Activity for Werrf‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Question	—	What kind of stellar core or degenerate material would be needed to create a survivable explosion? The Scenario: A group of scientists on a research space station are conducting tests on a Bose-Einstein condensate. They can't figure out why it is that every time they get their condensate to form, the pressure in their vacuum container suddenly spikes as new gas is added to the pressure vessel. I... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Question	—	Valuable minerals near dormant volcanoes When building a city, one must consider why one is building a city. It's all very well imagining a city perched on top of an inaccessible mountain peak, but a believable world requires that we consider why on earth anyone would ever live in such a place. With that in mind, imagine a city. This late ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can there be a space age without petroleum (crude oil)? Yes...probably What was really important to our development of technology was not oil, but coal. Access to large deposits of high-quality coal largely fueled the industrial revolution, and it was the industrial revolution that really got us on the first rungs of the technological ladder. Oil is a ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Question	—	Optimal wavelength for an interstellar communication laser The Precursors are looking for recruits for their interstellar army. Obviously they don't need primitives who can only just bang rocks together, so they've set up a test - a beacon, lying above the galactic plane, using pulsed lasers to beam prime numbers (ie a group of three pulses, then a group of ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Question	—	Can quantum spin be converted to macro systems? I'm designing an FTL system for a new universe, and I'm trying to figure how 'plausible-sounding' this thought is. The idea is that space is tangled and twisted in twelve dimensions, so that distant points of three-dimensional space are connected in twelve-dimensional knots, and passing from one par... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Question	—	What could fill the crocodilian niche in colder climes? In populating a fenland region similar to the Somerset Levels in England, I'm finding a need for an aquatic ambush predator to haunt the region and snack on the occasional disrespectful traveler who forgets to make the appropriate sacrifices. It's a role that's traditionally filled by crocodiles in m... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: How expressive is a color-based language? Given the complexity of colouration that cephalopods are capable of, one can easily imagine their language being vastly more complex than a spoken or written language. You'd begin with the obvious, basic ideas being expressed by broad tones or colours, as present-day cephalopods do. Red means I'm an... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	Can the laws of physics be changed to inhibit chemistry but permit technology? Some more-than-usually clever boffins have knocked up a system that allows them to form portals into a region where the laws of physics are rather...different. An object that is fired through one portal - that is, with no physical connection back to the origin point - will emerge from the other wit... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	What negative effects would scientists check for to see if a given technology or location is safe? Short version - some physicists have created a pathway that appears to permit near-instantaneous travel between two distant points. Objects propelled through one side on the correct vector will emerge on the other side immediately. After initial tests with inert objects and recorders, scientists deci... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	Many eyes or fewer? I'm designing a sentient, aquatic creature, and trying to decide how many eyes it should have. This creatures biological strategy is one of redundancy - it has multiple mouths, multiple tentacles, multiple...well, lots of multiples of lots of things. I was thinking of giving it multiple relatively p... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	How long does a component of a Dyson swarm spend in shadow? I'm building a Dyson sphere - a real one, like Freeman Dyson originally proposed, made of swarms of solar collectors in independent orbits that fully surround the star, something like this: Each collector/habitat will be a truncated triangle, approximately two million kilometers wide by one millio... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	Encasing a star in a perfect insulator Suppose that I have come into possession of a substance, technology, or spell that functions as a perfect insulator and reflector. No energy can pass through it, and is instead reflected back the way it came. Now suppose that I completely encase a star in this stuff, cutting off any radiation of hea... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	Would a food chain based on bacteria in hot springs be able to support a human population? I'm designing a city built to take advantage of valuable mineral deposits in a large polar desert. The city is built around a Yellowstone-esque region of hot springs and geysers, where underground ice is melted by magma close to the surface. Water is easy; food is less so. Could chemosynthetic bact... (more)	—	over 7 years ago