Activity for Amadeus‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: What is the best design for docking onto a rotating space-station? I think this is option #3. There is a problem with centrifugal gravity, rotating things want to rotate around their center of gravity; so if the weight is not distributed quite evenly around the rim, then the center of rotation moves and the "rotation" becomes chaotic. i.e. it won't work, the struct... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Would experiencing Groundhog Day prove that life was a simulation just for you alone? Speaking as a scientist, it would not preserve my sanity to believe the world and all the people in it were a simulation for only me. It would quite likely make ME a simulation too! (Particularly if, by investigation and/or observation, I cannot find any notable physical difference between my own bod... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How long to dig through my tunnel? As several answers say, this is impossible. One solution is to (very early in the book) attribute the construction to a previous advanced civilization with mystery tech capable of this feat. A more plausible solution is not a tunnel, but a kind of rail road. The Vikings in 800 AD had crucible steel,... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What biological trait could make a humanoid species more likely to be matriarchal, but keep reproductive compatibility with other humanoids? Biological lifelong pair bonding (monogamy). This is rare, but does happen. At least one reason males seek dominance in a society is to increase their access to mates, and thus have more children then other males, thus their genes are increased in the next generation. Due to sexual differences bet... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What skin colours would highly adaptable, hunter humanoids naturally evolve? Consider camouflage colors, for desert, forest, water, city, or whatever environment they do most of their hunting in. Splotches of the most common colors found in such environments. Although splotches are common in natural settings, urban camo may involve straight lines and shadow; due to straight l... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the most plausible way to rule out string theory? First, I agree with L.Dutch; so I am avoiding duplicating that answer! String Theory is already defeating itself; there have been two books written on the problems within it. Not Even Wrong (The Failure of String Theory and the Search For Unity in Physical Law) [Peter Woit] and The Trouble With Phys... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Aliens performing successful medical procedure on humans at first contact? It only depends on alien intelligence and technology for scanning and examining the bodies. The human body (like any other animal's body) is a self-sustaining machine, the parts have functions, and we have discovered their functions by dissection, chemical analysis, and common sense. A sufficient... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Could you liquefy an asteroid to collect its resources? It depends on the size of the asteroid. For something the size of the Earth or moon, where gravity is generated, a molten mass will differentiate with heavier metals descending to the center and lighter material migrating to the crust. It would still be a "rough sort", elements of similar mass might ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can you catch a spaceship with a train on the Moon? Your massive maglev train is, obviously, levitated and accelerated by (electro) magnets, and must be many times the mass of the spaceship. The energy to power those magnets must come from somewhere on the planet, like a nuclear power plant, or perhaps by solar energy. There won't be any fossil fuels... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Planet with intense seasons Nothing says the orbit of your planet has to be as close to circular as the Earth's. All orbits are elliptical, with the sun at one of the two foci. (Even a circle is an ellipse, it just has both foci in the same space). The eccentricity of the ellipse is a measure between 0 and 1 of how stretched ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Psychology of Long Life I don't think you can extrapolate from centenarians. As Jimmy Stewart once said about age, "after 70 it's patch, patch, patch." I don't know anybody that has made it to 100, but several in their 80's and a few in their 90's, but these people were invariably fragile, and most of them were a bit mental... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: History without resource driven wars Biology cannot predict lifetimes ahead accurately enough to make this work. If I have a population of 500 adult males and 500 adult females in a field, and resources to support another 100 persons, what "instinct" tells the individual males and females whether they should refrain from intercourse or... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Individual vs communal shuttle pods? I would go with commmunal pods, just out of financial and space efficiency. Consider the difference between 250 individual cars, and ten buses. Most city buses have 55 seats; you could have just 5 communal pods. If there is a chance of being blown off course, it is better to have 50 people with you ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Could people survive on earth if a day lasted 100 years? The big problem I see for survival is not energy, it is growing plants for food and feed. The dark side is going to turn into a desert, no grass or crops or trees or any photo-synthetic life is going to survive even a year of night, and there is no time for them to adapt. Which means all the wild ani... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why do shapeshifters not kill their doubles before taking their form? If the ink knocks them out for only a week, then perhaps the Ko'dor don't want the victim dead, they wish to temporarily impersonate a person of power or influence and make some momentous decision or change. In our modern world for examples: Becoming the US President or a Prime Minister for a week, ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Would Earth plants grow in an alien environment? Scientifically speaking, plants are Autotrophs, and they do not require life to thrive. They don't need DNA, proteins, or anything else produced by life. After all, life must have begun with something that required no prior life to exist. Those things were molds, algae, perhaps others, and those thi... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: In a single-continent world, what could cause hydrothermal vents? You can have tectonic plates even on a water world, that is still "land" under there, you just have enough water to cover it all. In your case, any tectonic plates carrying enough land to break through water are all adjacent to each other; just like our continents were once all adjacent. Look at ea... