Questions tagged [ice]
For questions about ice (the solid form of dihydrogen monoxide) in its many forms.
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Alcubierre drive - related blueshifted radiation and radioactive poisoning
Transportation using the Alcubierre drive is associated with blueshifted radiation at the point of arrival. Let's imagine that we're dealing with non-FTL bubbles. How effective would be arrival ...
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Will a dragon jumping out of a frozen lake make all people standing on the ice fall into the lake?
To shorten the explanation, physics-wise I'm writing scene that is similar to the one you could see in Skyrim Dawnguard; a dragon jumps out of frozen lake shattering the ice. In the game he creates ...
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Can snow dunes form naturally?
Suppose I have a very big area as big as Gobi desert and it is windy all years round, but it is covered in snow instead of sand since Earth is experiencing another ice age right now. I am not sure if ...
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Could you freeze a nuclear explosion [closed]
The character who I'm talking about is faced with certain death and has to freeze a nuclear exposition that's coming right at him, would this work, and how would it. This character has ice-based ...
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Would a locomotive on ice (like in The Polar Express) move?
In the Polar Express film, there is a scene where the Polar Express runs off the tracks onto a frozen-over lake, which supports it and doesn't collapse even after the locomotive tilting and hitting ...
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What would be the potency of my dragon's breath?
It is very common to see dragons breathing fire in various works such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Hobbit and the House of the Dragon to come. I've created several posts here about fire dragons, ...
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Is ice armor better than nothing in medieval battle or is it just weighing you down?
"Speed is the essence of war" - Sun Tzu, MBA.
However, this war has dragged on for a long time and resources are getting scarce; new ice mages are issued a loin cloth while flame mages get ...
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Ice Dragon Breath
I was thinking about creating an ice dragon for my world, but I didn't want the dragon to be magical or technological but biologically correct, so I went looking for cryogenic substances and found ...
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How quickly will the oceans freeze if Earth becomes a rogue planet?
Assume Earth has been wrenched out of the Sun's orbit and has become a rogue planet (for the purposes of this question, assume that it happens near instantaneously, i.e. say the Sun just vanishes). ...
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Natural cryogenic substance
I'm researching a way a dragon could expel a substance that freezes things it comes in contact with. I've seen two posts here on the WBSE with this theme, but both said about the animal evolving to ...
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Does ice have to be on both poles?
If an Earth-like planet has ice, does the ice have to be on both poles? For example, could a planet have ice on its south pole but not on the north pole, year-round?
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What would happen if a huge solid ball (temperature zero kelvin) of helium appeared suddenly in a deep sea?
I'm writing a story about an icy alien culture which applies ultracold helium bombs that they can make appear at any place. The battle between good and evil translates in hot and cold. Though of ...
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Cooling Question: How can I integrate a low tech freezing system into my world?
I'm trying to design a culture that has access to cooling as a primary source of food preservation.
This culture is set in the desert. They will have access to a magical stone that has the ability to ...
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An Anvil made of never melting ice
Lets assume that the ice anvil is as resistant to physical blows much like a normal anvil and its never melting(will not explode as well). It will always maintain its negative temperature enough to ...
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What would the lakes of a planet with larger glaciers look like?
** This question is making the assumption that if a planet with a similar size and atmosphere of Earth is colder and has longer nights, it will have larger and more numerous glaciers. If this is not ...
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Making ice in the tropics
My characters live on a tropical island on another planet. Although civilized, by their standards, they have not been through an iron age or bronze age since the metals oxidize when exposed to their ...
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How do I naturally keep potable, fresh water from freezing?
My planet is always very cold (I don't have an exaxt number). So cold, that most fresh water would freeze. How do I keep this from happening? Humans can't bring it about, and humans also have to be ...
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What are the architectural/design/etc implications of earthquakes on a snowball planet?
Thick, kilometer-wide ice sheets cover the vast majority of this planet. Snow is comparatively limited, because there are limited places where anything actually melts and re-enters the water cycle. ...
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Freezing the water in blood
Ice magic lowers the temperature of things. I was thinking of freezing the water in blood (specifically blood plasma) to kill. How would this work? Also, can it be used on non-mammals, like sea ...
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Seeing air trapped under ice while underwater [closed]
A scene am writing takes place in Summer in the Artic. The character is swimming underwater, under the ice (imagine a small iceberg).
Above her a large bubble of air has formed. Never mind what formed ...
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What Would the Arctic Ice Caps Look Like in This Current Map?
This is a map of my alternate Earth with a focus on ocean currents, courtesy of Mikael Asikainen:
As you can see here, Greenland looks smooshed, but that is because it is arranged to the extent that ...
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Physics Question: Time needed to melt vast blocks of ice in the desert? [closed]
Please consider a physics question that I am asking here because I have no ability to calculate the answer myself.
Given a large cubical mass of water ice is deposited on a desert location on Earth,
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What would a medieval village in an arctic area look like?
The setting is a fictitious continent set in a medieval world (1200-1400 A.D.). It resembles the shape and size of Greenland. The land is covered with glaciers, ruled by months of darkness in the ...
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Temperature and oxygen levels 1 mile below Antarctica's surface [closed]
If people were able to travel to a cave 1 mile below the surface in Antarctica, how long would it take before they suffocated (both if there was a hole at the surface and if that hole were to become ...
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What would happen to a block of warm ice (made out of pure pressure) once the pressure is gone? [closed]
Imaginary situation where you could exert 10GPA worth of pressure on a floating cubic meter chunk of water. According to this graph, it'd turn into ice even if it's still around the room's temperature(...
