Questions tagged [mathematics]
For questions about mathematics, including our own system of mathematics and alien versions of mathematics, focusing on their effects on societies and civilizations.
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Alien number systems - Is the decimal system special?
Is there anything about the decimal number system that conveys any advantages over any other number system?
So is it any more likely that some other alien race would use base-10 numbers in everyday ...
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Famous conjecture or unsolved problem that could be plausibly proven/solved by freshman mathematician?
Is there any conjecture or famous unsolved problem, that doesn't require much prerequisite knowledge and could be plausibly proven / solved by freshman?
My hero is average freshman in mathematics, ...
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Could an underground civilisation deduce the size and shape of their planet?
Not sure if this still falls under worldbuilding. Let's assume a civilization living with the following restrictions:
No access to the surface or ability to observe it (no sky, no atmospheric samples ...
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Encryption in the 19th century
Heinrich is a scientist and a scholar, one of the greatest minds of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire around 1880. He studied mathematics, physics and engineering. He patented a few of his ideas and ...
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Is there any math conjecture that would cause a lot of damage if disproven?
As a plot device I need some kind of conjecture that is used in lot proofs and widely assumed true. Something like many papers in computer science start with "Assuming P != NP ...".
In my story for ...
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Would you notice, visually, if the planet you were on was vastly larger than Earth?
By that I mean, if you are travelling about on a continent on a planet with a circumference similar to the Sun, how much further would you be able to see, and would it be noticeable, without more ...
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Are there any mathematics that could only be learned by very few people?
I'm worldbuilding a situation where new drug increases IQ when given to preschool children. Unfortunately only 1% of the recipients get the benefits, the rest risk their development being stunted. As ...
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Is mathematics a truly universal language?
The quote has many forms, but is basically "mathematics is a universal language." My question is if this is true? If we met aliens could we use mathematics to talk to them?
The fact that we could ...
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How far back in time would Maths be understandable to a modern mathematician?
Shamelessly inspired by this question (sorry), but I got this question after Michael gave a answer - my mathematician would essentially have to relearn maths, as mathematics in Ancient Greece is ...
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Recognizable natural numbers for alien message?
It’s rather cliché that an alien message would use a value like π (actually I expect it to be 2π because Earthlings are weird), but in my story the message which contains the bootstrap information for ...
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Why would my Dwarves decide that the Platonic solids are divine?
My Idea
I’ve decided that my Dwarves are the foremost experts on matters mathematical and geometrical. Further, they believe that numbers are the key to unlocking the “secrets of the gods.” One idea I ...
user53529
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A World Without Mathematics
What significant technologies would be lost in a world without "Advanced" Mathematics? Specifically, what technologies required to get to the next level of scientific progress in an area would be lost....
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Search for something difficult to count/estimate
In one of the stories I'm designing, in Middle Age time, the main character, Mr. P, is a good mathematician serving the King and other lords in different works (army numbers and suppliers counts, ...
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How advanced can a civilization get without zero?
More or less exactly what it says on the tin. Start with a group of cavemen on prehistoric earth, discovering fire, language, wheels, etc, and walk them along the path to civilization, but with one ...
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Aliens doing algebra
Suppose we have an intelligent alien who has landed on Earth and has somehow found his way into a human high school math class (for the sake of scenic stability, the alien has the ability to cloak ...
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Universe where mathematics is different
There are many ways to conceive of a universe where physical constants are different to our own; however, what would the universe be like if mathematics itself were different?
For instance, what ...
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In the magic==math trope, how do "they" know when we're doing spells?
Take Charles Stross’s Laundry stories as an exemplar for this modern day approach that makes explicit the analogy between computer geeks and fantasy mages. If P = NP then magic is possible. Here’s a ...
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Tactical illusion combat countermeasures (password system)
I'm directing a small team of highly skilled, intelligent operatives to raid a top secret research facility. Unfortunately, our reconnaissance has revealed that not only is this secure facility ...
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What kind of mathematical disciplines would be most useful for physics?
I'm worldbuilding a story, where a famous string theorist hires a student of mathematics to try construct a new theory. For better drama, my premise of the story is that the student never learned more ...
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How can sapient beings engineer transportation and building when they can only count 0, 1 and many?
Imagine a species of humanoid beings living on an Earth-like planet somewhere in the universe; they have developed complex spoken and written languages and they can study their own anatomy and the ...
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A game to outplay Death? [closed]
Sometimes, when someone dies with things left undone, Death will be willing to play a game for the opportunity to come back to life.
However, there are several reasons why you'd expect not to be able ...
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How would a torus world (donut shaped) have to rotate in order to have a stable day / night cycle in all of its regions?
In this universe, mass and gravity work differently so stable torus planets are possible (donut shaped).
How would a torus world orbiting a single star have to rotate in order to have a stable day ...
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How much volume does a liquefied human take?
A group of aliens are off to save the human race from extinction caused by a Lovecraftian monstrosity.
In order to accomplish this feat, they go to Earth in order to harvest as many humans as ...
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Gregorian Calendar and dates before its implementation - how to correctly place an event before 1582? [closed]
For dialogues occurring in the story the characters would use their respective culture/civilization calendar, but for the one writing the story a way to use a familiar calendar to place an event is ...
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Should I use base-10 or base-12 numbers in my story? [closed]
My aliens have 2 thumbs for a stronger grip and the 2 thumbs are on opposite sides of the hand. However since there are 6 fingers total per hand and 2 hands my aliens naturally use base 12.