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can waste from the body be removed without being expelled from the anus? We elves naturally developed a method that is more worthy of our nature. I would modify your premise, which I will get to in a moment. First, we humans preprocess our food to make it more edible. We peel it, we core it, we throw away the seeds and stems and leaves, and often skin, bones, organ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can A Theia-Like Object Make Earth Richer? I don't think a planet sized object can do it; both Earth and the object don't just melt, too much of it actually vaporizes (Not in the Star Trek sense, but the scientific sense; being heated beyond the liquid state (melting), beyond boiling, to the gaseous state: vapor; like steam for water). The a... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it possible to rule a galaxy without mastering teleportation? Yes. With technology! Specifically, Replicated Mechanized Police guaranteed to be the same everywhere, throughout the galaxy. This will also work with any length of human lifespans; even just the 75 years we have today. Nobody has to be immortal or long-lived. Travel can be sub-light speed (you may... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Could an intelligent race of seals craft tools effectively? I'm not up on seal anatomy; but I think the main thing to evolve is some sort of grip on, for example, a stick or spear. That does NOT require an opposable thumb. Our opposable thumb gives our grip strength, but I have known a man that lost his right thumb in an accident (stuck it into an exposed bo... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the most efficent way of killing prey much larger than yourself? I would suggest a large flying predator with a straight, thin, sharp horn. For evolutionary support consider a swordfish or narwhal tusk. The predator is evolved for a sneak swooping attack from behind on the larger prey, basically it flies silently (As owls have evolved to do), does a sharp U-turn... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Long-term effects of leaving everything you know - the aging issue I don't think mental state matters very much at all to physical age. As far as a world-building matter, for all the reason you state in your question; I would expect FTL travelers to not have any emotional ties at all with their planet-bound brethren. They would be born on ship, fall in love on s... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Self-sustaining Mars colonization I don't see any show stoppers. 100-200 years in the future, I will presume you have all the energy you need indefinitely, by solar or fusion. Although the sunlight is much reduced, all the materials you need to build solar panels are available; and the collection farms can be as vast as necessary (a... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: I have made a design for creating artificial gravity on low gravity worlds for my world, does it work? If the only point is to have 1G somewhere, don't vary the speed. Make a circular disc about a hundred yards across and a maybe five yards high; and spin it horizontally. You then have two vectors to consider, a 0.3G planetary vector pointing down, and a centrifugal force vector pointing out. The addi... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why build underwater outposts, rather than ocean-surface settlements? Size, space, the room to breathe, and the necessity of dirt. They don't just want to be underwater (for protection from storms and radiation), they actually want to be in million-strong cities on land, they want space. On the ocean floor they can burrow to create underground caverns miles across and ... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How far can civilization go without inventing the calendar? As far as you like, the calendar is not that important. It also depends on what counts as a calendar! The reason the constellations tend to not look anything like a description of their names, without an awful lot of artistic liberty being taken, is they were actually used as a calender to indicat... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Are there alternative ways aliens would think and feel emotions? I don't think you are thinking about thoughts correctly. I am an AI researcher, familiar with the field. It is provably true that the human brain uses sensory information to discern patterns; about the smallest component of the brain is the neuron, and this is a biological thing that is a simple patt... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How could intelligence be balanced with a large muzzle? A plausible reason for the negative correlation between anthropoid muzzle size and brain size is quite simple, the higher the intelligence, particularly if high enough to cook, the less need there is for large teeth, chewing muscles, or heavy support in the skull. When teeth stop being your primary w... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it possible to genetically modify a plant to become sentient? Speaking as a college professor that works in artificial intelligence, this is basically all impossible. Sentience would require some way for plants to both sense and "model" the world around them using abstractions. To the best of our current knowledge, that requires neurons, in large quantities, in... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to Effectively Collect and Recycle Space Junk? I propose a double light web, and a (quite distant) robotic 'catcher' grid. Things in orbit move in nice predictable orbits, at least in the short term, and are only slightly affected by the gravitation of other objects in orbit. One Light web: What we want is a pair of bright lasers (not powerful... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: What technologies might lead to or support "perfect recycling" Genetically engineered recycling bacteria. Many varieties. Plus (perhaps) some new acids to help them along with harder breaking. The "natural" means of recycling for the Earth is biological decomposition, over time, breaking down compounds for consumption to create animal and plant bodies, which t... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Which is initially more favorable; large or small settlements in a new planetary colony? It is a trade-off between benefits. Large settlements allow more efficient collective action, trade, etc. It is easier to dig one water well than 10 water wells. If I want all settlements to be fenced, say for protection against local wildlife, then it is 1/3 the effort to fence one large settleme... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Question	—	Reasons for my dark ages world to have no horses at all I am writing a fiction set in the 'dark ages', a pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder world. On Earth that would be no later than 800 AD, but this doesn't have to match Earth. There is no magic, and I won't inject any. It is useful to my story line to eliminate horses as a mode of fast travel. I do mention... