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1500 questions
76
votes
23 answers
Humans are gone - what can I harvest from their cities 30M years later?
A new species with technological potential is starting to multiply and subjugate the Earth. What resources can it harvest from human (our) cities which were destroyed 30M years ago (humans are gone now)?
Assuming some of the ruined cities still…
normiesc
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75
votes
18 answers
Mineral that explodes when cooling down
While playing old games, I encountered a friend I knew from SciFi series and games alike, the Merculite missile. While thinking about what Merculite might actually be (and linking it to a mineral from the planet Mercury in my head), I had a basic…
Blutkoete
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75
votes
19 answers
Everything Joe says will become true. Can anybody notice?
Joe has a slightly embarrassing issue.
Simply put: Everything he says is true from that moment on until Joe himself contradicts it.
For example: If Joe were to say that hundreds of people turned up at his birthday party the very fabric of reality…
Joe Bloggs
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75
votes
26 answers
Why would any interstellar starship still bother with streamline body design?
Let's not debate whether is there any friction while traveling inside vacuum space and assume all ships can brave a perfect storm brewing inside the giant molecular cloud. OK let's get down to business and tell me why my generation ship turns into a…
user6760
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75
votes
22 answers
Would we find alien music meaningful?
I’ve seen a description of how a group of notes is chosen, so the concepts starting with the octave are based on natural phenomena and principles. For example, an object will vibrate with a fundamental note and overtones that are integer multiples…
JDługosz
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75
votes
8 answers
How often must carnivorous grassland eat?
Don't go into the bonegrass. Seriously, unless you want to be dead. You go in there, brush the grass with your clothes, start to feel sleepy...
Before too long your limbs will go numb, then you're on the floor in a heap. Then you're dead but you…
Joe Bloggs
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- 25
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75
votes
4 answers
Can you simply scale up animals?
There have been a number of questions focusing on mythical creatures where the logical approach to answering has been to scale up an existing animal. For example dragon's wings can be extrapolated from other flying animals or the speed of an…
Liath
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75
votes
20 answers
Any good way for an AI to prove that they are an AI?
Say I were an AI, how would I prove to the general internet that I am an AI in 2021? I was thinking I might just do some complex math or something that proves I have above average intelligence but everyone would probably assume I looked up the…
CiurkitboyN
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75
votes
12 answers
Is it possible to create a practical sword that's naturally toxic?
While doing research, I stumbled across the alloy "arsenical bronze", in which copper is smelted with arsenic instead of (or in addition to) tin. This apparently gives you "a stronger final product and better casting behaviour" than ordinary bronze,…
F1Krazy
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75
votes
12 answers
How would people in 17th century Salem react to modern day clothing
So I and two others are working on a time machine, and I accidentally press a wrong button and whoosh, all my friends and I are in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts.
Nobody sees us appearing out of thin air, so we aren’t burned to death on sight.…
Bryan
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74
votes
25 answers
Why does the Conjoined Alliance of Space Travellers keep producing red uniforms?
The Conjoined Alliance of Space Travellers (Nope, not that one) is a generally nice completely peaceful group of heavily armed species exploratory organisation.
Using ships such as the Exciting Undertaking and bases like A Long Way from Anywhere V…
Joe Bloggs
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74
votes
19 answers
How can Elsa's power fuel my Industrial Revolution?
As a Duke in the Kingdom of Weselton, I've been commanded to exploit the riches of our trade partners and cement our dominant economic status. It was my good fortune to attend the coronation of our most mysterious trade partner Arendelle's new…
Erik
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74
votes
32 answers
Why Would Aliens Enslave Humans?
Often in science fiction, we see aliens enslaving humans for one reason or another. This is a trope I'm attempting to repurpose, but before I go any farther, I'd like to ask: what possible motive or means could aliens actually have for enslaving…
C. S. Wright
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74
votes
22 answers
How do I keep my slaves happy?
A year ago, feline mammalian space pirates, a remnant of a collapsed civilization, conquered earth with their advanced technology (their civilization was Kardashev type I) and built a megacity on the continent of North America. The pirates killed…
Seraph Myrmidon
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74
votes
15 answers
How to butcher your dragon?
READ ME FIRST: There seems to have been a great deal of misunderstanding stemming to equal parts from the words I chose for this question as well as the human nature of only seeing what one wants to see. In order to make the goal of the question…
dot_Sp0T
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