Questions tagged [electromagnetism]
For questions involving the fundamental electromagnetic force. This includes electricity, magnetism, light, and other phenomena.
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Potential workings of a device that makes the area around it appear in greyscale?
Basically I'm thinking of a strategy game, something like starcraft, and you have a unit that emits a field that causes the area around it to appear in grayscale. Is there any kind of potential ...
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Could a slow rotating planet be protected by another's body magnetosphere?
I'm working on a slow spinning planet whose rotation period lasts around 24 Earth-years (about 8766 days). It would be a rocky planet similar to the Earth in size and mass orbiting a K- or G-type star ...
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Possibility of Space Magical Electromagnetic Gun in Bronze/Iron Age
Background
This is a quasi-magical world where sapient species inhabit a range of biomes in a stellar system, from asteroids to gas giant moons to earth-like planets. These bodies have compositions ...
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Will my cyber-kraken fry itself with these electromagnetic powers?
I'm currently building a kraken for one of my worlds and wanted it to be a threat to my more tech-savvy protagonists. So, I want to give it some cybernetics. In particular, I want it to be able to ...
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How fast can an alien laser cannon be charged with a magnetic field?
I have some alien laser cannons that I pulled out of a perpetual hurricane. They're cylinders that are two feet long and one foot across. They can only be charged by magnetodynamic coupling - that is, ...
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What EM band would be least noticed if I started globally broadcasting white noise on it?
Suppose I created a private network of peer-to-peer cellphones and started handing phones out to people globally. Now, these phones don't have to use the common cell phone bands of the EM spectrum... ...
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Can I reasonably give a binary/double planet a strong magnetic field?
If there was a double planet with each mutual satellite being the mass of the Earth could they still maintain Earth-like magnetic fields despite being tidally locked to each other?
Simulations of how ...
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Could small creatures stick to each other magnetically like metallic marbles and would it be effective?
We've all played with those metal marbles at some point, they stick together through our hand and it's fun, albeit a little painful. So I've been wanting to use that in my creature designs for small ...
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Surface features of a very magnetic/volcanic planet
In my story, a planet has
About 1.5x to 2x the surface gravity of Earth
Much more volcanic activity than Earth
An extremely strong magnetic field (ideally at least 100x that of Earth. My research on ...
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Is there any way humans could influence whether/when a magnetic pole flip happens?
Are there any actions that humans do that could influence whether a magnetic flip (I believe the proper name is geomagnetic reversal) happens? Are there any ways humans could theoretically influence ...
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Would it be possible for supergiants to play football at the normal pace with a moon-sized ball in the right parallel universe? [closed]
Imagine astronomical sized giants in a parallel universe where they could exist. They have moon-sized brains and are about 20 brains high. Their motion, in this universe, would be enormously slow. The ...
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What are some means of subjecting Earth to a constant magnetic field imbalance capable of damaging or shutting down unshielded electronics?
I'm trying to make an alt-history in which electronics are constantly effected by higher-than-normal background magnetic effects - think a constant geomagnetic storm, except not necessarily caused by ...
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What would be the consequences for microelectronics if the Sun caused more coronal mass ejections?
Let's say that the Sun, instead of being the relatively tame star it is IRL, constantly sends out low-level but unpredictable coronal mass ejections that aren't enough to negatively affect life but do ...
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What is the maximum power level for a car mounted RF jammer that can keep the robots at a distance, without cooking yourself?
Assuming present day earth.
Imagine someone with access to an exa-scale super computer creates an AI. That AI then becomes sentient and tries to take over the earth.
An exa-scale supercomputer ...
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Help with defining the extent of my character's ability
In the book I am writing, one of the main characters has the ability to convert their own energy (chemical or mechanical) into light/photonic energy, and only that form of energy. I know that this ...
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Effects of a sudden change in magnetic poles
In my verse the Magnetic Poles of the planet underwent a sudden shift due to the construction of a great tower imbued with great amounts of Magic. This shift made it so that the poles shifted to the ...
