Questions tagged [science-based]
For questions that require plausible (better than suspension-of-disbelief) answers based on Real World science that are not necessarily constrained to the known limits of Real World science. Contrast with the hard-science, science-fiction and internal-consistency tags. This tag may not be used alone. This tag may not be used with the science-fiction, hard-science, or internal-consistency tags.
8,914
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Stopping Milkdromeda, for Aesthetic Reasons
Basically, there is a human civilization controlling the milky-way and an alien civilization controlling Andromeda. They are communicating and have decided, for some reason, that, though the ...
- 2,068
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0
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How to use and abuse a transformable metal [closed]
My dm has given my character a metal that can:
"Be as flexible as linen or more rigid than tungsten. Properties that can be adjusted: tensile strength, torque strength, rigidity, density."
...
24
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16
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How could a sapient species lose its intelligence?
A relatively common idea in Sci-Fi and especially speculative evolution is the idea of humans or some other intelligent species ending up losing their sapience(often done for the sake of horror).
...
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Maximum acceleration of minimally modified humans in acceleration fluid
I've been looking into viable accelerations for minimally modified humans in an acceleration-gel-type chamber. Minimally modified means no permanent or significant changes to the human body. Examples ...
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Would it be possible to create a technology that allows telekinesis? [closed]
im writing a story with the purpose of trying to stay within the bounds of realism (in a way), and telekinesis is one of my issues...
Basically, I am trying to figure out if there is any way possible ...
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5
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466
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How do I explain volcanos and plate tectonics on a hollow world?
The world my setting takes place on is an artificial shell world set into the FAR future (somewhere between several hundred million and nearly a billion years) after a cataclysmic event wiped out it's ...
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4
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How could a person make a concoction smooth enough to drink and inject without access to a blender? Is it possible?
I have this story where this dude turns himself into a mutant by saturating himself(drinking, cooking with, bathing in, inhaling, and injecting it) in this stuff he made with energy drinks, protein ...
- 1,421
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2
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144
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Environmental triggers for evolving broader visible spectrum
Taking some inspiration from the finding that a small proportion is able to perceive significantly more colors than the rest of the population, I would like to explore to what degree similar traits ...
- 8,779
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1
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Must a planet's magnetic poles be coaxial with the axis of rotation?
I have this idea for a planet whose magnetic field is not aligned with the axis of rotation as is the case for Earth (I know they're not exactly aligned, but hear me out). How plausible is this, and ...
- 439
3
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2
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149
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Habitable zone of this red giant
I have a Red Giant star of about ~4.15 solar masses (a number I generated from what I found to be the average size of red giants).
My question for right now would be "What would be the habitable ...
- 33
4
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2
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225
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Realistic desert size?
I have figured out a fair bit of processes for my fictional world but am having trouble trying to decide if this desert is a realistic size.
I have highlighted the area in yellow and a rainforest in ...
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12
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What is the longest bridge that a Bronze Age society could build across a bottomless chasm?
My world is in the mid-Bronze Age, very loosely based on ancient Mesopotamia. Metal is scarce and generally of poor quality, and the only iron available is meteoric in origin. Gold is relatively ...
- 965
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1
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122
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Underwater Seasonal Ice?
I'm attempting to create a planet that's 90% covered in water (as in 10% of the land is above the surface, not mass or volume). However, I want some large-scale event to occur every year or so that ...
- 33
6
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2
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Effects of thermokinetic cooling on a person
I have a villain whose superpower is allowing energy flow/interaction between distant objects - in particular, what matters right now is that he can put two objects (or areas) in direct thermal ...
- 63
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3
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How could a shapeshifter change forms realistically and what limitations should there be?
I have a shapeshifter character whose power-set is relatively grounded. They can only change into other human forms. They can basically impersonate anyone they want, so they use their powers primarily ...
- 151
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3
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Can migration be planted into an animal's instincts by humans
So animals will migrate for many different reasons and I wondered if humans could take a species (example:rabbits) that doesn't migrate, and somehow make it develop a yearly migration pattern without ...
- 309
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How does one accurately deduce scale from any given fantasy map (to the best one can)?
Sometimes, a person might wish to know the touch scale of a map, whether made by another person or you, in order to better understand the world a story is taking place. How might one go about deducing ...
