New answers tagged

1 vote

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

First, there is nothing wrong with perpetual motion. What IS controversial is a Perpetual Motion Machine - something that will do work without any energy input (Zero Point Energy notwithstanding). And ...
5 votes

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

Something that "turns off" inertia is no good. "Inertial dampeners", on the other hand, as depicted in science fiction, are just fine. All you need to do is transfer any forces the ...
17 votes

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

The main use of inertial dampening fields and inertial compensators in scifi stories appears to be to stop the contents of your ship from being reduced to a thin layer of paint on the aft bulkhead ...
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1 vote

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

Interacting with an as-yet-undiscovered field sounds like a viable option. It's neat in that you can handwave away all the seemingly physically impossible phenomena but you can do even better: you can ...
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4 votes

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

There is more than one way to balance a momentum equation The kinds of engines that we know how to make today work by adding energy to a system which increases the velocity and momentum, but there is ...
  • 76.5k
2 votes

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

When implementing technologies that manipulate properties and interactions around mass, even when mass can seem to be changed, an equal but opposite change appears elsewhere and can even cancel out ...
4 votes

Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?

Sorta, but not really. I myself have been looking for a way to justify inertia manipulation in my worldbuilding for a while. This is the closest I've come. Why it breaks conservation laws Changing ...
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1 vote

If all zoo animals were set free, which ones could adapt

So you start off with all over the world and then switch to America both of which have vast and varying different environments within them as other posters said. What we can assume is that tropical ...
1 vote

Indian Ocean continent - which humans get there first?

The native Andamanese of Andaman and Nicobar Islands are believed to have arrived there in the Middle Paleolithic, 26,000 years ago, as part of the East-Eurasian migration—the same population that ...
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0 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Daemon Powers are Strongly Dependent upon Atomic Mass Just make it so that Daemons powers are stronger/amplified in heavier elements. It is easy as pie for them to split a heavy U-235 atom but nearly ...
3 votes

Indian Ocean continent - which humans get there first?

Prehistoric humans had prehistoric sea levels. If the ridge's minimum height is similar to the Sundaland region, it was populated by Homo Erectus 0.5 to 2 Ma ago, like that region. If it was somewhat ...
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2 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Electronic computers are something we designed and so their operation is comprehensible, because we needed to understand them to design them. You can look at a part of a computer and say, that's an ...
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4 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Quantum tunneling is impossible at cellular scales. The transistors in modern CPUs are much smaller than brain synapses. What we still call "microchips" would be much more accurate to call &...
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5 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Computers Are Dumb People think that computers are exceptionally smart because they are able to perform rapid mathematical calculations and initiate complicated processes in the blink of an eye. As a ...
  • 4,170
5 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

As much as I like some of the other answers, they’re missing something somewhat fundamental: biology heals. Silicon computers can’t heal themselves from Daemon damage. Flaws and failure will persist ...
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0 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Brains are non-deteministic. You can enter the same information twice but the brain will not respond the same way each time. There is no repeatability. The most these Daemons could hope for would be ...
2 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Computers are like photographs, while brains are like holograms. From Wikipedia: When a photograph is cut in half, each piece shows half of the scene. When a hologram is cut in half, the whole scene ...
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1 vote

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Could be as simple as the fact that a human brain can fail to understand something but accept it. Computers on the other hand fail at this miserably. If in an FTL hyperspace realm, natural laws were ...
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3 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

There's too many protons. You wanna trick an atom into doing something different? Great! There's lots of tweaks you can make to individual protons, neutrons, or electrons that might lead to the ...
27 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

The thing about a brain is, it's already got a daemon in it. After all, what are we but tenuous wisps of information inhabiting a physical substrate? If a daemon wanted to inhabit a brain it would ...
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11 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

It's for a story where you want demon-infested electronics? Tin whiskers. And various other metal whiskers. Under strain (from temperature, vibration, induced magnetic fields, whatever), tin and other ...
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19 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Human brains are not - and let me be completely clear here, not even a little bit - like computers. (And before anyone complains, I'm not the one that tagged this as neuroscience!) Computer hardware ...
  • 6,810
2 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

There is nothing to daemons to manipulate on brains Computers work with bits and bytes, and almost any disruption on these bits cause computers to fail, or worse, to malfunction. Think of these demons ...
4 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Two reasons. Firstly the human brain is basically analogue, not digital. This difference physically limits the ability of daemons to interfere with the operation of human brains. Daemon's can sense ...
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7 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

They hate water Human beings, including our brains, are bags of mostly water. It turns out that water is deadly to the aliens. In much the same way, that when we mix water with electronics bad things ...
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10 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Demons can start manipulating electrical signals below 0,2 micrometers and they can mostly influence electrons traveling through circuits directly. The human nervous system works at around 0,2 microns....
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2 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

my opinion is hardware is hardware they process whatever it is that they have, to some extent we have made like bit correction stuff and all, but if the correction sampler is also tampered no one ...
49 votes
Accepted

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Brains aren't computers We often talk about brains as though they are computers, but while it's often a useful shorthand, it's not accurate. A little inaccuracy can save a ton of explanation, but it ...
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8 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

This sounds eerily similar to Warhammer 40K... And so I will borrow an idea from 40K: Sufficiently advanced computers become aware of the presence of Demons before they develop a set of Ethics. The ...
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15 votes

Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?

Doped silicon is just simpler than organic molecules. Yes, they can tamper with neurons, but they have to know what they are doing, and it's just easier to do it with logic gates than with the mess ...
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1 vote

Why would a sublight Alcubierre drive be more useful for braking than for propulsion?

The ship doesn't actually carry everything needed to form the warp bubble. The equipment on the ship anchors one to the ship once formed, but forming one requires part of the structure to moving past ...
3 votes

Crusade of Conquest in a Fantasy World - Is It Viable?

So you are asking if it would be possible for your pseudo-Muslims to launch a religious crusade against psuedo-Europe... And succeed for some time, conquering much of pseudo-Europe possibly until they ...
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0 votes

Justifications for a language learned via magical transference?

The Summoned Hero is technically possessing an existing person. Matter/Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, which makes travelling between universes thoroughly against the course of nature. ...
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3 votes

Why would a sublight Alcubierre drive be more useful for braking than for propulsion?

It's not that they couldn't be used for acceleration, it's just that they require a lot of fuel. So, if they were used for acceleration the ship would have to accelerate the entire mass of fuel ...
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4 votes
Accepted

Why would a sublight Alcubierre drive be more useful for braking than for propulsion?

Like you noted in the question, deceleration is acceleration. The only difference is your preferred frame of reference. With that said, to get what you're wanting the only solution I can see is ...
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1 vote

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

Your Friends Will See You But Not The Witches Let's make this even more interesting. Say one of your friends brought a camcorder with them, and as you and another friend walked past the last tree, ...
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0 votes

Can Communism become a stable economic strategy? How?

This question makes some basic flawed premises, which make it hard for me to answer... First the flawed premise, Ration Cards... Ration cards are not a part of capitalism. They are issued by the ...
  • 998
1 vote

Can Communism become a stable economic strategy? How?

People forget communism has worked without turning into a dictatorship - on a small scale like the anarcho-communist town of Marinaleda which has been in Spain since 1979 and has a population of over ...
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2 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

I cannot add much to Nosajimiki's excellent answer, however, it seems clear to me that as you go around the hill, you are out of sight from those who are on the opposite side of the hill. And, once ...
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5 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

This problem would appear to be four dimensional, not merely three-dimensional. There is a fourth, magical dimension. It can't be seen, but it exists nevertheless. The path through the trees is the ...
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2 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

Ask the witches Option 1 - You are allowed to invite others If you are allowed to have friends with you then you can grab your friend and bring them with you. They will not be able to perceive what ...
18 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

Brace yourself for a surprise, you won't see the witches. This is actually a built-in safety mechanism in the Charm Walk, if you are observed by someone not following the path along with you it won't ...
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15 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

You're treating this as a topological problem, when in fact it's a very artificial Locking and Permission system instead. Your friend never sees the cauldron, and cannot join you in the final walk up ...
  • 11.2k
0 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

Space Dilation No matter how long or how quickly your friend walks towards you, he never reaches you, as the ground between you seems to eat up his steps without getting any smaller. You can cover the ...
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6 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

I would say that there is a distinct possibility that while you will be able to see the witches, having completed the required path, you and a second person would both be able to see the hill but only ...
  • 191
0 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

Suggestion: the magic creates a wormholelike tunnel that collapses if someone interferes with it. They may be able to see a glimpse what lies on the other side of the portal but if they approach it, ...
11 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

You are projecting an avatar into the witches' realm. (Very similar: good old AD&D astral projection). Your friend sees you complete the ritual and simply stop there. You're just standing there ...
  • 6,636
57 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

How to make internally consistent magic Magic lets you do pretty much whatever you want, especially when talking about the kind of spells that completely side-step the known laws of nature... so ...
  • 76.5k
2 votes

How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?

You shouldn't be able to see the witches until you have past the last two trees one to the left and one to the right. Once that has occurred you should be able to see them and your friend should not. ...
  • 35k

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