Activity for Monty Wildâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
Practicality of a ship-sized twisted-rubber engine I was considering this answer I wrote: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/21374/75 It got me to wondering... if we had a flying sailing ship with a twisted-rubber energy storage device that was set so that as the ship was sailing through the skies, it had a set of small keels that used the sh... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Where on Earth is it easiest to survive in the wilderness? In which wilderness area on modern-day Earth would it be easiest for a lone human to survive year-round? What resources are available there and what tools and skills would be necessary? What is the approximate minimum age necessary for this person to survive there? Now. that being the essence of t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
What's the disease? In a near-future sci-fi world, I described a disease with the following characteristics: Affects human female children (not necessarily exclusively). Is a neurodegenerative or similar disorder, leading to progressively reduced mobility. Can occur as the result of a chance mutation in the genes of... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Bouncing Beads of Blood - Just how cold would it have to be? My heroine has been stabbed - run through the abdomen by a foot-long dagger - and is bleeding to death. She is currently crawling toward her salvation through a very cold place. She is magically immune to the harmful effects of low temperatures, but her blood, once it has left her body, is not. I ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How long can New York City sustain the Snakebot of Doom's hunger for Iron and steel? The time: January 27th, 2017, 7:00 AM local. The place: New York City and environs. Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom, has just finished steamrolling New York City into something more closely resembling a gravel driveway. Now it has returned to the vicinity of lower Manhattan and is busy extractin... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Would we notice ridiculously healthy birds? Consider the following situation: Over the last 2 to 3 years, all the world's birds and bats outside of those in human captivity or domestication have stopped getting sick; sick - even terminally sick - animals have recovered, and these animals now have lifespans extended to about double that which t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Weather effects of the Snakebot of Doom While asking another question about Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom, a point was made that it is so big and hot that it might produce its own weather effects. To that end: Jormungandr is 446 metres in diameter, weighs 1.486 billion metric tons, has a body that is cylindrical for 7480m, and then t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Escaping the Snakebot of Doom The Snakebot of Doom - now dubbed Jormungandr by the first humans to encounter it and survive - is busy steamrolling New York into rubble, having first nuked the capitols of every member of the Nuclear Club and the continuity-of-government sites of the US, Russia and China with 80Mt fusion bombs, bom... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Spatial dimensions with non-equivalent dimensional eigenvalues Our universe is described as having three physical dimensions, plus one time dimension, where the eigenvalues for the physical dimensions are all the same, but the eigenvalue for time is opposite (x, y, z, t: +, +, +, -) or (x, y, z, t: -, -, -, +) A universe where the eigenvalue of time is equal to... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
How might an organism evolve to pass its learned knowledge to its offspring 'genetically'? Is it possible that a large, multicellular, naturally evolved organism with an advanced intellect on the order of a human's could have evolved to pass on its knowledge and memories in a fashion that could be described as 'genetic'? By 'genetic', I mean that a newly born/hatched/whatever organism wou... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
| Question | — |
Machines in four spatial dimensions Assuming that we have a universe with four spatial dimensions plus time, within which atoms exist that can form solids, liquids, gases and plasmas, the compounds that can be formed having physical properties equivalent to those in our 3D universe, such as mass, friction, elasticity, hardness, strengt... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
| Question | — |
As we increase the size and mass of a world, at what point does it become impossible for a rocket to achieve an orbit or escape velocity? Many authors describe worlds with higher gravity than our own, from whence super-muscular aliens originate. However, as we increased the size, mass and surface gravity of a world; there would be points at which no chemical-fueled rocket, either practical or theoretical, could achieve escape velocity... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
| Question | — |
How would an unexpected zero-g event affect a city? I have a city on a 3km-high mountain-top with a population of perhaps 50,000 humans, at a technological level of late renaissance or early steam. Below the city is a coniferous forest with wildlife typical to such forests in Europe, and the base of the mountain is surrounded by a medieval-style curta... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
| Question | — |