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Dyson swarm and Coronal mass ejections - generating electricity
This is the second of two questions. Same introduction.
A civilisation on Earth has just begun expanding with a Dyson swarm, which is a Dyson sphere but made with many satellites, to prevent ...
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How would a civilization protect a Dyson swarm from solar flares and coronal mass ejections?
This is the first of two questions. Same introduction.
A civilization on Earth has just begun expanding with a Dyson swarm, which is a Dyson sphere but made with many satellites, to prevent structural ...
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How much energy an active structure would need to be a vacuum balloon?
In this question here there is an answer telling that it would be possible to make a vacuum balloon using superconductors, however, we are nowhere close to a room-temperature superconductor.
Assuming ...
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Alternate chemical elements?
I'm running into some issues trying to make sense of both my planet's density (it's given properties should make the planet an ocean world, so I'm looking for lighter elements so the planet is rocky) ...
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What would a cold plasma based force field feel like to the touch?
As a plasma-based force field would simply feel really really hot and consuming end up burning anybody who touched it, a cold plasma-based force field would seem to be more in order. For convenience, ...
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Statically Charged Sand Castles
So I read an article on the sand on Titan and its static properties. To sum up the article the gravity and atmosphere there make it so the triboelectric effect isn't overwhelming like it is on Earth, ...
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Personal device to stop getting radiation poisoning
I'm looking for some kind of science based way for people in a near future to be able to walk around in an irradiated area without getting any adverse effects, I was specifically looking at using ...
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Could orbital neodymium magnets create a magnetic field for mars?
I'm wondering if, using enough neodymium magnets (dont worry where the material is coming from) in a low martian orbit, could you produce a powerful enough magnetic field to protect the atmosphere ...
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Why do VTOL faerie need a road line plan?
Imagine intelligent yet shy faerie the size of a tennis ball capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) are planning a mass migration from ...
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What properties are needed for magnets to levitate a whole city 2km above a planet's surface?
I'm writing a story with some sci-fi elements and want to give actual science a try before resorting to technobabble.
What properties would a magnet and a planet need to have to levitate a whole city ...
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What (if anything) can cause a substantial and stable shift of the magnetic poles of a habitable planet away from its geographical ones?
Most planets have magnetic poles that align pretty well with their geographical ones. On earth, for example, the magnetic dipole field is tilted about 11 degrees from the rotational axis. As far as I ...
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How could strange energies cause massive droughts within a localized region?
The scenario:
Background
Let me begin by explaining the surreal parts of this scenario: essentially there is an archipelago of islands just south of Australia that have existed under the world's noses....
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UPDATED: What phenomena could be powerful enough to hide an island?
Edit: My original question concerned the magnetic properties of gems in this world. As I have realized more and more through the answers how unrealistic this is, I am now seeking input on any general ...
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Could a terraforming project use a metallic-asteroid-based magnet to protect a planet from the stellar wind?
An unmanned, AI-controlled, terraforming ship arrives at an earth-like planet (i.e earth-sized, rocky, in the goldilocks zone of its star). Unfortunately for the ship's terraforming plans, the planet ...
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Would it be possible for a planet to have a northern or southern sunrise/sunset [closed]
I was curious, if it would be possible for planet in any star system to have sunrise in the northern or southern pole due to the orientation of the planetary magnetic field?
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Species that can create magnetic fields
I am trying to come up with an explanation for how a creature could create strong magnetic fields with a high level of control. I'm thinking that their 'writing' would be similar to how computers ...
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How close to a magnetar could a generation ship get?
In the news recently, it has been discovered that the fast burst radio waves are coming from magnetars.
It is doubtful that a habitable planet could form anywhere near one, but such a star would be an ...
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Radar-absorbent natural materials?
