Questions tagged [physics]
For questions regarding the physics relevant to fictitious worlds. General physics may be off-topic.
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How do I calculate air pressure at various altitudes within a planet-sized pressurized container?
I'm building a world consisting of floating landmasses located entirely within an indestructible rectangular prism that is 10,000km wide, 10,000km long, and 4,000km tall. If I want air pressures to be ...
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Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?
So I wish to make a sci fi setting that uses gravity manipulation tech and inertial dampeners.
I have a number of ideas for how such a system works, and about how it should go. At the moment I'm ...
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About quantum quark computer [closed]
About quantum quark computer
Hi, can u give me any literature about QQC? I can find only one source (and it on russian)...
These are the main things I want to ask about:
How do quarks interact ...
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How feasible would it be if cockroaches no bigger than an inch (2.5 centimetres) took fall damage from around 6-7 feet in the air or less?
Ok, so I have an unfinished/W.I.P world (may turn it into story) about a sapient civilization of cockroaches called Roachins that are pretty much German Cockroachs, but most/many can fly and can stand ...
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How would about a dozen 50 ft to 1,400 ft (approx. 15 m to 430 m) giants wandering around a continent affect seismic activity?
8 of the giants would be around 50-100 ft (15-30 m) and only one would be 1,400 ft (430 m), the other three would be about 500-800 ft (152-243 m). Let's say that they are somehow remarkably light for ...
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How fast can a cylinder spin, with a human on its inner wall, to NOT experience motion sickness?
Context
I'm working on an interstellar Ark made of a few (probably 3 to be more specific) layers of cylinders (modified O'Neil's concept), while trying to get the station to be as compact as possible. ...
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Why would a sublight Alcubierre drive be more useful for braking than for propulsion?
To get to the point, ships in the setting I'm working on still use a conventional, albeit very advanced, form of rocket propulsion.
However interstellar ships also use a sublight Alcubierre drive ...
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Urban Planning on a Tidally Locked World
I'm in the early stages of a project involving a habitable tidally locked world, this one a fairly Earth-like (large ocean) around a K-class orange dwarf. And using this study for reference, where the ...
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What if you could shut off the pull of gravity on your body?
I have an idea for a magic system where the one wielding magical power can shut off gravity for their body. However, anything on them (clothes, accessories, etc.) will still experience regular gravity....
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How can an object pass through a building without taking significant damage?
A kaiju swinging its arm through a building, a superhero that, locked in battle with a villain, flies through several buildings, a huge mecha that uses its ax on a skyscraper, like a lumberjack would ...
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What dictates whether an orbit gets disrupted or stabilised due to an orbital resonance?
Context:
I've got an asteroid belt analogue situated between a Gas giant and a Super-earth. I knew about resonances, so I started calculating them and placing some of them in the belt, especially ones ...
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Can someone tell me what a world with a radius 1.2 times that of earth’s would be like? [closed]
I want to make a world larger than earth for a story I want to write. Please can someone tell me about the different characteristics a world with a 20% larger radius would have:
How much gravity it ...
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What is the difference in speed between my two moons?
The planet in my current project is orbited by two moons, which like Mars' are relatively small and irregularly shaped. The largest moon orbits closer to the planet and the smaller one orbits farther ...
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Jupiter's moon Europa - is it possible to colonize Europa? [closed]
So basically, I have to write a thesis paper because I'm in the last year of high school. It is an independent research project and the culminating work of my studies in school, so it represents my ...
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What would happen if everything in a radius stopped exhibiting quantum properties and acted like if it was constantly being observed? [closed]
Okay here's the lore. In my universe Dark matter is in reality an entity that exists in a higher dimension constantly observing everything that passes through itself. This means that whatever object ...
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Boss attacks for a purple worm [closed]
I am making a boss fight themed quest in Dungeons and Dragons, and I am having trouble coming up with "Boss Attacks" that would be physically possible as well as add diversity to the purple ...
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How could a resistance movement sabotage a hyperloop?
In my setting, a futuristic North America, the hyperloop is a newfangled mode of long-distance transportation. Basically it's a vacuum tube at low friction and air resistance, which allows pods to ...
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Can you build a sand igloo with a steam powered device?
I am thinking I can build an igloo of sand by heating it to a glass-like temperature where I could mould it into an igloo. It would then solidify when cooling off. Could steam do this if put under ...
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Question on gravity and its relation to weight and force
I'm working on a character for a story that has the ability to somewhat play around with gravitational forces, mainly weight reduction stuff but I'm sure there's other applications. Practically this ...
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Space with a breathable "atmosphere" - How to make it kind-of believable?
The idea in its simplest form is that a stellar system of planets is within a transparent gas cloud that includes oxygen. The gas cloud is so incredibly dense (around sea level earth pressure) that ...
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How big of an explosion can you make with a fusion reactor?
The Story
This is one of three questions set in the exact same place, so bear with me here. Twenty years after the fall of the State and the Overseers, about thirty since the phase-gate to Ilus was ...
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Methods to move supermassive black holes?
There is an advanced civilization that need to move the supermassive blackholes (SMBH) of their galaxies.
I have seen some similar questions on here but the ones I have read are for moving much ...
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How would a sea of ferrofluid behave? [closed]
Terrestrial world pretty much entirely covered in liquid, magnetic metal. Thin atmosphere and a relatively weak field of gravity, not quite the moon but less than earth for sure. Otherwise, how it ...
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Could life exist on a planet orbiting a T class brown dwarf?
Note: Please try not to overcomplicate it for me. I might sound mature, but I'm actually a minor and as much as I like complex wording, I want it to be understandable.
Hey! Basically, I'm drafting up ...
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Suspending An Object in Time [closed]
I am curious about the real world physics of an object suspended in time for a short time. In video games like Legend of Zelda there is an ability the player can use which freezes an object in time. ...
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Heated Adamantine "Bricks" as a Fuel Source
I was pondering a situation where adamantine could be harvested from deep underground, amongst lavaflows, to work as a fuel source.
Facts:
The Adamantine has been heated for millennia at thousands of ...
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Can we make a wormhole inside another wormhole? [closed]
The Setting
Let's make an imaginary machine powered by the sheer will of argument. Let's call it a cosmic anti-mass sowing machine, cause why the heck not. (If you can't tell, I don't expect this to ...
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If the laws of conservation of energy remain the same, can I change everything else? [closed]
This universe is boooring.
I don't care that today's science is basically magic, and being a programmer is the equivalent of a fantasy ''rune shaman''.
I want actual magic, the type of magic people ...
user100394
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How would we make antimatter in industrial quantities?
The Setting
Let's say, for the sake of argument, we have a dyson swarm. This very small torus of swarm mirrors collects over 20 exawatts of power in photons. Most of this power is lost, leaving only ...
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Can an n-dimensional being hurt an (n+x)-dimensional being?
Can a N dimensional being physically interact with a N+X dimensional being "sliding" a part of itself in said N dimensional world?
Giving it some thought I came up with three options:
Yes, ...
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Effects on gravity on close binary planets
Let's say there's 2 planets orbit eachother as close as possible so they're oval shaped but not close enough to reach the roche's limit and be pulled apart. How would gravity be affected on the ...
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In a world where gravity pass from 1 G to 5 G in a cycle of 365 days, can planes fly all the time?
I am writing a book and I have this cenario. There is a planet where gravity pass from 1 G to 5 G in a cycle of 365 days. I know that humans can survive till 3-5G, but what about airplanes capability ...
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Moving a black hole
What (if any) would be a viable option for moving a black hole with a similar mass to our moon? The black hole is not very far away (i.e disregard difficulties in reaching it). Ideally, there should ...
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Would a rotating habitat work on the surface of a moon?
While we hear a lot about rotating habitats as a space structure, I happen to know there are a large number of small worlds and moons out there cursed with low gravity, which has a similar effect to ...
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Does a planet's Core Mass Fraction affect its gravity?
Recently, I've been using a site called "The WorldSmith 3.03" in order to calculate some of my planet's physical characteristics:
Now, when it comes to the planet's gravity there is ...
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is it possible for a binary planet system to have long term moons orbiting only one of the planets?
What I'm thinking of is a binary planet system each with rings, 2 moons orbiting the larger one and one moon orbiting the smaller one.
The mass of the larger planet is 5 Earth masses, while the ...
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How much energy would a collapsing wormhole release?
In my fictional universe, after experimentation with quantum field manipulation, a way to open, expand and stabilize wormholes is developed, requiring an immense flux of energy (as manipulating ...
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Can I warm up outer space?
My universe was created without stars, of any kind (which includes the sun!), and has continued that way for about 2000 years. To clarify, all life (intelligent life) was created by the deities around ...
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Maximum speed of a slug-like animal
I am designing an alien life form adapted to an Earth-like world, descended from cuttlefish-like ancestors. It has adapted its undulating head-fin as a rippling “foot”, similar to a slug or other ...
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Would a living being moving at 99% the speed of light see time stop, or would it see time move faster?
Let's say I want to write about a living thing that can naturally go to 99% the speed of light in just one second of acceleration.
I would like to write what this being would experience at such speed ...
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Sci fi setting: Are smaller and faster bullets automatically better?
I’m building a world where two civilizations are meeting, and both have fairly different design philosophies with weapons and armor, and the easiest way to sum it up is think Mass Effect without the ...
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What would my Sun look like to fit the properties of my Earth? - Part 2
Continuing on a previous post of mine (link: What would my Sun look like to fit the properties of my Earth?) where I wanted my planet to orbit around its Sun in 365 (Earth-)years. However this did not ...
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What kind of arrow would knock someone over?
Tods Workshop on youtube did a video showing that real arrows would not knock someone off their feet.
Imagine a knight in armor is charging on foot at an archer. He wears a breastplate sufficient to ...
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What would happen to enormous indestructible ruins after 400 million years? [closed]
Suppose you had ruins (and I use the term lightly) that could survive nearly any disaster and any erosion. How likely are they to be buried, subsumed into the mantle, or end up at the bottom of the ...
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How to reinvent measurement units? [duplicate]
Imagine you're in deserted island. You will eventually need to know how much there is of something or how long is some thing.
Is there a way to get all main measurement units (kg, m, °C, m3, etc.) ...
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Using the image in the description, how can I calculate the measurements of the robot?
For reference, I’ve decided that the blue sphere in the image is Earth and the robot is hovering at 375 miles above sea level. From there, what steps would I need to follow to calculate the robot’s ...
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Speaker-Powered Directed Blast Weapon
So, in order to defeat a bulletproof enemy that has genetically engineered osteodermic plates like a rhino all over his body that can stop very powerful rounds, the protagonist put her brains to work ...
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Can I Have a Semi-Liquid "Sea" of Sand?
I am thinking of adding an element to my world that is primarily desert that consists of a semi liquid sea of possibly high silica sand that's inundated with salt water. Would such a mixture have the ...
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Red mist: what could create such a phenomenon?
In my science fiction story,there is a phenomenon happening on the moon that looks like a red mist (or nebula, if you will). This mist can slowly move around, because it is controlled by an advanced ...
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What is the best engine type for linear acceleration?
Linear Acceleration: A form of transit in space flight where a spacecraft points toward a destination and accelerates for half of the distance it needs to travel, then decelerates for the other half, ...
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