Questions tagged [technology]
For questions about the creation, use, and application of all types of technology.
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What would the effects of a space based laser weapon system capable of tracking and destroying any projectile posing a threat to human life?
Imagine a constellation of satellites equipped with sensors capable of identifying any object posing a risk to humans and targeting it with lasers to neutralize it. The constellation covers the entire ...
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How would a scaled-up ballista designed to launch 50-foot spears function?
This question is for a story in which society’s most advanced technology is basically identical to that which Europeans possessed in the Middle Ages, particularly around the last 50 years of said time ...
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How can a tractor beam only pull but not push matter in space? [closed]
Set in a distant future, assume civilization is transitioning to a type 3. A tractor beam uses energy beam to secure and slowly reels in the target such as an asteroid or a small space vessel, I am ...
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Designs for copper-gold-silver armor
In this world, the three metals noted above are the only ones available in meaningful quantities, excluding metals inside live organisms.
Obviously, these metals and most of their alloys are softer ...
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What causes my expedition RTG to produce way less power when deployed in a magic realm
Dear colleagues from the Institute of Subatomic Research,
as you will have noticed, our latest expedition to the Magic Realm (TM) through the Strange Portal (TM) was a considerable success. No one ...
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How to find a cybernetician? [closed]
How could a procure a cybernetician? In this field it seems hard to find one. Anyone could recommend one or two? They only exist in fictional worlds so I need one for my fictional world like the one ...
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How to recreate a "land" harp that can work in the deep sea?
Once again, I am asking questions based on my as of yet defined highly-evolved, human-derived "merfolk". But this time, I'm going towards deeper waters-- let's say about 5000 meters below ...
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Is it possible to use rail guns or mass drivers as some kind of anti orbital weapon?
I know it is possible to use missiles to shoot down satellites in orbit but what about using rail guns or mass drivers as some sort of anti orbit weapon. I know the idea of a "space gun" ...
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Could a city float with lifting gas? [duplicate]
Specifically hydrogen, not helium that’s too expensive, could we make a city or even a building float in the air via hydrogen gas. I know it’s kind of silly but I need to know if it would work
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Could I make a city float using lifting gas? [closed]
Could we make a city or even a building float in the air using hydrogen gas?
This is specifically about hydrogen—helium is too expensive.
This would be on a planet identical to Earth, with the same ...
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How would computers develop in a society where a Cherokee-like language is the dominant lingua franca?
I am writing a book set in a parallel universe where English is not the dominant language and the dominant language is a complex polysynthetic language that makes use of a complex system of word ...
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Would Artificial Gravity With Short Range Be Possible?
Assuming a spaceship with artificial gravity was possible, would it be possible for it to have an extremely short range, like a few feet. So you'd be able to have a ship with 1g but not have it ...
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Could aquatic aliens use bubbles in microscopes?
In the subsurface oceans of a fundamentally Europa-like moon, (covered in ice, but with an interior warmed by tidal heating etc.) a race of sapient aliens has evolved. These aliens are very interested ...
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How could i limit the number of stargates? [closed]
In my universe the galaxy is stripped clean of most life and surface minerals on planets by massive alien swarms numbered in the trillions. Earth had colonized our solar system and a few others by ...
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Computing technology in a world with only Gold, Copper, and Silver
As the title suggests, in this world there are only three metals available in any meaningful amount: copper, gold and silver. How advanced could computers get in this world? Could things like the ...
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Is it feasible to kiln-dry timber in the same kiln that is used to fire ceramics?
In the story I'm writing, my modern-day characters have the need to produce a great quantity of bricks in a relatively primitive setting and society, equivalent to ancient Sumeria. They have access ...
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Definite pitch designs only, what musical instrument and class of musical instruments would be easiest to design if the world reset?
I saw a couple other threads with slightly similar questions. But I want to stress with this one, that the focus is what instrument and instrument family would be the easiest to build anywhere in the ...
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How expensive to take 80% of plastics out the ocean?
Suppose that all the world would work together to take plastic out of the ocean. Here I include microplastics, which are much harder to remove.
How expensive would it be to remove 80% (in wheight) of ...
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Artificially lighting a large underground city
I'm trying to think of a somewhat plausible way to create artificial "sunlight" in a very large underground city. To summarise some key points:
The cavern containing this city is ...
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Possibility of solar powered space stations around a red dwarf
I have an earth-like world orbiting an M7 red dwarf on the outer edge of the habitable zone(0.0443AU). Since red dwarfs emit more infrared light than visible light, solar panels would probably not be ...
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The late-victorian nuclear-thruster
Nuclear fission! How hard can that be? Nuclear reactors have been quietly humming under the earth's surface only a few billion years ago after all.
It's very convenient then, that my planet's quite a ...
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Keeping tech at 1890s levels without fossil fuels [duplicate]
How can I explain the technological stagnation at a level roughly equivalent to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The world is Earth-like and has the following characteristics:
Absence of ...
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Artificially-created diamond 'windows' for spacecraft
In the past I've entertained the notion of space stations and spaceships having window panes or transparent viewing surfaces made from laboratory-created diamonds, but a recent answer to a different ...
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Would direct matter to energy conversion be hazardous?
A simple question...
In a setting I am working on, I want most advanced civilizations to use a form of Cymatics to facilitate matter to energy conversion.
They have the technological acumen to "...
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Optimal Organ Preservation in a Steampunk World?
In a steampunk world where multiple more-or-less humanoid species (with varying levels of intelligence) coexist, organ hunting is prevalent and authorized (outside of cities).
