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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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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'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) ...
I'm thinking of a character that has the magical ability to transform parts of his body into technology, similar to Generator Rex or Bleeding armor iron man, but only with the technology that he "u...
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...
In a world set many years (At least a generation or two) after a near extinction level nuclear event, how could a recovering population set up a internet or internet like service? Key points I'm i...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
Most works of fiction have quite imaginative views of time travel. Mighty machines that teleport in time instead of space. Gaping portals in space that take you to another time. Mystical beings wit...
In DC's TV-series (and comics), Barry Allen is The Flash: a superhero powered by the speed-force. This speed-force allows him to move incredibly fast, can be transferred to others, and there also e...
Background In my hard sci-fi settings, there is an advanced Type II Civilization, that are progressing toward Type III Civilization (yes, I am referring to Kardashev Scale). They are sprawling acr...
While the vampire is a monster of folklore, modern technothrillers (e.g. Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency, Ultraviolet, Blade, Underworld, Daybreakers) have portrayed vampires as humans infected b...
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? ...
There are many questions on Worldbuilding about what item(s) a time traveller should take back in time in order to alter past events or even simply to survive. There has never as far as I know bee...
Background A large colony lives in the Antarctic in a network of bases. They have so far evaded the dreadful worldwide plague. When they venture outside their base they don their climate-proof ...
Note: This is different from the previous question Building a full-sized Lego Earth - what would it look like at various levels?. In that case it was about making a solid full-size Earth from Lego ...
I'm looking to create a species of marsupial that is heavily K select, which is to say they put significant effort into raising their young after birth (both of them :P ) in which both the male and...
Assuming the ship has access to fusion power, a large volume of solar panels, and crude antimatter power generators (say maybe 1 gram a day per generator, or whatever is reasonable for technologica...
How would I calculate if it is possible to have an eccentric enough orbit around a gas giant to dip the periapsis some depth(how deep?) into the atmosphere of a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn and...
I'm building a moderately hard scifi future setting that focuses on space and land warfare and I'm trying to decide what would be the most realistic from an engineering standpoint of artillery tec...
A perverse incentive is a reward system that has the opposite effect to the one intended. In Hanoi, under French colonial rule, a program paying people a bounty for each rat tail handed in wa...
Lego representations of Earth have been made at various scales, for example this one: Suppose Slartibartfast made a full-size Earth from Lego (including the oceans being represented as solid blo...
Pathogen Note: For the purpose of this question I define a pathogen to include viruses and/or bacteria. Edit: I don't exclude other biological agents such as fungi that might have the same effect...
I'm sure most worldbuilders will have heard the aphorism that in space "Everyone sees Everything", or that "There Ain't No Stealth In Space". I'd like to propose a possible solution to this. Th...
My question is pretty basic, would square thrusters and RCS ports have any real drawbacks over round ones? I know that angles on windows for airplanes is a problem because of the pressure, so I don...
Prior to the Cambrian, there have been three separate ice ages--the Huronian, from 2.4 to 2.1 billion years ago; and the two Cryogenian ice ages, from 720 to 635 million years ago, split in such by...
Human physiology is adapted for life at 1G, but planets colonised by future humans will likely have different surface gravities. What is the range of values for surface gravity that humans can com...
If I was affixed to the surface of some solid spherical body in space (so as to ignore effects like me floating away), would it be possible for me to throw a tennis ball so that it went into orbit ...
I was having fun reading this article about making cement on the moon when I asked myself (and now you), is it possible to make a suitably high-compressive-strength cement on Mars? Since concrete...
This question has been rewritten to incorporate all clarifications. On Earth, half the planet is illuminated at any time (let's ignore eclipses). Axial tilt lets day lengths vary, but over the cou...
Many questions on this site hypothesize about two planets in close orbit of each other, each developing their own civilizations. How feasible is that? Some 4.5 billion years ago Theia, a planetary...
I'm writing a cyberpunk novel where one of the characters has an augmentation that allows them to echolocate. The idea is that there is a device on the center of his forehead (is there a more opti...
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...
I was in the shower the other day thinking about the sun going Nova, you know...like you do, and a thought occurred to me: Could you turn the sun into a stable, mostly closed system? Some detai...
I have been working on a sci-fi story for a little while now, and have recently discovered that I made a very big error in assuming the position of Eris. The main issue is that I had forgotten to t...
It has been determined by observation of the stars that the gravity on Flat Earth is due to it accelerating upwards at 1G. This is what holds people and objects to the surface. It has also been det...
Okay, so now that we've established that the badger folk (or Melinae sapien, if you want to be politically correct) are trading their ore to the humans for cat food. Now we need to determine what ...
In another question Everybody has a brain implant. What measures can a criminal take to escape justice? I assumed that a brain implant would be possible in the future for surveillance. In this que...
For my hard sci-fi story, I would like to have a planet similar to Titan (very cold, nitrogen atmosphere, methane seas) but with a surface gravity in the region of 1g. Could this occur, or would th...
I'm currently outlining my science fiction novel which deals with humanity reaching Type 3 civilization status. My goal is to place an emphasis on hard science fiction while featuring fantastic tec...
I am dealing with a dystopian story that tries to come up with some kind of total surveillence or control from higher authorities. The authorities threaten to kill those who disobey them by simply...
EDIT Why this is a world-building query. If I had framed this as, "In my world where magic requires the expenditure of energy, a powerful wizard decides to open a path through a large lake,etc. Th...
There are several previous questions concerning concentric shells. I won't reference them here because this is different. I understand that there is no gravitational effect inside a concentric she...