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16
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Can too much data cause brain failure?
A brain is sort of like a computer. It stores information, has multiple processes, and can compute and calculate. I have learned in computer science intro about a program that used to be popular for ...
user103910
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6
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Can You Make A Tiny Nuclear Reactor By Employing Supercritical Conditions For Brief Periods Of Time?
The idea is that you would have pieces of plutonium or U233 close enough that if left to their own devices they should go supercritical in a fraction of a second. However, in between the pieces you ...
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5
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What would happen to earth if atmospheric escape were completely stopped?
One day, the earth suddenly gets covered by a spherical barrier that allows waves (light from the sun, radio, etc.) to pass both ways, but not matter. Let's ignore the feasibility of that kind of ...
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3
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Would a habitable moon orbiting a Gas Giant experience a runaway cooling effect? (on the side that faces the giant)
Assuming the Moon in question is tidally locked to its parent, then on the facing-side of the moon a significant portion of the day time would be spent in eclipse behind the gas giant, essentially ...
- 1,110
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2
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Appearance of sky in space habitat with low (50 m) ceiling, using mirrors and blinders
Background
I have considered rotating space habitats of various forms for my worldbuilding projects (i.e. cylinders, rings/torii, spheres) and recently discovered this intriguing design by physicist ...
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2
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How could the ability to produce a negative electric charge without a corresponding positive charge be used to power a basic portable circuit?
Relevant Information
My magic system consists of a fluid (called aura) emitted from the body whose position can be telekinetically controlled (manipulation), whose physical properties can be altered (...
- 1,842
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1
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What stellar temperature, orbital distance, and eccentricity is needed to create an Earthlike orbital planet with a last glacial maximum climate?
I am creating an Earthlike planet with a year length of 515 Earth days and 9 Earth hours. I am aware that Kepler's third law of planetary motion states that warmer stars are needed for longer orbital ...
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2
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What would happen if we expanded the Arctic ice cap?
Having found a setting for my story, I am thinking of a country which encompasses a giant New Zealand, basically a partially surfaced Zealandia, and having studied a little science, I have noticed ...
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4
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How would vision be affected by eyesockets placed diagonally from each other?
Some owls have ears placed with one higher, and the other lower. If an (otherwise normal) human were to have that sort of thing, only with their eyes sockets (and by extent, eyeballs). For the sake of ...
4
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4
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How Effectively Could You Use Magical Darkness As A Compact Heatsink?
In this setting materials science is decades ahead, so answers should be limited by technology that isn't too speculative and don't presume anything supernatural beyond what I describe in this ...
- 2,398
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1
answer
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How would one navigate and explore a planet with a non-euclidian surface using current technology?
On this planet space is non-euclidian in an non-uniform way. This means that two random points (A and B) on this planet could have the following properties (exact numbers are arbitrary):
One could ...
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2
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Could You Use Artificial Volcanoes To Create Buildings?
For the purposes of this question the builders are incredibly wealthy, have access to cheap nukes to use for excavation, and everyone in this world is immune to radiation.
The technology is decades ...
- 2,398
3
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3
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287
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Feasibility of Tiny Nuclear Engines
In this setting nuclear material is incredibly cheap, while all hydrocarbons need to be synthesized from scratch. Additionally people have shadow magic which allows them to both easily shield against ...
- 2,398
4
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2
answers
340
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How limited would computers be if silicon transistors were never invented?
In a world where silicon transistors were never invented, how many limitations would be incurred if we had to continue to use germanium transistors? In this world, silicon transistors were never ...
- 3,832
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votes
1
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Ideal location for settlement on Bishop Ring Space habitat
let's take a Bishop Ring, with a diameter of approximately 1800km, 460km wide and with retention walls 150 km tall. At the centre of the ring there is an artificial sun that recreates a day/night ...
- 113
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2
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Ways to harvest hydrogen (apart from sun and giant planets)
Various posts and articles discuss the possibility to harvest hydrogen (but also Helium etc...) from the Sun or the giant planets, Uranus appearing the be the most favourable for this operation.
Is ...
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Reasonable Relative Value in Domestication of Kelenken Terror Birds?
I'm working on a pretty detailed alternate history of the ancient America's, and currently I'm focusing upon Mesoamerica in particular. The core difference is that, through several different ...
- 1,846
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4
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What geographic features could cause a stable pocket of unmoving air?
As title. What geographic features could cause a stable pocket of unmoving air?
I'm envisioning some kind of shrine, sacred place, or untouched grotto, which due to terrain features or certain aspects ...
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2
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Space Elevator for Ganymede
My settlement on Jupiter's moon Ganymede is to get a space elevator. Unfortunately, I am completely overwhelmed with the math: How long would the cable have to be to the stationary anchor point in ...
- 265
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2
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What's the optimal weight of a bladed weapon? [closed]
In my magic system, people are capable of forming weapons out of their aura. The density of aura is naturally around 0.1g/cm3, but can be compressed down to 0.5g/cm. This means that aura can at most ...
- 1,842
1
vote
2
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How might a race of humanoids with haplodiploid sex determination reproduce artificially? [closed]
I'd like to have unique fantasy type 'races' in a world which appears as a typical fantasy world, but is in fact set far in the future after an apocalyptic event.
I'd like one of these races to be '...
1
vote
3
answers
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How early can some kind of nuclear reactor resonably be invented or stumbled upon?
The physics of this world work practically the same as our own. All these nuclear reactors need to do is make a somewhat usable amount of heat for power generation, possibly ship use. They have to be ...
- 3,832
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1
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Feasability of an OGAS/Cybersyn-style Socialist Internet In An Alternate 1930s
OGAS and Project Cybersyn were both plans in socialist countries for an internet-style system that would be used to coordinate central planning. In this alternate timeline, World War 1 has never ...
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9
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Could some sort of genetic engineering allow for "renewable" immortality?
Is there a way that a sort of immortality could be achieved through genetic engineering or some other type of biological/medical technique? Not necessarily permanent immortality until the heat death ...
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votes
1
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How would Mathematics and Sciences had developed in a strongly non-Euclidean universe? [closed]
The geometry of our universe is, on human scale, Euclidean. This means that our everyday experience gives us a good understanding of $\mathbb{R}^2$ and $\mathbb{R}^3$, which in turn is of great help ...
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3
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What are most hydrogen-dense materials that a pre-electric civilization could produce? [closed]
Context
My world has an 'unobtanium' strategic resource that is an alternate form of hydrogen. When atoms of this hydrogen is embedded in a rotor, they generate a field force that pushes against the ...
5
votes
1
answer
124
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Appearance of double planets with tilted orbit
Consider a pair of double planets. They are roughly the same size and also roughly earth-sized, but their orbital plane around each other is tilted with respect to the ecliptic (see sketch below). The ...
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4
votes
2
answers
344
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Is there a general rule/formula for the length of an ice age?
Right now in our worldbuilding project, my friends and I are working on the history of the world with respect to evolution and tectonics. Recently (322 mya) I was pretty sure an ice age would be ...
- 705
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votes
1
answer
225
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What would a society do with negative refractive index glass? [closed]
In the late 18th century, a chemist somewhere in the West discovers a cheap and easy process that can be used to produce glass with a negative refractive index. What use would society have for this ...
- 1,842
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votes
4
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What are tetrachromat colors like? [duplicate]
Monochrome vision is easy to describe--each "pixel" only has one dimension, luminosity.
Dichromatic vision--what most mammals have--has two channels per pixel. On the physical level, that's ...
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2
votes
2
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Trojan Planet Skies
A few questions here have broached the possibility and survivability of life on a Trojan planet, a planet that exists at the Lagrange point of a larger celestial body. In this particular question, the ...
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2
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If humans were killed out in the Great Oxidation Event, would they leave behind any evidence?
I was thinking about the Great Oxidation Event - how, when they evolved and starting dumping a ton of oxygen into the atmosphere through photosynthesis, they accidentally killed off almost all life on ...
- 215
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12
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Is it possible for a civilization that has fusion and has spread to other lifeless worlds to die out naturally if they lose their homeworld?
Key word in the title is naturally. Ignore nearby GRBs, supernovas, black holes, super powerful aliens, and anything outside of the star system that would cause problems to the civilization. Whatever ...
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