Detection and response to building a giant robot under the Antarctic ice-cap In the question, Weapons for a civilisation-destroying giant robot, I asked about what weapons might be mounted on a giant snakebot over 1 km in diameter and over 9km long, equipped with six fusion reactors. It was mentioned in one of the answers that it might be noticed - even in Antarctica - that ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
| Question | — |
Materials for a nanofabricated giant monster In How large a bioengineered mobile lifeform could exist on Earth?, I asked how big my nanoassembled war beasts could be, and it was suggested that I make my question more specific. I am designing a large autonomous or semi-autonomous war beast that is intelligently designed (not evolved) and constr... (more) |
— | almost 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
Geography in a universe with 4 spatial dimensions In my answer to my own question, Physical laws for a matter-filled universe, I detail the gross physical laws that would shape my four-spatial-dimensional matter filled universe. Given a slowly expanding four-dimensional universe, where the bulk of it is filled with solid matter, and nexi and stream... (more) |
— | almost 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
What would organisms be like in four physical dimensions? In this question, I asked about a matter-filled 4-spatial-dimensional universe, with a gross structure defined by my own answer to that question. Then, in this question, I asked about what the periodic table would look like, assuming that something like classical atoms could exist. Now, assuming th... (more) |
— | about 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
Replicating the biblical flood The Biblical story of the Flood describes how over a period of 40 days the earth is flooded so that the peak of the highest mountain is 15 cubits/22.5ft/6.858m below the new mean sea level. The flood waters remain stable over for 150 days before being removed over the period of the following 220 day... (more) |
— | about 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
What minerals can be used to make teeth? Vertebrate tooth enamel is made from Hydroxylapatite, however this need not be the only material available that an alien species could use to make teeth or tooth-like structures. Given that an ideal tooth would be hard, strong and able to be precipitated biologically in-situ from commonly-available ... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
What would the periodic table of a 4-Dimensional universe look like? In this question, I asked about a universe with (amongst other things) 4 large spatial dimensions. In 3 dimensions, we have the familiar periodic table with its familiar arrangement of atoms in the S, P, D, F and the predicted G & H blocks. However, in four dimensions (with the assumption that elec... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
Physical laws for a matter-filled universe The Setting: I have an idea for a universe that, in an inversion to our own, is filled for the most part with matter in solid, liquid, gaseous or plasma form, while vacuum and degenerate matter is present but relatively rare as matter appears to be in our own universe. This universe would contain m... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
Interactions with higher dimensions I was reading Flatland, and the thought occurred to me that interaction between an n-dimensional being and a n+1+-dimensional being may not only be difficult but dangerous, that Flatland contains errors of logic. Assuming that our n-dimensional universe is a brane wrapped around an immaterial n+1-... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
| Question | — |
Effects of a human moving faster than sound Let us suppose that we have people who for all intents and purposes are human, except for one (not so) tiny modification: they are able to exert enough muscular force and react fast enough that they can move their whole body, or their limbs independently, faster than the speed of sound, say $1800 \te... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
| Question | — |
What would an external observer see when passed by an Alcubierre drive ship? My answer to the question Is there a scientifically sound faster-than-light travel system for a spaceship? involved an Alcubierre-drive starship. However, that then got me thinking. What would an external observer see when passed by such a ship? When not operating, an observer would see just a stati... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
| Question | — |
What natural or artificial geographical structures that could allow a large-scale true "water going down the drain" whirlpool? As a child, I was always fascinated by the propensity of water going down a drain to form a vortex. I created a world with a global ocean where there was a narrow body of land running north-south which had a tunnel running under the land from one side to the other, connecting the sea on one side to... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
| Question | — |
What effects would a change in the nature of human sexuality have on society and infrastructure Consider a group of humans at a bronze-age to early iron-age technological level colonizing a new earthlike planet. There is just one difference - there exists on the planet something which changes the nature of human sexuality - and the colonists don't know what it is, nor can they stop it from hav... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |