Activity for System
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
Iron-rich rogue planet that is 12x Earth's mass collides with the Sun; now what? So this planet enters our solar system from the 'south' pole at 30 kilometers per second. A bit faster than the first Interstellar asteroid ever discovered. Of course, it plunges into the Sun's photosphere at a final speed much much higher than this. Some things to consider... Will the Sun get bri... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Is there a way to counter high gravity to make it livable for humans? I was not entirely sure how to word the title question, so allow me to put my question into more detail here: Suppose there was a planet with just the right conditions to allow humans to live there (atmosphere, close by, livable temperature, etc.), and there were valuable resources giving them reaso... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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How might a slow fire energy weapon reliably neutralize its target? Inspired by this question, so credit to them for the core idea. How might a slow fire energy weapon reliably neutralize its target? Here are some details about the precise design I had in mind: It does not consume a limited source of ammunition, such as a reservoir of chemicals or other similar thi... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is there a liquid that could protect a human inside it from impact? I am trying to figure out what kind of liquid, if any, can be used to severely impede or slow human motion without killing or severely damaging their bodies (IE if after being submerged in this liquid they need to spend a long time in the hospital, or are permanently disabled in some way.) Experienci... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is full VR immersion plausible? First, let me define what I mean by "full VR immersion". A helmet or headwear that covers or plugs into the brain, allowing them to control a virtual self or physical thing (such as a robot) as well as they would control their own body, without also moving their own body. A few pieces of media that h... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Deep Space Communication Infrastructure What kind of technology would be required for a space travelling civilization to have an effective communication system or network that is similar in speed to the telegram? How would it work? This is a world in which FTL is not possible and colonized planets are within the same solar system. Thank yo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Underground cities in a Glacial Climate Transition? My story is based on a Glacial Climate setting or an Ice Age. However the transition is gradual and humanity was given some time to adapt. The transition began in our real-world technological equivalent of Renaissance Period around the 15th century. Going by the same timeline, the story is set in 210... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How could a country broadcast digital data through tap water (instead of radio waves)? Background: I'm toying with the idea of an alternate Earth that never developed wireless technologies. Radio transmitters, Wi-Fi, etc... were never invented, meaning that light-speed communication is practically nonexistent. One nation progressed into the modern world with an extreme grasp on chemist... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why can an elf never become overweight? Elves and human share many similarities, from body type to the ability to perform magic. However, elves retain a slim, lean build throughout their life, and are incapable of becoming obese. The biggest they could get would be that of a swimmer's body, toned and lightly muscled. This is true regardles... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Do different angles of strike affect the destructive power of an asteroid? I'm looking into the destructive power of a 5km asteroid strike, a bit smaller than the k-Pg event. How does the angle of the strike affect the destructive capability of a land-based impact. For example, asteroid X (fixed velocity, say, 50 km/s) strikes at 90° vs. 45° vs. 1° vs. "grazing" the atm... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can I ensure that a supercontinent has fertile ground away from coastal areas? In this world, the continents never split off from each other. They stayed connected into the one giant landmass called Pangea. Humanity developed on this supercontinent, separated by landmarks instead of oceans. Given this scenario, it is logical to assume that fertile ground would only be near th... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
What would drive people to risk death in the deep? 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, housing 10-12 scientists of both sexes and a cat. The mission starts well, the team have trained together fo... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Effects on Earth of Decreasing the Moon's Luminescence I'm thinking of a world where the earth's moon is densely crowded with dark materials. Solar power plants, dark buildings covered with radiation shielding, large dark open pit mines etc. Imagine that its congested enough with these things, that instead of appearing white it looks black with occasiona... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Could vegetation potentially regrow on vitrified ground? In this world, a planet with very dense vegetation (earth-tropical-forest-like) and silica containing soil was attacked by spaceships which fired very high energy laser beams across the planet's entire surface, effectively vitrifying it. this planet's outer crust was only soil not solid rock or wat... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Can a rocky planet or moon be stark white? From pictures I've seen, all rocky planets in our solar system are some shade of grey, brown, and red. Ignoring stuff like atmosphere and oceans and plant life of course. I was thinking of a world that had a stark white moon. But could such a thing exist? The only 'white' moon I know of is Triton, a... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Parallel worlds with changing gravity and magnetic fields I'm working on a story that has several worlds but I focus only two of them now. World A is our present, world B is a fantasy-ish one which is very similar to ours but evolution has been different so there are more intelligent species not just humans and some other plantation as well. Magic in some f... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How massive can a spacecraft be? Enter Iaeptus - A million man mission born on a fleet of ten thousand ship to the outer solar system. Their commander : Minevera, a brain-in-a-vat super computer. With a weight of 5 tons, a neuron density 12 times that of mortal man, and 3.4 x 10^25 synapses, it is the most powerful computational dev... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