The harvested organs are ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Short and simple are there any actually effective alternatives to firearms as the main alternative for WW1-1920s era aircraft including biplanes and airships?
Rules:
1: The weapon must be able to be ...
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Horses or ATVS? [closed]
Writing a setting where people have access to modern technology from the greater world, but the people of this land haven't really developed yet; there isn't a rail or road network connecting the ...
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Horse Exoskeletons?
Working on a society a society that was never centralized or peaceful enough to invest in rail and road networks, even as the rest of the world developed. They've imported camels, donkeys, and horses ...
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Could you achieve a crude bessemer converter with late medieval technology
Planning to write a story. I was wondering if it was plausible that (with a decent understanding of how the thing works), if you could build a crude Bessemer converter using only technology available ...
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Piezoelectric Horseshoes?
New here, so forgive me if I commit a faux pas or two
So I wrote a society that, never being wealthy or organized enough to invest in rail and road networks, stuck with beasts of burden, even as the ...
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Engines capable of surviving a highly destructive space battle
Context: It is set 50 000 years from "now" in no-FTL interstellar setting. The idea is that active defences and armor of spacecrafts have obscenely advanced to the point that any projectile ...
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An industrial revolution without overt, visible pollution/alternatives to coal?
BACKGROUND
Fantasy setting, highly rural/pastoral. Social landscape is significantly more egalitarian (but far from idyllic) with no serfdom tying a peasant class to the land. Magic exists, but ...
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how early can people build a giant clock?
Can a clock that measures hours and minutes be created using primitive technology? so at most gears carved out of wood/bone/stone or crude non smitthed copper and when? I tought that maybe a primitive ...
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How can my weapons kill enemy soldiers but leave civilians/noncombatants unharmed?
In my RPG, an engineer is working on an energy weapon that kills enemy soldiers but leaves civilians and noncombatants untouched.
During the game, he takes the weapon designs and goes on the run, out ...
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Detectability of a Type III Civilization with a specific set of conditions
Conditions:
The civilization is in a galaxy which is not the Milky Way. For the purposes of this question, assume the target galaxy is 0.5 Mpc away.
The civilization has elected, for whatever reason ...
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Practicality of engine-mediated magic
In another universe in which humans may exist but did not evolve, the laws of physics allow phenomena that we in this universe would call magical, where matter and energy may be moved, transformed and ...
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How would perpetual motion technology (and "free" energy) affect poverty?
I'm writing a near-future story in which a form of teleportation has been invented. It's only been around for few decades, and is still very complicated (and expensive) to build, so it's only used for ...
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Not-so-precious metals: tools with only precious metals are available
Imagine a world where only precious metals are available. They are as common and plentiful as iron or aluminum are in our world. Any metal that is not precious does not exist outside of biological ...
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Could three-dimensional beings engineer a multi-dimensional structure?
Consider the bigger-on-the-inside concept of sci-fi staples like the TARDIS from Doctor Who. A generally accepted explanation for how a space’s interior could be larger than its exterior shape and “...
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Is there a physical/structural upper-speed-limit to steam locomotives?
In my world (essentially playing in the late 1920's to early 30's, though with a bit of hand-waved technological and political progress), a rail line exists that spans Eurasia from Lisbon to Bangkok.
...
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Would it be possible for someone to have his prosthetics that were made from steampunk materials back in the 1930s?
Edit #1: As I was asked to define the steampunk materials, I should’ve clarify that by this term, I mean materials that consist of metallic elements in general, such as gold, might as well have bronze,...
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Why would a highly advanced society still engage in extensive agriculture?
What are some plausible reasons why an advanced, futuristic society would still have a sizable agricultural/rural component, and a significant rural population? This hypothetical civilization is ...
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What would naval warfare look like if Dreadnoughts never came to be?
I sadly couldn't find any answers to this question, probably because it's quite niche, so i'm posting this as my first question here!
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought_(1906) was ...
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Is it possible for a group/clan of 10k people to start their own civilization away from other people in 2050? Like the Amish but with more technology?
They are a group of fed up people in a third world country who somehow acquire/buy land in a remote place near the Himalayas.
Ignore the powers like China trying to conquer them.
Is this possible in ...
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Is there a material lightning does not strike?
I was imagining the possibilities of creating a ship mast which could not get struck by lightning. Is there a material it could be made of that would never get struck by lightning?
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How would a 4-armed, blind species,use firearms?
My blind, intelligent species has advanced technologically to the stage of space exploration through the usage of FTL travel. The reason for their blindness is evolving underground, after the surface ...
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Could a race with 20th century computer technology plausibly develop general-purpose AI?
I have a race of aliens whose technology roughly corresponds to humanity’s in the early 1970s. Wireless communications via microwaves have been developed, but are only available to important groups ...
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Can technology that prompts or inhibits neuron firing be able to add/alter brain pathways and behavior?
Imagine I had a bunch of little molecules or electrodes or chips or something of the sort, which were outfitted with the ability to attach to brain cells, receive specific electric signal/field ...
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Sci-Fi Science: Ramifications of Photon-to-Axion Conversion
I'm considering what consequences would come from the development of hypothetical devices that could convert photons to axions at cost and power requirements accessible to governments, large ...
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Would it be possible for a civilization to create machines before wheels?
I know wheels have been a pivotal part of every invention and machinery for hunmankind. But currently I'm making an alien civilization with access to floating rocks due to superconductivity. Thanks to ...
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