Questions tagged [explosions]
For questions that deal with explosions, which are rapid and usually violent releases of energy that create shockwaves.
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What would a planet need for rain drops to trigger explosions upon making contact with the ground?
The rain of my planet, for some reason, triggers explosions upon making contact with the ground. However, only rain water specifically causes this. Bodies of water like rivers or oceans don't cause ...
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How much better would metallic hydrogen be than conventional explosives?
How much more effective (if at all) would metallic hydrogen explosives be against armored targets?
In this setting metallic hydrogen can be cheaply manufactured and contained in a metastable state ...
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Walking on tiny landmines in steel-soled boots
Gravel mines were tiny explosives the US scattered on the McNamara Line during the Vietnam War. Bernard C. Nalty's Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh claims (pg. 105) the Viet Cong cleared them by ...
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How would a civilisation that develops underwater create explosives? [duplicate]
So, I'm interested in a humanoid civilisation, only it develops underwater, in a world with no ground above sea level.
I want to know, considering ignition with a spark would be, well since, fire and ...
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Could a race create a 1 Megaton non nuclear explosion?
I've been taking a look at Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions . There they mention non nuclear explosions of 3.2 - 2 kilotons occurring 80-100 years ago. Also, one of 4 kilotons around 40 years ...
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Frozen Star- Red dwarf goes supernova, just because I froze it?
So as I mentioned in my previous question in the series, the parent red dwarf star of a one-planet system, Eridanus, has frozen over due to an unknown reason. By a "frozen red dwarf star", I ...
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Can an exploding object survive? [closed]
Imagine a small object (a sphere in my mind) buried underground. This object is meant to cause some vibrations around and then take some measurements.
In order to cause the vibrations, I see no option ...
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How much and how powerful would a "phlebotinium" bomb launched from orbit be to create an artificial sea? [closed]
I am writing a setting for an unspecified goal, whether I will end up doing a video game or a novel out of it all, but I am still working on the worldbuilding aspect.
Lore-introduction, (you can skip ...
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How much shielding do you need to survive an antimatter explosion?
The Story (Literally)
Extract: First Draft, Third Person Limited.
"C'mon! We need the engines back, now!" Valerie yelped over the general channel. The interceptor floated adrift, otherwise ...
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How to calculate the resulting explosion and implosion caused by shrinking and expanding a solid box
A character with Antman like powers I am thinking of have the magical ability to rapidly grow and shrink items. By rapidly, I mean able to do so in micro seconds.
I am trying to calculate the effects ...
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Could underground bushes feasibly develop to have this?
In my Dungeons and Dragons setting, the deep gnomes (svirfneblin) and dark elves (drow) have been fighting an underground war for several decades. The drow have managed to subjugate the svirfneblin ...
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What is the maximum speed my space ship can crash at without killing people standing nearby?
The fluff:
My protagonist finds herself in an empty patch with everyone running away. As she looks up she sees a space ship come through the clouds at an angle, coming straight at her. Its on fire, ...
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Stellar Radiation Detons- Cosmic Weapon
In this setting, Humans have done multiple advances in technology and are nearly on the verge of being a Type III civilisation, They have nearly colonized the Milky Way and have tapped energy from ...
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What kind of explosion could explode the whole Earth? [duplicate]
I want to make technology that can explode the whole Earth. The problem is that antimatter explosions and nuclear explosions just don't have the juice needed to blow up the planet. Conventional ...
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How much do tunnels extend blast waves from explosives?
Someone recommended this SE for this question, since I'm asking it to help a friend's setting, where dwarves and goblins fight underground with explosives. After asking if it was OK, I cross-posted ...
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Could vacuum armour protect vehicles and people from explosions? [closed]
If you have a <1mm thick layer of vacuum inside an armour plate, be it for vehicles or body armour, wouldn't it stop explosive shockwaves from penetrating through the armour? This is, of course, ...
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Would the backblast of a rocket launcher be damaging to robotic soldiers?
So in the future, we have robotic (humanoid) soldiers that do the fighting regular human infantry used to do. Now, the backblast of a rocket launcher in real life can definitely kill someone. If there ...
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Would the "Rods from God" satellite actually create an explosion?
The "rods from God" satellite. Its a satellite that contains these long darts, presumably made of a very heavy material like tungsten, that are dropped into the atmosphere. By the time they ...
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Defending against dinosaurs with an automatic shotgun that fires miniaturized anti-tank munitions
Like any reasonable billionaire, I want to breed dinosaurs on my private island - big ones. Like, T-Rex big. Of course, one needs a well-armed security force to guard such an endeavor, lest the ...
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How would an active Alcubierre Drive effect the shape of an ship's explosion?
I have a scene where a fleet of ships activates thier Alcubierre Type Warp Drives to flee from an enemy fleet, but unlike many sci-fi settings where a warp drive instantly pushes you up to ...
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How much should a nuclear explosion be slowed for its energy to be safely converted to electrical energy?
Harvesting explosions by containing them in a time bubble.
Here's an interesting sci-fi concept, which involves generating a time bubble in order to slow a nuclear explosion to the point where the ...
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If you were wearing a bomb suit, would it be safe to set off a Claymore mine strapped to your chest?
The M18A1 Claymore mine is a directional fragmentation anti-personnel mine. It is designed to kill by projecting a lethal hail of steel balls within a 60-degree cone in front of itself.
It seems ...
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What sort of explosive detonators could be made without modern technology?
This is a very society in the style of the 1730's Europe long before the advent of modern electronics.
While I expect wick-style fuses to still easily be made (as they were then), could anything like ...
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What kind of substance that existed in the Middle Ages could, when ignited, potentially destroy everything within several miles?
I am a DM for a homebrew D&D 5e game. In terms of technology, the time period loosely takes place somewhere between 1100 and 1400 CE (so High Middle Ages to Late Middle Ages).
The villain of my ...
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What would armor designed to withstand a grenade blast in an enclosed space look like?
Let's say that someone throws an M67 hand grenade into a completely enclosed room - i.e. the door is the only entrance/exit.
How would someone build a suit of armor to functionally negate the ...
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What natural material shatters when thrown like a grenade?
Our intrepid wizard protagonist realizes there is only one of him and an army of baddies. He has a band of some 50 people with him, but only a dozen have combat training and he is the only spellcaster....
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Soldier hit unconscious [closed]
A character who is close to the explosion of a mortar shell has a concussion and his lights go out.
In this situation would it be possible to lose consciousness without a loss of blood?
If so how ...
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What's the safest way to carry and throw marble sized high-explosive grenades?
Pull the context and count to three sentences
Let's imagine an army has created a kind of explosive similar to grenades, but much smaller in size while maintaining a good chunk of offensive output.
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Making minefields with potash
Many modern explosives would have changed the history of sieges and raids.
A modern phoenix bomb (american claymore) can injure and entire shieldwall of soldiers.
A field of mines and phoenixes and ...
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Would a pool of petroleum explode if lit on fire?
A large pool of crude oil 60 feet in diameter and about 10 feet deep. It sits atop a 100ft. tall stone pillar with a 5ft radius hole that leads down into the earth. If the oil on top is exposed to a ...
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Damage estimate for a large acetylene explosion
In a laboratory in a university building, a gas tap is accidentally opened at the end of the working day. The gas tap is connected to a bank of large acetylene cylinders. The gas tap is ejecting 0....
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Swallowing Multiple Grenades
Okay, there's a character who is force-fed multiple grenades. The resulting explosion does severe damage to their body, but doesn't completely destroy them, and their healing factor fixes all of the ...
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Could a dyson sphere survive a supernova?
So, a civilization built a massive Dyson Sphere around a supergiant star. As the star ages, it begins to fuse iron. At this point, the force of radiation pressure cannot prevent core collapse, and ...