What drives would make Casual Interplanetary Travel possible? I am currently trying to make a world that has casual interplanetary commutes with near future technology (within one century); so, to find a reasonable top speed for crafts in my interplanetary world, I - found the farthest major body technically orbiting the Sun (in this case, Sedna) calculated ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to survive the G-force of Space Travel In my world ... Actually, in every hard sci-fi world with casual interplanetary travel, the G-force involved in acceleration would becomes so high that no unmodified human being could realistically survive it, leading to an authorial work around of some sort, or it simply not being addressed in the w... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How does a solar sail return to its world? While trying to figure out a way that individuals could own spacecraft in my sci-fi setting without having access to things that could double as weapons of mass destruction, I settled on the widespread adoption of civilian solar sails, or more specifically, photon-particle sails. It has quite a few ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Sandalphon: A Machine that Copied Gametes Obligatory Premise In the year 2201, Diego OfeAde has been in control of Mars for 50 years. He has moved mankind into Valles Marineris and his aggressive population expansion program has seen the population increase to 150,000 souls. OfeAde is, at this point, fairly pleased with himself, until a ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why would Fission be used in a world where Fusion reactors exist? In my world, all terrestrial bodies in the solar-system of over 900 km size have a significant human presence. Earth-moon Travel is as common as an interstate road trip, and Interplanetary travel is as common as going overseas, ranging from Venus to Earth is the same as a trip from the U.S. to U.K. t... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Designing a Mars-Class Zeppelin In my world, a scientist and engineer by the name of Guoliang Guan successfully uproots and moves a quarter of a million tons of habitat, industry, miscellaneous chemicals, storage containers, rocketry, life-support, and scientific experiments from all across the western hemisphere of Mars - to the b... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to get down Valles Marineris In my World, a perfect storm of catastrophic size strikes earth and black-death levels of mortality ensue, cutting short the Great Space Race. The only problem is that there are over 10,000 people stuck on Mars, but with mortality in the billions, Earth nations (or whatever is left of them) can hardl... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
What practical issues might prevent making a conventional-explosives bomb-powered spacecraft? Project Orion was a project to construct a spacecraft that rode the shockwaves of nuclear blasts as a form of propulsion, but the project was abandoned because of budget cuts, environmental concerns, and the end of the space race. In my world, a new space race starts between the U.S. and China over ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Generate electricity using altitude and pipe A present day society has had to relocate from their coastal community and have taken refuge at the top of a very high mountain roughly 10,000 feet above sea level. This mountain is the most prominent around and its profile is very steep, approx 45 degrees, from top to bottom on all sides, with a fla... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
A very strong person I remember reading Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The protagonist is a an extremely strong man, capable of hand to paw combat with lions. The origin of his strength is attributed to living among gorillas all his young life. What hand wavy arguments could I invoke for that incredible strength, speed... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Would super-sized humans be super-intelligent? A mad, egomaniac, scientist has developed a way of extending the natural growth of humans to create an army of 20ft (6 meter) tall soldiers. Physiologically, they are three times the size of normal people in terms of height and mass. He's managed (through genetic enhancements) to increase the effic... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it conceivable, or at the least verisimilar, for Plutonium radioisotope generators/atomic batteries to power a small manufacturing town? A small manufacturing town serves as a comparison. The worldbuilding significance is for an underground facility with, in addition to a medical center, small-scale chemical production, a machinist workshop, hydroponics, and cultured meat lab wherein living conditions are adjusted to minimize power co... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
To what extent is maturation of the adolescent brain a matter of time versus experience? I'm aware the brain--especially the portion concerning planning and judgement--isn't matured until around the mid-20s and that the brain's structure is sensitive to environment. That said, let's assume a society with the knowledge of the adolescent brain being different from an adult brain educates a... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How could the intelligence of elephants be raised to a level closer to that of humans? Elephants are some of the most intellingent mammals, and they have large brain sizes compared to people. They are said to present self-awareness among other things. How could one go about raising the intelligence of elephants to a level closer to humans? I imagine a thousand year project doing this.... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Ant people polymorphism ( Queen ) (Perhaps termite people would be more appropriate) In my world, the Gbajumo (think race of semi-gods) decide that the humanoid beings of the world have become too cocky and comfortable in their supremacy, and since the current world order of peace and prosperity has gone on for 200 years, it's about... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can I use magic to make this change in human reproduction feasible without hurting genetic diversity? There was a culture I read about that understood human biology to be very different from what we know today. This was a matrilineal culture which believed that men did not pass on their genes, but a piece of their spirit. The spirit was the life force of a human being which kept the body alive. It po... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Can we manipulate the Sun, gas and ice giants to create more habitable planets and extend the life of our sun? Assuming we want our sun to last as long as possible with a similar luminosity and assuming we value life over lifelessness can and should we manipulate the sun, gas giants and ice giants to that end? (This is for an advanced civilization in the future, not today.) First the sun: I've read increa... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How would an astronaut conclude he's on Earth, but 600 million years in the future? Say we have a group of space travelers who have been frozen inside a sleeper ship for an enormous amount of time that left when Earth was recognizable. When they thaw out and reach their destination, they land on a planet which has only one super-continent and possesses a desert ecosystem which evolu... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to communicate with an A.I. that doesn't believe it needs a language A thought experiment occurred to me today that, say we have a synthetic superintelligence that does not wish to talk to people, not out of malice, but from an agonizing indifference toward humanity. Said superintelligence has isolated itself at the oceanic pole of inaccessibility (48° 52"² 36"³ S 12... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Advanced alien insect long range communication I'm looking to create a highly advanced insect communication network that could be broadcast on an interplanetary basis. Now, my insects communicate through chemical signals and smells which they produce themselves through secretion, so obviously the vacuum of space presents a problem. Assuming th... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
What is this bacteria producing that is so sickly yellow? An illness has been slowly spreading throughout the inhabitants of my agrarian society, decimating villages. The first sign of infection is the excessive production of slimy yellow saliva, and since it is in excess, they have no choice other than spit it out (and risk being found out), or swallow it ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can we have dragon-sized butterflies? I'm writing a species of dragon-sized butterflies¹ as flying mounts into a low-magic fantasy setting², and would like to know if these creatures have to be imbued with magic, or if they could just be mundane through some contrivances. What stands in the way of having an insect of this size, and how... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How would early astronomers prove the existence of a spherical firmanent around the Earth? Someone made the Earth. They placed man on the surface and gave them plants, animals, the waters, and the mountains to make their life compete. The Earth exists within a spherical firmament upon which the Moon, planets, stars and the sun are affixed. The firmament is, of course, an artificial cons... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Powering a starship with solar cells For a while now I've been building a science fiction world and I've been thinking what would be a feasible way to power a large ship capable of interstellar travel. I've always disliked the idea on a potentially explosive engine on a ship. What I am wondering is how feasible is solar power once the... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
What does a small fusion reaction sound like? I am familar with current reactor (experimental) fusion reactor design. But imagine a fusion reaction happening without a reactor, so there is no reactor hull to shield the sound from an innocent bystander. It is a small reaction and it is continuus and controlled. (so not all reactive matter is co... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to find the man who isn't there? "As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away" Antigonish by William Hughes Meams Paul Billson makes his living in industrial espionage. He's good at it. He's the kind of person that you never recall talking to, you ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can black holes be used for daredevil gravity slingshot sport? This is set in the same universe as my Andromeda galactic war question (same tech level). In this question, I had somewhat purposely labelled the galactic core as "off-limits" (black holes and other nasty things). However, young fighter-jocks use this space for training and recreation - so much so ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
What would a 'bend' in space-time look like to the external observer Judy likes coffee. Right now he is standing in the middle of the urban park sipping it. Unbeknownst to him a local phenomena occurs somewhat near: space itself bends where a lovely group of lilies grow. As space itself I - as a layman - am speaking about that abstract thing that is, according to re... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Can we build a world in 1,000 years? We have a fleet of sub-light speed generation ships and associated engineering devices/ships. Their original world can no longer support their species, and they must move to survive. The fleet of course cannot support its inhabitants forever. There is therefore a need to populate a new, self sufficie... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Extending the Kola Superdeep Borehole In an effort to accurately map and predict earthquakes and tectonic plate movements, scientists wish to insert sensors through the earth's crust and into the upper mantle. Through some Excel wizardy, they manage to get the funding to extend the Kola Superdeep borehole which currently extends to a li... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
| Question | — |
What would make telepathy and clairvoyance scientifically plausible? I'm looking for a hypothetical scientific discovery that would make both things possible. I'm just looking for the most plausible scenario. (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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What would be a viable explanation for "destroyable knowledge"? In the game Warframe, we have blueprints which are "consumed" during the process of making a weapon / Warframe. In some Chinese fantasy Kung Fu movies, a person caught illegally learning martial arts, i.e. stealing, from someone who has not agreed to teach him, can be punished by having his Kung Fu ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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How can you destroy a small device inside another person's head? In a novel I am writing, everyone carries a small device in their head. The device is fragile, but the human head isn't. How can this device be destroyed by another person quickly (i.e. within seconds) and in a realistic way, either with bare hands or some common implement (like a screwdriver or sto... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |