Posts by JDługosz
In this question I asked about the possibilities of what a boundary might be like, with emphasis on the storytelling. Now I'd like to investigate what a hard boundary would mean in quantum mechani...
I love the idea of competing moon gods! The people might not grasp the relationship between the moons and tides but might if the cycle was apparent. On an island in a global ocean with no girdli...
Certainly. I've even seen a product in different colors, powered by tritium. At the very least, you can use common florescent pigments (available in many glo-colors) and mix with UV-producing radi...
I've mentioned in earlier posts that it will be much cheaper to build immense space-based observatory instruments than to even come close to launching an interstellar expedition. There are several...
A targeted hard-science spin-off from this question: In a tidally-locked planet that rotates about a barycentric point that's located outside of its own sphere, what would the coriolis forces be l...
When I was a kid, I read an essay by Asimov describing an inside-out asteroid: (summary from Wikipedia) The Bubbleworld or Inside/Outside concept was originated by Dandridge M. Cole in 1964....
Suppose a starship is being powered by a lasers beamed first from the departure star, and then from the destination which is a moving base. The ship is moving in the regime of 10"“30% of light spee...
What would be the design of a near-future extreme-cold environment suit? Consider a protective suit that is not a space suit because it doesn't need to augment the pressure felt by the body. It d...
I want a character who has a highly developed ability of empathy. She knows what others are feeling, and often thinking. This story does not have any supernatural or non-hard SF elements, so it n...
In real life, "open mike" terminals are becoming popular, that listen for commands addressed to them and answer questions, perform online actions, or operate compatible smart-home controllers or an...
After reading this question by Nick M (now closed) and exchanging some comments with him, I have some ideas related to the scenario. I realized that the comprehensive design covers several distinc...
What are possible economic systems for use within a space-based industrial settlement? The different approaches are to be weighed by the competitve advantages they offer to their respective commun...
How can Bronze Age people make hazmat gear for chlorine trifluoride? The ClF₃ is produced biologically, just as fruits produce acid or capsaicin. This alternate world just happens to have bacte...
Pssst! Come here! Imagine an ecosystem where animals have evolved highly developed mimicry of each other's calls (perhaps they have the universal vocal apparatus discussed in earlier question...
This is a follow up to What would physics be like in a wrap-around universe? PyRulez commented, "Will gravity still make sense? (Namely, will it converge or not)?" This was bantered about in the c...
Start with present day "maker" culture. People, including youngsters, play with microcontrollers and machine parts, with synergistic technology like 3D printing, shoebox-sized robotic milling mach...
This is part of my Alien Message series: Recognizable natural numbers for alien message? Alien message: "Invitation" I recall a TV show featuring a discussion on the design of warning messages ...
A message arrives from several light years away. It is a complete prepared document, not a two-way communication. The document can contain line-drawings and diagrams, both 2D and 3D, plus movies ...
In this Answer I came up a scenareo under which Eriek's concept makes sense. I rather like this idea: an expedition or colony on another world has to, for some reason, pull up stakes and move. Th...
The readership of science fiction gets smarter over time, so making your SF "smart" (even if it's not hard SF) is an ever-moving target. This earlier question makes me think about Conservation of ...
After reading Is it possible to build a bridge between planets?, I wonder: what situation would provide technology support that enables them to make the trip, but limits them to walking speed? Th...
Human (spoken) languages have a great variety in terms of grammar and what the basic elements are, but they have essential features in common in terms of being a time sequence of phonetic primitive...
Guran's comment Perhaps they are tinkering with the solar activity, turning stars into Yotta-watt, nano-bit/second beakons. (We would see the pattern eventually, but not before we looked at cen...
Noting that this question is specific to human colonization, and Thucydides's answer is explicit that driving concerns are to support life, and I notice that the story I'm working on turns this on...
There are two societies. One highly advanced with AI, posthumans, post-scarcity economy and off-Earth resources. So gold and platinum is what a Mercury base resident just calls "rocks". They hav...