This one is kind of short. We know of natural materials that can interfere with IR, such as a polar bear's fur which, along with its blubbers, makes them nigh invisible on thermal cams. The TL; DR ...
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Does prolonged (lifetime) exposure to strong and chaotic geomagnetic storms have any side-effects?
The concept is that my world has a permanent chaotic geomagnetic field going on. Sort of a perpetual Carrington Event, only the source is not a solar storm.
In theory, this should make electronics be ...
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How would a torus planet's magnetic field work?
Simply put as the title says. I'm going to handwave that the planet is held together with magic, but I want to know how a magnetic field would work on a toroidal planet- assuming such is even possible....
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Trying to build a real flying saucer, send help! [closed]
It is a cone shape saucer-like craft, acting as a giant resonator. The upper deck is made out of paramagnetic materials, such as zinc and magnesium, but the lower deck chamber is made out of a ...
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Electro-signaling camouflage for animals?
In an aquatic environment that most predators developed shark-like electroreceptive organs, what would be the counteractive measures against it?
Copper shells can disguise electric fields, but how it ...
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Can a rogue radio signal from the moon or near orbit realistically go unnoticed?
I'd like some fact-checking for a somewhat lively discussion going on over here. Feel free to wander over for details, though they aren't necessarily relevant. (Also, I hope this can serve as a useful ...
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What might be the negative effects of researching or implementing the Searl Effect, Moray Generators, Perendev Generators, et al.?
A morally questionable organization is developing a power source based on quantum fluctuations (zero-point energy), citing the Moray generator, freedom particles, the Searl effect, and so forth as ...
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What would be possible if my character was able to manipulate electricity [closed]
I am outlining and plotting a novel about someone who is able to manipulate electricity (as in electric currents, charges, etc). Sadly, physics isn't my forte so I was wondering what exactly is ...
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How to make dragons move stealthy on radar?
What dragon exactly? Well, the ones in my story tend to be "smaller", around the size of a larger horse with wingspans of 10-12 meters. They have six limbs and are capable of powered flight. ...
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Life on Earth without a magnetic field?
Consider an Earth-like planet in a solar system much like ours that doesn’t have any magnetic field (or at least a very weak magnetic field) because of a lack of metals like Nickel beneath the surface....
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In the orthogonal series, when finding the 4-force between two charges would the entire world line of each need to be taken into account? [closed]
Four-Velocity is the derivative of four-position with respect to proper time, four-acceleration is the derivative of four-velocity with respect to proper time, and four-force is equal to rest mass ...
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Could an Electrically Charged Sphere maintain an Atmosphere, and Oceans?
There is a sphere, of similar radius to Earth, but the mass of this sphere is such that it's gravity is negligible, and if gravity was the only force on this sphere, any gas or liquid that was put on ...
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Can a charged particle as big as a soccer ball create destruction equivalent to an atomic bomb?
Charged particles such as protons are associated with the strong nuclear force and coulombic interactions, but as they're tiny, we can only perceive them through static. If a proton gets as big as a ...
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How could an antimatter battery take the shaking and knocks from being in an active android? [closed]
There are quite a few questions on here related to using antimatter-matter annihilations as an energy source or weapon and it seems one big issue is the safety issue of it not all going off if damaged....
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What if Earth's core was bigger than now?
What would happen if Earth's core got bigger? Could this result in stronger magnetic field and as a result stronger Van Allen Belt? What would this mean for space travel?
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Could a creature using electromagnetic forces or something to do with ions fly?
This is a small arrow shaped creature that can fly without wings. Can it use electromagnetism to fly? Or maybe something to do with ions? Or however ufos are theorized to work?
I'm not quite sure ...
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Reality check: Could a diamagnetic gold shell around a planet exist?
Could a gold shell around a planet exist, suspended by a magnetic field (gold is diamagnetic), given the following constraints?
A gold layer enveloping a planet, arbitrarily thin.
Unspecified height, ...
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