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Possibility of a "hot Mars"
Premise/question
Correct me if I'm wrong, or if humans have terraformed the planet by the time you're reading this, but Mars is mostly desert-like. It has large ice caps which contain most of its ...
user75058
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Floating Ice Homes
On an Earth fully covered in water, are floating homes made of ice a practical idea (in arctic latitudes). Ignoring how these houses could be made, would the ice provide enough bouyancy to keep the "...
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Ice Construct Weapons
The Ice Mages of a world I'm crafting can create constructs made from ice. Now, a master Ice Mage might be able to do fun things with his construct like project them in showers of ice shards, but ...
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How to safely construct deep underground harbors on a Snowball Earth?
A radical shift in the Earth's orbit has made the Earth much colder, with all the oceans freezing over, and the atmosphere liquifying and falling as rain. Humans live deep underground in areas of high ...
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Requirements for melting snow from orbit using EM radiation
My (your) goal is to melt several tons of snow and ice in a small area using electromagnetic radiation beamed down from a spacecraft in orbit. The atmosphere that's in the way is vaguely Earth-like ...
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Would an underground civilization be feasible on a frozen, sunless Earth? [closed]
If our Sun was teleported away by aliens, would it be possible for people to survive? I'm assuming that humans had prior warning of this ice age (the aliens warned us first) and could drill ...
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Can ice magic freeze blood?
In my story, one of my main characters has ice powers. She can turn water into ice, she can conjure ice (sucking moisture out of air and freezing it). She can also drop someone's body temperature, as ...
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Ice Dome Greenhouse
I have an icy planet with temperatures that average about -100 degrees Fahrenheit (-73,3 °C). The planet also has thousands if not millions of domes scattered across its completely icy surface heated ...
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Could the Missouri River be running while Lake Michigan was frozen several meters deep?
During an ice age, would it be possible for a great lake to be frozen while a relatively nearby river was still running? To help illustrate my point:
Would it be possible for Lake Michigan (or parts ...
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Living ice magic - what can I do with it?
I, the Grand Sorcerer Alazam of the Guild of Arcanists, have invented a remarkable new spell! Using unique magical artifacts, I can create what I call 'living ice' - chunks of ice that grow and ...
user64987
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Would it be possible for someone with ice powers to stop or "freeze" a wound to their heart?
I have characters with ice powers. I was planning that they could freeze an injury and prevent it from progressing. An arrow is shot at their heart, but I could possibly change the location to make ...
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Snow on a low-gravity, high-pressure world
Disclaimer: I am not a meteorologist.
Snow forms when supercooled water droplets nucleate onto particles in the atmosphere. After forming, they grow further by both tumbling around within the cloud ...
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Would glacier 'trees' be plausible?
The setting is in a region of a planet comparable to Earth's California in regards to location. The soil is extremely rich in nutrients and subsurface water. But for the past three million years the ...
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Is it possible to ice skate on an ice moon/world?
If you found out a way to produce a smooth icy surface on an ice moon like Ganymede, Enceladus, or Callisto, what kind of challenges would someone face if they tried to start ice skating? I figured ...
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What could trigger powerful quakes on icy world?
Imagine a planet orbiting a star some billions of lightyears away from us, the planet is 4 times the mass of Earth and is covered with ice 100km thick on average. It is believed that liquid ocean ...
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How to make ice magic work from a scientific point of view?
I've recently been imagining a world of magic with heavy influence from chinese wuxia and xianxia. In such worlds, there's often various fire and ice magic, among other different types. Now, fire ...
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What color should the snow be in this chlorine world?
This question is in the same context (the same world) proposed by Steven L. Gillett in his book: "World-building".
And actually there have been some other questions about this same chlorinated world. ...
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How can I turn ice into gold?
I have my eyes on this new Porsche but all I have is an unlimited supply of ice and a molecular distillery. How can I convert this ice into gold?
The molecular distillery can disassemble and ...
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Building my Flat Earth, how to make my Ice walls last for eternity [closed]
In a world where
Earth does NOT have gravity (Gravity does not exist).
Our oceans are created by Ice walls.
Ice walls? How can they exist so long?
In the Flat Earth model, the Ice walls are situated ...
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How to ensure the safety of a surface base on Europa?
If I have a research & mining outpost established on the surface of Europa, in which there is a small complex of buildings, how do I claim to have them protected from potential breaks in the ice (...
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A snow sea: How to make water snow light/smooth enough to obtain fluid properties under 1 gravity
A roughly earth-size planet orbits a cool G-class star, but barely within its circumstellar habitable zone ("Goldilocks zone") allowing liquid water. It has a shallow inclination and and lackluster ...
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How Can I Build Ice On an Iceberg With Primitive Tech?
Let's say a group of people live on icebergs. They want to shape them - e.g., let's say they want to add a pier to their iceberg, how do they "grow" the ice.
Prefer a primitive answer, but if there ...
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Wheel-based vehicle vs Ground-gliders
In a mostly snowy world (snow deserts, snow jungles, etc) with a few underground cities built with magitek, most popular vehicles are rovers/gliders (think speeder bike from Star Wars). Would there be ...
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Getting through the ice, to the ocean of Europa [closed]
Trying to figure out the practicalities of drilling through the ice on Europa's surface, to drop a sub into the water beneath.
From what I understand the three most viable methods would be
Wait for ...
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Value of ice during the Renaissance
This is set during the Renaissance, a mostly normal European setting.
Magic works through controlling the flux of energy. A mage can't simply create energy, but he can store and change it.
Most ...
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