+1 for ...
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Encountering the Accountants : Spreading Numeracy in the Neolithic World
The BBC in the UK are currently screening a archaeology series exploring the idea that the Neolithic peoples in the Orkney Isles (North of Scotland) were the cultural capital of the British Isles. ...
user10945
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Feasibility of cylindrical rasterization? (Alien GPUs)
Background / Rationale
Many fictional worlds feature sapient herbivores, but rarely spend much time considering how their tools and technology would differ. In the course of writing my story, however, ...
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How might a Professor of Mathematics Change History?
A professor of mathematics is sent back in time to a post-Neolithic farming village. They accept him as their wise man, and he spends 30 years teaching them all he knows about mathematics until he ...
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If we had four digits on each hand
I once heard someone claim that if we had four digits on each hand our mathematics would be well in advance of what it is.
Presumably this is because 4 is a power of 2 and those clever computers ...
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A mathematical problem that no computer can solve, but a human can
I am aware this is in the gray area of “story question or world question” but I think it is at least mainly world based.
So in this reality set in the far future, somehow a certain math problem has ...
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Would beings with a base 8 number system be advantaged for electronics?
I am looking forward to create anthropomorphic dragons/lizards with 8 fingers (3 + thumb). As they base their number system on it, the powers of 2 are recurrent.
Would this grant any advantage for the ...
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Adopt a new numeral system
I am creating a fictional off-solar system colony. In this colony people started to use a duodecimal positional number system. The people were all cultured in science and practical with numbers. They ...
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Procedurally generating a galaxy's worth of names
Background
I am investigating the practical utility and limitations of a procedural-generation-based naming scheme for stars and other notable or significant interstellar structures (e.g. nebulae, ...
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Airship Aircraft Carrier Dimensions
I'm currently writing a military science fiction story set in a post cyberpunk world I've been building. The story focuses on a tank crew, but it also prominently features an enormous airship that ...
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How would a mathematician compare to a scholar in Ancient Greece?
Somewhat based on this question, let's say a normal person from our world for some reason goes back into time - to the Hellenic Greece around 490 BC and somehow manages to become a philosopher. My ...
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Problem for advanced mathematics?
I have a world where remnants of advanced ancient humans (tv tropes link) live among us, but we are not aware of them.
Is there some problem that people with mathematics more advanced then ours would ...
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Velocity Difference From Teleportation
In Steven Gould's Jumper series, the main character has the ability to teleport, and he eventually realizes he automatically does frame matching when doing so - no matter where on earth his origin and ...
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Mathematics of monsters
Researching for a science fiction novel. My character loves math + I have dyscalculia = Problem. Therefore, I need your help.
In my story, there are aliens we can see, but we can't hear or touch. ...
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Using transfinite numbers in a scifi story
I have been bandying about some exotic mathematics ideas as the basis for a hard scifi setting, and I wonder what technology/alien life would "make sense," here, given the physics arising ...
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How fast could earth orbit the sun without its orbit changing?
It takes the Earth about 365.25 days to orbit the Sun on its current elliptical path. That means it moves about 30 km/s, 2×π×(149,600,000 km)/(1 year).
So, given that, how high could Earth's ...
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How can Empire A convince Empire B that it has a planet-destroying weapon without helping Empire B to recreate it?
By almost pure luck the wizards/scientists of Empire A made a gigantic breakthrough that allowed them to create a weapon able to destroy the world, i.e. the one and the only planet on which Empire A ...
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How much would a 3" human male weigh?
In my world, which has an Earth-like gravity and environment, an adult, fit humanoid male is 3 inches tall. When I do a simple ratio calculation, I come up with him weighing 7.9 pounds. Basically, the ...
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Bidimensional thinking
Is there a way of more advanced minds start to count with complex integers, instead of naturals?
This way such a society would never think of $2$ as prime since $2=(1+i)(1-i)$.
Notice that more ...
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How long would a grey goo scenario take to finish coating an earth sized planet?
Okay, so the idea is that humans have found a method to terraform planets by way of an intentionally engineered grey goo scenario. The bots would be used to photosynthesize a sustainable atmosphere by ...
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Effects of a supermassive ship colliding with a planet
The basis of my story revolves around a single survivor escaping a massive colony ship gone critical above the skies of an alien world. After his escape via escape pod, the ship crashes halfway across ...
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What would produce tetration in physics?
In a parallel universe much of the physics equation have tetration in them. There are things such as tetrational growth as well as tetrational decay. $x^x$ and $x^{x^x}$ are also found in some ...
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At what scale would negative curvature be noticeable (and a nuisance to the flat space society)?
After playing some HyperRogue, I got interested in the use of hyperbolic geometry in WorldBuilding, in particular how an area grows exponentially with respect to its radius.
Let's say that the ...
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Estimating thrust and kg fuel for a generation ship's journey to Alpha Centauri
Premise: A generation spaceship leaves Earth around the year 2060 on a journey to colonize Alpha Centauri A (ACA). In this fiction, fusion power is achieved in 2040, improved over 20 years, and used ...
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Other universes in a broad sense [closed]
When speaking about other universes people usually consider altered physical laws, while leaving logic and other basic things unchanged.
What if to consider other universes based not on different ...
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How to facilitate inter-species communication with math?
Mathematics is considered to be the language of the universe since it is the most fundamental type of logic (in physics anyway) and therefore the best way of expressing the universe (which is a ...
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