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: If my world is flat (obviously not possible) how would I explain the edges? Requires no exotic dimensional physics. For the same reasons we humans never visited either the North or South poles, until we developed the technology to do so a few hundred years ago. It's too cold at the edge, and (like our poles) too cold a hundred miles from the edge. Antarctic temperatures, b... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to create a genetically high IQ population while avoiding regression to the mean as much as possible? First, putting all morality issues aside, IQ can be well defined, and in fact it is, by current intelligence tests. For the purpose of this question simply divorce yourself from the notion that the IQ test has any meaning other than the score ON THIS TEST, it doesn't have to correlate with any kind o... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it plausible for self-destruct button to trigger a countdown? It is not plausible for a self-destruct to have a count-down by purely mechanical or chemical means, especially one that could be stopped at the last second. HOWEVER, it makes a great deal of sense to have a settable countdown for a triggered self destruct system; knowing when it will happen gives p... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: High-Functioning Autists as Space Colonists My grandson is autistic, through him I know a dozen other autistic children. A major problem with autistic children is a failure to understand the needs of other people, the pain of other people, the wants of other people. They don't care because in a way they are incapable of it; they do not have t... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Reasons why healthy people would intentionally want to get infected? Natural Vaccination. Read about how Cowpox was used to vaccinate against Smallpox, this is our IRL first instance of vaccination against a disease. The word "vaccination," coined by Jenner in 1796, is derived from the Latin root vaccinus, meaning of or from the cow. Once vaccinated, a patient de... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Going slower in worlds where fuel is free or insignificantly cheap Presuming the worm-holes or "warp space" are obstacle free and danger does not increase with speed, then I think there is no reason whatsoever to travel at less than the maximum sustainable non-damaging speed available. Your premise says that is not the maximum speed, so whatever percent of maximum d... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: What would be the possible benefits of pointed ears? I cannot answer for pointed ears specifically, but the shape of ears is known, in audio science, to have an impact on sounds reflected into the ear canal. See here, an excerpt is below (The pinna is the outer part of the ear; plural is pinnae): In animals the function of the pinna is to collect ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Impact of living on a world with no terrestrial fauna edit: The OP allows plants, but no trees. Actually this is reasonable; woody trunks may well be an evolutionary response to predation and trampling by early animals; the fact that many trees can survive collision with a car could be a result of withstanding collisions with dinosaurs; or attempts by d... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Pottery Without Using Heat If you have mercury; you have a lens: Put it in a dish and provide a low spin, it will form into a parabolic lens that focuses sunlight. Large lens = hot hot focal point. The dish can actually be just dried non-porous clay. The focal point can be a built up rock, brick or dried clay oven, up on some ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is a habitable desert planet with large fossil fuel deposits possible? Well, to make a desert planet habitable, you will need oxygen, unless your 1870's cowboys live in domed towns, which seems incongruous. Humans need to breath oxygen! You will also need water (could be subsurface) and crops: Which means whatever factor killed off all the plants (including the forests ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: How best to use a celestial body to hide a space station? Behind a star or planet would be a good place; not in orbit but powered to remain behind it from the perspective of some other POV. However, any kind of "behind" implies a single direction or location of viewing. I can easily stay behind the Earth's Moon from the POV of Mars, taking all those orbital... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to explain why a human society's state of technology on another planet might be locked? I will propose a novel, two-pronged scientific solution. [electrical, biological] Bear with me for the first part, I will explain! Part 1 Lots of natural chromium, lead and mercury, perhaps titanium; and virtually zero gold, copper, silver or other good conductors. That could be due to previous min... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Does time dilatation make travelling close to the speed of light redundant? You cannot get there faster than light (from the perspective of the places you are traveling from and to, if they are [nearly] at rest with respect to each other (meaning even if they are both moving, the distance between them is not increasing or decreasing by more than a few miles per second). If ... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can a dedicated amateur astronomer spot a rogue asteroid? I upvoted Dutch and did not think anything else was needed; but in response to commentary I will add on. Is Joe able to spot it? This is an unqualified YES. Amateurs spot new asteroids and comets all the time; it is just a matter of equipment that is affordable to many in the upper middle class,... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: What possible scientific reasons could there be for a vampire to only be killable via wooden stake to the heart? Any scientific reason would have to be in the make up of wood itself: See The Chemistry of Wood. Perhaps because wood was living cells; something the cells produce; everything from sugars (like in sap) to cell walls -- or a "recipe" of such products in a particular balance. Think of a chemical recip... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why might a valued mineral be only found on one planet? Heavy Metals. The heavy and rare elements can be produced in Supernova; things like Gold, Platinum, etc. There are other ways, but precisely how isn't important. But, they can produce them in massive quantities; then heat, explosive forces and gravity can "refine" them to some extent, sorting them ... (more)	—	over 7 years ago

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