Logan R. Kearsley‭

In the story Wang's Carpets (and part of the novel Diaspora), Greg Egan sketchily describes a high-dimensional universe which contains no analog for light, such that the aliens who inhabit this uni...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

I'm trying to work out some really basic biochemical details for cold-world aliens whose bodily fluids are based on liquid methane rather than water. I figure they have to be hydrogen breathers, be...

1 answer  ·  posted 8y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Mammals live in some fairly extreme environments, but the most heat-tolerant ones all seem to cheat: e.g., they dig burrows to stay cool during the day and come out at night, avoiding the heat, or ...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Given an arbitrarily long time to do so, what is the maximum depth too which a dwarven civilization could practically extend their mines / cities? And what would be the final limiting factor preven...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Properly ventilating a deep mine is a significant engineering challenge. Ergo, you don't want to be carrying around torches that use up some of your precious breathing oxygen if you don't absolutel...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Technological approaches to refrigeration tend to involve either high compression ratios of fairly exotic (from a biochemical point of view, anyway) volatile substances, or high-power, low-efficien...

7 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

The Wikipedia page on sewer gas states that Sewer gas can be used as a power source, thus reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. However, no references or further details are provided. So, s...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Boules is a range of relative games played with small, heavy steel balls thrown on a court, such as the French Petanque and Italian Bocce. While there is variation between games in terms of how an...

8 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Bumblebees famously cannot fly under fixed wing aerodynamics--and they don't. Rather, they "row" the air, moving their wings back and forth and varying the pitch to push air down like a reciprocati...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Aquatic races are usually assumed to be stunted in technological development by the inability to create fire or forge metals. But what about doing chemistry at all? The development of chemistry i...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

The song Diggy Diggy Hole makes some questionable assertions about dwarven anatomy. Specifically: Born underground Suckled from a teat of stone Raised in the dark The safety of o...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

So, mechanical computers are a thing, as are pneumatic and hydraulic actuators. Combining those ideas, it's not that hard to design simple purely-pneumatic/hydraulic robots--provide them with a so...

3 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

Postpartum depression among humans is a thing that is "normal" insofar as it happens a lot, but it is not "normal" in the sense of "a thing that we don't worry about"; it doesn't happen to absolute...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

This is a follow-up to Neutron Star mining. Assuming that problem can be solved, it would eventually degenerate to something similar to this case. And if it can't, white dwarfs seem like the next b...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭

I am attempting to design aliens that live in a universe with a 4+1 space-time--i.e., a universe with four orthogonal spatial dimensions, rather than three, in addition to a fifth time dimension. I...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Logan R. Kearsley‭