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What would a scientific accurate exploding Krypton look like/be like for anyone standing on the planet?
I like superhero movies and Superman is one of my absolute favorites.
And one stable thing in that universe is always that Krypton goes kaboom, the reasons for this are multiple: from the original one ...
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chance of surviving a planet killer explosion
Our main characters have just arrived at the brand new SpaceStation2™ (now with geostationary orbit!) soon they get settled in with the other characters already there, then the planet explodes, no ...
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Lava projectiles
I have a civilization that lives near an active volcano. For battle, they use the lava to their advantage, and one of their projectile weapons is a small sphere with lava inside. When thrown, it ...
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Could a bug sting induce a human body to explode?
The setup is similar to a funny horror movie or like Troma movies. Deaths only happen to insignificant, unnamed characters.
However, I would like to have some plausible science back-up (maybe slightly ...
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Smallest amount of conventional explosives required to create a crater 7m wide and 4m deep [closed]
What is the smallest amount of conventional explosives possible to create a crater that is roughly 7 meters in diameter and four to five meters deep?
Bob needs to know this in order to successfully ...
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How strong is the "explosion" of a bubblegum?
This is for a fantasy/fiction story. I have a character who can manipulate her gum bubbles (so make them strong or bigger, blah blah...), that's why I wanted to know if the explosions of her bubbles ...
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3 Asteroids hit the planet - What happens next? [closed]
3 Large Asteroids, each the rough size of London, UK, in diameter. The Asteroids are rocky, with bits of water and ice in them as well.
They impact the Earth, at 57km/s, in South America, East Africa, ...
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How easily can a medieval granary explode?
The villainous gremlins are attempting to cause as much damage to the lands of the Empire as possible with as little effort as practical. They have numerous plans to this end. One such plan is to blow ...
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How can I describe an incredible release of power, realistically [closed]
In my writing, a goddess is removed from her position as a god and reduced to a human. (See my question on writing.SE) At the moment of the loss of power huge amounts of energy would be released into ...
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How to prevent ship's AI from initiating self destruct sequence regardless of captain's permission?
Set in a distant future, every interstellar spaceship runs on antimatter propulsion which can achieve fractional speed of light travel. There is a doctrine stating that all spaceships with mass ...
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Are "Bomb Catapults" actually feasible?
I was recently thinking about which technologies an Isekai-Protagonist could give his allies in a medival fantasy world. For all those who don't know, Isekai is an anime genre where the protagonist is ...
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Feasibility of making a imploding bomb
In a dystopian story I’ve created, humanity is in a near constant war, but is still more advanced than modern day humans. One weapon that is used in this war is called the “I.N”, short for imploding ...
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What adaptations should a utility fog, that's meant to be an air-fuel explosive, have?
I found a way to ensure that even if either the Japanese Self-Defense Force or the U.S Army invades my fantasy world, its inhabitants would still have a fighting chance.
Utiltiy Fog
Hall thought ...
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How big of a wave would this falling cliff create?
I'm running a D&D campaign and, well, the players had blown up a cave filled with explosives under a 40-metr cliff. I told them the cliff cracked and fell into the ocean. 40 meters tall, 30 meters ...
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What Kind of Bolide Would Chicxulub Be to Create the Bigger Airburst--Asteroid or Comet?
66 million years ago, something brought an end to the long-established dinosaur empire. The pendulum just kept shifting between an asteroid and a comet, astronomical bolides that actually have ...
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The students have blown up the school using stuff that looks like snow. How?
In Hungarian, there is a new-ish folk-song sung by school-children who dislike school whenever it snows to the tune of Twinkle, twinkle, little star:
Hull a pelyhes dinamit,
Robbantsuk fel a sulit!
...
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Consequences of an Earth-size object hitting the Sun?
Suppose an extra-solar object the size and mass of the Earth, travelling at a speed of $26\ \mathrm{km/s}$, the same of ʻOumuamua (the first known interstellar object crossing our solar system), hit ...
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