Activity for Tim B
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Escaping a pair of orbiting black holes through the saddle Imagine a pair of black holes in orbit around each other. I'm wondering how this would distort their mutual event horizons. In fact would it be possible to "break" the event horizons by reducing the escape velocity below the speed of light at the point in between the two holes. If my mental model is... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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How can a floral clock be made accurate enough to replace normal timekeeping? A village is famous for its flowers and wants to bring in tourism by replacing its timekeeping and basing everything around a flower clock. Schools and shops all agree to set their times by the flower clock and a webcam image of it is streamed across the village for everyone to see what time it is. ... (more) |
— | almost 9 years ago |
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Creating a Siren song Many myths have creatures like sirens who can use their voices to lure men to their deaths. But is there any way a creature could exist in the real world that had that power? I don't just mean fooling animals by using scent or color to lure them in, I mean actually causing humans to approach without... (more) |
— | almost 9 years ago |
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A: TotalRewind™ (brain chip) In order to record video and audio it would need to be calibrated for each person and would need to intercept quite close to the ears and eyes, most likely to the relevant nerves themselves. This is because the human brain does a lot of visual processing which is not actually what you want if you jus... (more) |
— | about 9 years ago |
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Would it be possible to use the earth's rotation to launch spaceships to other planets? 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 end of the tether is moving faster and faster. In theory if you keep building out then eventually you a... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
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Signs of a realistic Ragnarök So, I've been considering the Norse legend of Ragnarök, I'm considering how the legend could come true in a purely scientific setting. In other words what science-based explanation would best fit the old Viking legends. For this question I'm looking at the "signs" section, the prelude to the actual ... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
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Economies of Scale Something that we generally see on earth is economies of scale. Large companies can be more efficient as they are producing massive amounts of the same thing. This can easily be seen if you look at the cost of something like a new mobile phone and then consider how much it would cost you to have some... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
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Is a Reflecting-Oven-Jay actually feasible? As discussed here: How would a Reflecting-Oven-Jay Evolve? The Reflecting-oven-Jay This is a small African predatory bird with a perfectly smooth set of wings with an area of 100 cm2, so maybe the size of a pigeon. It hunts in large flocks, around 10,000 birds to a group (there are plenty of... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
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How would a Reflecting-Oven-Jay Evolve? This answer to my question about light-as-a-weapon came up with an interesting concept: The Reflecting-Oven-Jay This is a small African predatory bird with a perfectly smooth set of wings with an area of 100 cm2, so maybe the size of a pigeon. It hunts in large flocks, around 10,000 birds to... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
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Evolution of a creature that uses light as a weapon On our world we have any number of creatures that use: Noxious Chemicals Poison(Spiders and Snakes being the obvious examples) Sound Electricity as an alternative to their teeth and claws. One thing that we don't really have though is creatures using light as a weapon, I don't mean using it as l... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
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Asymmetrical animals Virtually all animals on earth ranging from insects through to swimmers, fliers, mammals and reptiles, have a symmetrical body plan. In other words legs and wings come in pairs, as do most sensory organs. The mouth is centrally placed, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetryinbiology#Bilateralsymm... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Alternative atmosphere plantlife Are there any reasonably plausible alternatives to the process used by our plants on earth (Carbon Dioxide, Chlorophyll, Oxygen) around which an ecosystem could be built in a planet with a completely different atmosphere? Would every planet with life on it need to have a carbon+oxygen based life-cycl... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Fluorescent Flora Well, Luminescence really but I liked the alliteration. Would there be any reason or mechanic why plants may develop that glow in the dark? Ideally they would do so in response to stimulus such as touch, but continual or periodic glowing would also be acceptable. Is there a plausible mechanism thro... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Fire Resistant Fauna This question is connected to: Fire Resistant Flora I've been pondering a short story concept where a scientific expedition discovered a planet with a huge amount of both free hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. This is caused by an unobtanium crystal widespread on the surface of the planet whic... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Fire Resistant Flora This question is connected to: Fire Resistant Fauna I've been pondering a short story concept where a scientific expedition discovered a planet with a huge amount of both free hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. This is caused by an unobtanium crystal widespread on the surface of the planet whic... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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How long a footbridge could you make from natural materials? In many scenes you see something like this: If I was designing a world for a culture living in a rain-forest and their land was cut through by many vast ravines then what sort of spans could they bridge just using the materials naturally available to them? I expect that the limiting factor would ... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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How far above the pole would you need to be for constant sunlight? In theory I believe that if you moved far enough above the surface of the pole you should be able to reach an area where you have constant sunlight, even in the middle of winter. My question is - how far up would you need to go? Would it be possible to do this on earth and still be able to breathe? ... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Could plants spread their seed to other planets? Assume a plant was engineered to cope with a wide range of different environments, and to have seeds that were capable of traveling through and surviving both the depths of space and re-entry into atmosphere. Given this assumption then you can see these plants would slowly (much slower than light spe... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Could a plant be engineered to live in a vacuum? Could an artificial plant species be designed and created that lives in a vacuum - for example on the surface of our moon? The main problems I can see immediately would be the lack of an atmosphere for respiration, the lack of microbes in the soil, and the massive temperature swings. Would it be pos... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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What sports could safely and easily be played in space? I recently asked about racing in space (The new Space Race - Racing!) and as expected while there were a few options they were mostly pretty limited. However 2012rcampion did suggest that sports in space might be an interesting subject, and I agree. So what sort of sports might people play in space?... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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The new Space Race - Racing! Pretty much every vehicle ever invented has been used for racing on at some point, so it seems likely that people would want to do the same in space. However in space it doesn't really work the same way, the main problems being: There is no real sense of speed. Can you even get the same thrill out... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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What modifications would be needed to allow humans to survive in space with limited protective gear? Would it be possible to modify a human to be able to survive in space without protective gear? Genetic engineering and cybernetic enhancement are both allowed, although when not in space the person in question should look completely normal. I'd be interested both in modifications that allow emergen... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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In Space, how can they hear me scream? One property of life is communication. In particular sound is very useful due to it's non-directional nature. An alarm call is heard by every member of the pack and warns them immediately of the danger whether they are looking in the right direction, or asleep, or doing something else entirely. It al... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Must all planets have a solid/liquid core? At the moment it seems we have two different types of planet We have Rocky planets with a solid core that occupies most of the mass of the planet We have Gas Giants that contain a solid core but are mostly atmosphere. We also have the possibility of a liquid planet as discussed here: Could a pl... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Could gas giants exist as a contact binary? We've discovered stars that are contact binaries. This means that they orbit so close together that their photosphere reaches through their Roche lobes and links the two stars together. This started me thinking about the possibilities with respect to gas giants though, could in theory gas giants o... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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How do centaurs get enough oxygen to run This is a partner question to How do centaurs get enough calories to live? Centaurs are a common mythological figure, with the body of a man where a horses head would be. They usually exist in fantasy worlds but let's say they are not sustained by magic but instead by biological processes. This has... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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How do centaurs get enough calories to live? This is a partner question to How do centaurs get enough oxygen to run Centaurs are a common mythological figure, with the body of a man where a horses head would be. They usual exist in a fantasy world but lets say they are not sustained by magic but instead by biological processes. This has obvio... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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How would the world be different if ice was denser than water? Ice is strange, in that the solid form is less dense than the liquid water it freezes from. This causes Ice to float on top of the water. How would our planet earth be different if something changed this property of Ice so that it became significantly denser than water. Dense enough to sink to the b... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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Planetary Scale Artworks A highly advanced civilization has developed and is about to ascend to become beings of pure energy in a hyper-dimensional universe. Before leaving they restore our universe to a reasonably pristine state so that new life can evolve and explore it. For the most part they remove all trace of their exi... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: How should I create my Merfolks to make them landbased? The simplest answer would be to not have the legs fused at all. Underwater they would hold the legs together and swim using long flippers/flukes on the end. On land they would curl up the flippers/flukes and separate their legs to walk normally. Any other solution is going to involve either biologic... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: How does animal size affect individuals' agility and speed? The factors for an animal are the same as for vehicles in many ways. Agility is essentially a measure of acceleration, and your ability to apply that acceleration in different directions rapidly. The limiting factors for acceleration as animals grow larger are: Muscle Power Traction Mass G Force ... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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Creating a realistic world map - Erosion Once geological processes have created a landscape a number of factors come into play in order to reshape it. This includes weather and climate effects such as wind, rain and ice reshaping the terrain. What are the processes that reshape land-masses and alter the terrain after it has initially form... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Expanding occupied underground habitations safely? The main problem actually is where do you put the rock that you dig out. You would either need access to the surface to dump it somewhere or some way to compress it and then use the compressed rock to make the walls of the tunnel. For digging through rock close to habitation you would definitely not... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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Creating a realistic world map - Landmass formation This question focuses on the initial creation of landmasses. What are the processes that causes land-masses to form, and continents and islands to rise up from the sea and sink back into it? How can those processes be easily drawn upon to create realistic looking maps? Note: This is part o... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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How would society be different in a sentient species that does not care for its young? A lot of species on earth do not care for their offspring; they spawn thousands of eggs, that hatch into larvae, and then grow up towards full size. If a hypothetical species was sentient in the final steps of that process, then what sort of society might they form? There would be no maternal or pat... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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Creating convincingly alien viewpoints Most aliens tend to be humans with bumpy foreheads and/or pointy ears. Even when they do have differences then usually it is an entire species being portrayed as a particular brand of human. For example races might be based on Vikings, or Mongols, or Japan in their culture and viewpoint. Even famous ... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: How do I figure out how many people my domed city on a hostile planet can support? There is no real way to give a number here as the city can support however many people you want it to support. The support infrastructure just has to scale up to the size of the population. The most likely situation would be large hydroponics farms providing both oxygen and food. The diet would be e... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |