a form of Bussard ramjet that uses hydrogen from the interstellar medium as reaction mass, not as fuel. In order to accelerate the propellant...
In a world of superheroes the job of blacksmith is given to the very strongest of them. Question Is splitting an atom in a human-scale piece of work by using a human-scale tool even theoretically...
We know that Mars has a reddish color, because its ground consists of iron-based compounds. The moon is grey-whiteish because it consists mostly of silicon-based compounds. What element should the...
This question draws on an old idea but it is different. The original question is, "If everyone in the world jumps at the same time, will the Earth move?" My question is,"If everyone in one hemis...
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...
How much force/energy is required to punch someone so hard that the person is sent flying at the speed of sound? Also, what can you compare the force/energy to? For example, is it comparable to a ...
I'm imagining a near-future world where a process can be undergone that will halt all future aging of the body, but the approach causes infertility. Those undergoing it will not have (biological) ...
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 ...
How would the phases of the moon change depending on the inclination of its orbit with respect to its primary's equatorial plane? Earth's moon has an orbit that is rather close to the ecliptic, but...
A type 1 civilization is defined as a civilization that can utilize the maximum amount of energy equal available to its entire planet, roughly 1017 watts for Earth. This is equal to the amount of ...
I travel back in time to the Big Bang in my time machine. I am equipped with all the present day equipment I need. I locate the infinitesimal 'point' where the Universe would come into existence an...
Would it be possible for a nation with 19th century to very early 20th century technology and history and hot desert climate to utilize solar power for electrical generation as a substitute for coa...
How do I calculate the thickness of the upper ice layer on cold ocean worlds like Europa, Enceladus, and Ganymede? I'm asking this for a programm I'm currently writing. The given/known quantities ...
The one-electron universe postulate, proposed by John Wheeler in a telephone call to Richard Feynman in the spring of 1940, hypothesises that all electrons and positrons are actually manifes...
I've seen some posts here (for example this one) for the effects of certain sizes of impactors, but I'm not finding any definite answer and all my google and google scholar searches have not turned...
So, I am writing a comic which will perhaps grow into an entire series about a group of aquatic heroes. One of those heroes is a monster size aquatic lizard. The story of how this lizard came about...
In a world like ours in the 1980s, but which for whatever reason does not use any form of electricity. (Either it does not exist or batteries and generators etc have not been invented.) For purpos...
An interstellar traveller stands upon the surface of an alien planet beneath the light of an unfamiliar sun. The planet upon which he stands orbits one star of a binary system in which one is a G-c...
I was watching a program about the New Horizons space probe and was fascinated by the new revelations about cryolava/cryomagma, and the amorphous planes covering Pluto(98% nitrogen ice). I'm wond...
Here's something I've never noticed anyone asking when it comes to wormholes/portals: If they allowed air to pass through them, how fast would the wind be? Should atmospheric pressure differences b...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
The spud gun uses air pressure to shoot a projectile - unusually a potato - at high speed towards a distant target much similar to todays revolvers. The only difference is that there is no gunpowde...
It seems that my ability to create interesting creatures is limited by the need for sexual reproduction, which is absurdly useful, but also rather limiting, method of sharing genetics. I acknowled...
In my story, I have a small extended family of 30 to 40 individuals ranging in age from 0 to 50 who are on the run from Chinese and Japanese forces in 1400AD. No place in Asia is safe for them. By...
Well, I ask the question because apparently I am going to aim for NaNoWriMo. I am calculating the density of a planet with 1.8 Earth masses and 0.9 Earth radii, but last I checked, the calculation...
After writing this question, I came up with a new question. Consideration The considerations are mostly similar to the linked question (reading it is highly encouraged, as I am trying to post as...
Earth is more massive than Mars, so people on Martian soil would definitely suffer some health issues due to weaker gravity. Blood circulation is badly affected as heart muscles starts to deteriora...
In the year 2099 A.D, humans made a major discovery. There is a rich source of fossil fuel buried beneath layers of Martian soil. It is estimated that the coal deposit that was discovered could fil...
This has been considered other places on the net, but I thought it would be good for the hard-science challenge, since it is often an example of the subtle difference between soft and hard science....
Throwing big rocks at planets is so passe and any asteroid tug can do that now. The Intergalactic Arms Reduction Treaty forbids the intentional bombardment of a planet's surface with large asteroi...
An alien spaceship the size of an Empire State Building experiences a technical issues with its cloaking device, their duty technician needs 24 hours to repair and meanwhile the alien wants to avoi...
