Questions tagged [hard-science]
REVIEW THE WIKI BEFORE USING THIS TAG! For questions that require unequivocal proof that answers are correct through the use of equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, etc. Compare to: science-fiction, science-based and internal-consistency. This tag may not be used alone. This tag may not be used with the science-fiction, science-based, or internal-consistency tags. Flag your question for moderator attention once posted.
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What is the largest achievable oxygen-atmosphere world?
I am trying to calculate the largest world that will meet the following criteria:
Exists within the Goldilocks zone of a G2V star similar to our sun.
Is survivable long-term by anatomically modern ...
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How big an asteroid to hold a ship in stable orbit?
A derelict space craft, 1MKg in mass is in a 100km (more or less) orbit above the surface of an asteroid out in the asteroid belt.
How big should the asteroid be to have the ship maintain this orbit ...
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Preventing black hole formation in a water-filled universe
Imagine a universe full of water. A comfortable 22 degrees Celsius warm, density of about 998 grams per liter, and it fills up everything for as far as can be observed. There's nothing else; neither ...
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Implanted device in human body that can transmit over long distance
Previously linked question (which is closed but already has answers).
Say we have a type of implanted device in human body (say, ear) used to communicate over a distance. I am thinking about a ...
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Collect powers from human body via miniature implantation
How much energy can we draw from miniature implanted device that collects energy from human body?
The goal is to design a type of implanted device in human body used to communicate over a distance, ...
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My alloy plausibility
My armour is able to take temperatures upto 500°c and tensile strength of 17 MPa . It is made with some knowledge of physics and material science. My suit is made of mono-crystalline iron and coated ...
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How might other civilizations discover irrational numbers
The first number shown to be irrational in our world was supposedly the square root of 2. I know that the irrationality of π is likely out of reach for a civilization that hasn’t discovered ...
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Making stillsuits less fantasy - how to dump the heat?
As we all know1, stillsuit as described in the books would cook the user. Water would carry heat away from the body, but then it would be caught again, and again with the heat.
Assuming energy is not ...
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Equipotential liquid surfaces in a universe which uses the infinity norm as a metric
Premise
On viewing this question, I wondered what the small-scale behavior of drops of liquid in that world would be. What would happen to small volumes of liquids in an atmosphere?
Calculations
For ...
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Could a space-based telescope 'sense' something extraneous?
If a fist-sized artefact was to attach itself to a space telescope (of near-term build, such as the Nancy Grace Roman) situated in L2 of a Lagrange point, would Ground Control be able to detect it?
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Remote listening device inside human ear and powered by the body
Some related (but not the same) questions:
Listening (eavesdropping) device that can be put into victim's ear? (which is closed because of the need to focus)
Microphone implanted in and powered by ...
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Hyper dense muscles
My organism has hyperdense muscles. This allows their type to generate enormous aerial force, some even able to cut things with their wings or generate G-force winds. What materials is their wings ...
user90210
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Macroscopic Matter Waves [closed]
I know that mass and and wavelenght are inversely proportional, but would it be possible for a macroscopic being to experience them like it if were a particle? and how?
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Walking to space
Is it possible to have any kind of natural celestial body where at some point on it it's capable of supporting human life without technological assistance (breathable air, survivable temperature with ...
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Harvesting energy from rain as efficiently as possible
The goal is to engineer the most efficient way(s) to harvest energy from rainfall using moderately advanced technology. My idea was to use this as widespread power source for a race of people that ...
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How to neutralize that noxious monster blood
Listen closely my apprentice, as this may well save your life! Or your customers, rather. And line your pockets to boot.
We follow the story of a daring young adventurer, on a quest to defeat the ...
- 1,997
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What kind of propulsion system would work in the air and underwater?
I have a futuristic aircraft that's supposed to be submerged under the sea and to lift off again without an issue. The problem is, I don't know of a propulsion system that could work both under water ...
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Why would a planet orbiting a black hole have a year lasting just over one month?
This question is based on this description of the Cormoran Supermassive Black Hole in the Orion Arm's website:
Orbiting the black hole in hundreds of concentric circles are more
than a million ...
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Hard Sci-Fi Werewolf
How possible is the following scenario for a hard sci-fi werewolf?
Specifications:
Evolved, not infected. Natural-born this way.
If an animal can serve up the required capabilities, please mention ...
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What is the highest g planet that can be escaped with current rocketry technology? [duplicate]
A spacefaring race in my story evolved on a high g planet. This made them smaller, stockier and stronger than most other spacefarers. The question is just how high their planet’s gravity could be ...
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Interstellar laser sculpting
Some artistic and civic-minded aliens want to put a bust of their glorious leader, Rigel Rigelius R, in every solar system in the galaxy. Interstellar spaceships are very expensive, and slow besides, ...
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Are bacteria patties possible?
This has got to be the strangest question I've ever asked.
I was looking at lab grown meat and thought - I've never grown these cells in a lab - but I sure have grown bacteria! Currently though, this ...
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How hard is it to find ship-sized object via satellite?
I came up with a world that is similar to ours but is recovering from oil reserves depletion. In other words, there is very little to no petrol remaining, so the ones who can use it are mostly ...
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How long could a human survive in a near-pure CO2 atmosphere?
Imagine Mars's atmosphere has been mostly terraformed. By that, I mean that the surface pressure and temperature have been brought up to at least survivable values. (The atmosphere is still 95% Carbon ...
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How dense must a light object be in order to significantly bend space-time?
We know that the mass of the sun bends the space time geometry. Collapsed onto an orange-sized sphere it can turn into a black hole.
The physicist Tippler has shown that time travel is theoretically ...
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Maximum mass of a wall clinging gecko?
Very straightforward question, how big can a gecko get before the van der Waal force becomes insufficient to carry their body? In life, each of a gecko's four feet has a clinging strength of up to 20 ...
- 10.5k
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Whale-sized electric eel shock?
How does an electric eels shock change if it were the size of a whale?
The problem I'm trying to elucidate is how a larger voltage from a much larger creature would change the range, power and ...
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Calculating the Atmospheric Properties of an Exoplanet
I am developing a double-star system filled with several planets, a few of which will be habitable. I also have a spreadsheet file full of all the planets information, from Semi-Major Axis, orbital ...
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What effects would discharge of high-voltage supercapacitor through one's hand cause?
I'm trying to figure out what effects would this have on hand. Let's assume that we touch contacts of said capacitor with thumb and index finger of the same (dry and pretty clean) hand (but I'm also ...
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How far away could a tech similar to RFID be scanned?
Let's say a three letter agency wants to track everyone using an ID card tied to a database. It's simple enough to put an RFID chip in it that gets read at some point of contact, but let's say we want ...
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How different, geographically, would Western North America look if the ice ages lasted 14 million years rather than two-and-a-half?
If such iconic landscapes as the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Basin and New York Harbor are proof of anything, it's that the North America we know has been shaped by ice ages coming and going and ...
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Decelerating a relativistic, beam-powered starship at its destination without pre-established power-beaming infrastructure at said destination
Some background
As most of us know, accelerating to relativistic speeds requires truly astronomical amounts of energy. I have internalized that a ship carrying enough energy/fuel to accelerate to near-...
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Permanent marker (sharpie) on an eyeball [closed]
I have a misguided character who will try anything to change their eye color. What are the likely outcomes of using a sharpie (permanent marker) for this?
Would the color stick at all? If so, how long ...
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How strong would the wind have to be to strip away flesh?
How fast would air have to move for the gas molecules to strip away at a person's body until nothing is left? I would prefer that actual formulas are used and that it takes less than a few seconds for ...
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Can a "stun gun" be reliably lethal?
A character I'm thinking of is about to have a close call. A woman attacks him with a stun gun by surprise, but by chance he is able to catch the weapon. Backup operatives move to assassinate him ...
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Chance of a breathable atmosphere of any given planet in our galaxy
It is a common trope of science fiction that a space ship or shuttle crashes on a nearby planet, and for the human occupants to step outside and comfortably breath the planet's atmosphere.
My question ...
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What impact would it have had if BFCs had been adopted instead of CFCs?
In the late 1920s, Thomas Midgley, Jr. improved the process of synthesis and led the effort to use chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, as refrigerants: to replace ammonia (NH3), chloromethane (CH3Cl), and ...
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Who on Land Will Survive The Inverse Great Dying?
Long ago, I asked a question on what would create an inverse Great Dying. Allow me to clarify on what I meant:
252 million years ago, the worst event in the history of life on Earth occurred. 70% of ...
- 14.5k
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4
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how would a semi-permanent colony orbiting Jupiter protect itself from radiation?
It seems like the Jupiter system is especially attractive in terms of natural resources, and while I assume the majority of any extraction labor will be performed by machines, I also figure there will ...
- 13.7k
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Synchronized Galactic Timekeeping [duplicate]
I have some ideas for how to synchronize a galactic time system given the constraints of modern physics. However, my understanding of relativity is pretty limited so I was hoping for feedback or ...
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How to Build the Fictional Continents Using Our Real Continents
Presented here is a map of Earth with the fictional continents resurfaced, by the Redditor "Stagman1111":
Source
From left to right, the presented additional continents are Mu, Atlantis and ...
- 14.5k
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What POD Would I Need For Earth's Lost Worlds to Exist Today?
This is a map of Earth as depicted by the DeviantArtist ToonHolt:
As you can see, many new landmasses have been added, from lost worlds like Sundaland, Zealandia and Kerguelen, to fictional worlds ...
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How long could a planet or moon survive if it had an Earth mass black hole within it?
How long could a planet or moon survive if it had an Earth mass black hole within it?
Hypothetical primordial black hole formed soon after the Big Bang, or low mass black holes formed later by some ...
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How could the blood be improved so that it can carry more oxygen?
I'm writing a story about scientifically plausible superhumans ( a new genetically enhanced human species that is mentally and physically superior to ordinary humans ), and one of their main features ...
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Metallic Hydrogen Propellant
The idea of potentially using Metallic Hydrogen as a replacement for smokeless powder in current day rifles as a propellant has often been thrown around. What these question don't ask is how well it ...
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Could Plasma be used by a monster to detect prey?
I have a monster in mind (based on something I saw in a dream) that is blind and deaf but finds prey by sensing faint electrical currents. It uses naturally generated plasma bursts to enhance ...
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How far could humanity spread through the universe?
Assume we developed a perfect rocket, say a ramjet using a very efficient matter to energy conversion drive, within a few centuries. How far could settlers get with such a technology? The local group? ...
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Heat shields made in space out of rocky source material - cheap way to get cargo to Earth?
Let's say there's an operation one day producing items from asteroid and lunar material in orbit, and they want to ship goods to Earth. They try making cheap heat shields by processing rock and ...
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Feasibility of super-fast airlock using Utility Fog
I've been trying to imagine a convenient future airlock for people on planets with little atmosphere (which is most of the bodies in the inner and outer solar system).
It feels like waiting 15-to-30 ...
- 18.7k
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2
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Insect-powered shoes
The Emperor (may he live for ever) feels that walking is too much trouble. He should be able to simply stand upright and his shoes take him where he wants them to. He also wants to impress his ...
- 49.3k