Activity for A Lambent Eye
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
Advice on the placement of volcanoes on land While working on some local geography in my world, I came upon these wonderful formations called volcanic plugs and crag and tails, and decided I wished to incorporate them into the land. My insecurities are as follows: How are volcanoes realistically positioned? More specifically, how close to ea... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Light-activated Expanding Chemicals In my world, electricity has not yet been discovered, but they have somehow still managed to attain a technological advancement similar to modern times. I am currently trying to tackle the problem of photosensors, for usages such as automatic lighting and 'digital' photography. My current idea woul... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Non-electric Laser In my world, electricity has not yet been discovered, and many advancements in society progress on a purely chemical or mechanical basis. Lasers are incredibly useful and multifaceted tools, and I would like to be able to include this technology in my world. I could imagine multiple sources of ligh... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Lighthouse Alternatives In my pre-electricity world, fast communication is achieved by means of lighthouses, each being able to direct strong and precise beams of light towards distantly visible lighthouses. However a problem is encountered whenever the weather turns. Many meteorological conditions, such as fog, rain, hail... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
What is the highest level of accuracy in motion control a Victorian society could achieve? In my late-Victorian world high-precision clockwork is highly available, but I am having trouble finding out exactly how precise their work could be. I have done some research on the subject, but cannot discover how people make more precise tools with less precise tools. If, for example, one simply... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Closest Proximity of Oceans to Freshwater Springs I am trying to wrap my head around the geography of a settlement in my world. The settlement is situated along the coast, along a river roughly 500m wide with temperate mixed forests surrounding it, which I hazard to guess is relatively common. The difficulty comes with the freshwater springs to wh... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Storm-proofing Late-Victorian Aircraft In my world, both lighter- and heavier-than-air craft exist and are rather useful devices. However, problems tend to occur when confronted with storms. Steering through a storm is not a problem in this question, but whether the craft survives it or not is an entirely different question. The three p... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How long can a human survive inside a dark box? I am toying with an idea which requires a human to be stuck in a dark box for the rest of their life. They receive regular exercise of the arms and legs, air, food and water and their bodily functions are taken care of by the box. The only contact they have to the outside world is through a pair of... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Smallest possible Victorian cogwheel size In my late-Victorian-based world, mechanical contraptions are incredibly advanced due to the early discovery and quick popularisation of mechanical computation. The science of writing instructions for such machinery has allowed an effective AI ruler to come to power. The insecurity I now face is ho... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
The Ancient Guardian In my world there is an old human guarding something of great significance. All chemical reactions in their body have been slowed down to a microscopic fraction of what is deemed usual. Once the peace of the chamber is disturbed, this condition will be broken until the threat is dealt with. Let us ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Compact Mechanical Energy Source In my late-Victorian world there are independently moving automata that may act as pets or servants to those that can afford them. They require a fair amount of energy to run at full capacity, enough to move two arms ( Typically they are 80-160cm tall, 40-80cm wide and humanoid from the waist up an... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Seasonal Shade-Plant There is a forest in my world with a special property: All the trees are optimised to shade as much as possible during summer and give as little shadow as possible during winter, to regulate the temperature of the ground through sunlight. Is it possible to have such a spindly tree with large leaves?... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Brain Micromanagement Imagine a creature much like ourselves that can control the usage of their own mind. For example, a dying ancestor may tell some parting words which are so important that the individual explicitly saves them in their mind, with no way of the memory fading unless it is consciously 'unremembered'. An... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why would a bird have split wings? On my world there is a creature that has a 'split' in the plumage of its wings and tail. Instead of having a singular D-shaped surface (when viewed from above, the bird facing to the left), it is more of a B-shape. Why might a bird evolve to have this trait? (I know evolution is random, but what b... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Could there be a material that inverts the colours seen through it? I had a vision of a creature that touched things, and wherever it touched, it left a mark opposite to the original colour. For example when it walked across the grass the grass had red footprints, when it touched the wet stone it shone with a patch of white. Could such a material, a liquid or perha... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Anatomically Correct Carnivorous Tree How might a carnivorous tree look or work? The following conditions must be met: Consumes members of the biological kingdom 'Animalia' Possesses something resembling a trunk or stem of any kind Possesses something resembling branches stemming from the 'trunk' Is apparently rooted to the ground C... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Could a tree evolve to have vastly varying shades? I was wondering whether it would be feasible to have a tree that at times may have light green, at other times dark green leaves. Why would a tree evolve to change the shade of its leaves? Yes, I am aware of the effects of autumn, but the colour of the leaves change as a side-effect of the leaf dyi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Which sounds could a tongueless person produce? In my world, officials dealing with sensitive information have their tongues amputated. Naturally writing and a special, government-only sign-language are the main forms of communication, but creating complex audio signals may also be very practical. What sounds may they use to communicate? The de... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Pre-plastic human skin alternative In my pre-plastic world there is a killer who removes unblemished skin from their victims and replaces it with a non-human 'skin', so that one can't tell the replaced skin from the remaining human skin. What is the best candidate for the replacement material? Ideally, it should fulfill the followin... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Could typically electronic sounds be generated mechanically? I was thinking about our history of music, came upon electronic music and started musing about all the possibilities of modulation and such. I then thought back to a previous question of mine, "How might a purely mechanical 'voice' function?", and thought about Vocoders and similar synthesizers. The... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
What could prevent concentrated local exploration? In my world there is a village with a hot spring, the only one on the entire island. The spring emerges from a local cave which has been filled / caved in by a past civilisation, since the water is secretly heated by engineered means. The spring has been hot since neolithic times, but thousands of ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to safely derail a train during transit? Imagine a single, long, straight stretch of track. On the track there is a train heading in one direction at 100 km/h and a second train heading towards it at 200 km/h. The latter train is a special priority train that should not slow down at any cost. Edit: Let us assume the trains are 75 km apart,... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Victorian long-distance express transport? In my world, law enforcement is dispatched from the capital to places around the island. The reason for them being dispatched in this fashion is due to there being few officers and the capital being by far the most populous location in the land. Most if not all of the facilities of the law enforceme... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How could a female member of a species produce eggs unto death? As far as I am aware, female mammals cannot produce eggs (as in ova) after a certain age/maturation. How could the female produce eggs for an unlimited amount of time, resulting in a 'queen' mammal similar to queen bees? (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Could a more convenient form of energy transfer/storage than electricity be possible? I was thinking about the progress that has been made in terms of energy usage for e.g. transport purposes and noticed how the prominent source of energy had changed over time: first muscle power, then wind & water power, then steam power, then diesel power, then nuclear power. Similarly the method o... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Could 'robotic' prostheses be possible in the victorian era? In my world I would like to have a cyborg-inspired veteran, but am not sure what kinds of prostheses would be possible, ideally without the use of electrics. My main concern is how the prostheses might be controlled (or whether they need to be controlled in the first place), since processing input a... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How might a purely mechanical 'voice' function? In my world there are mechanical semi-humanoid automata. Would it be possible to make them speak in a fashion that sounds natural (i.e. human)? How might it function? The mechanism should be capable of (in order of priority): Pronouncing English sounds. Simulating intonation. Simulating changes i... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Mechanical amplification without creating huge distances? How would a mechanism look that allows a person to e.g. turn a crown-sized wheel (from a watch) by any amount (e.g. 180 degrees) resulting in a turntable (from train yards) turning the same amount (e.g. also 180 degrees) ? The mechanical amplifiers I found on Wikipedia all used inherent physics to a... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
What is the best design for docking onto a rotating space-station? In the distant future, space-stations use centrifugal force to emulate gravity, effectively being a cylinder (or something similar like a wheel) spinning around a central axis at high speeds. A spacecraft is coming up to dock, but how can it dock to such a fast, spinning object? The possible approa... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |