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1500 questions
54
votes
32 answers
How to completely destroy a city, without leaving clues for humanity 4,000 years later?
Background
I want to burn down a city completely. Nothing must remain, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Even though I'm a supernatural being, I want this to happen in a natural way. I also want the destruction to not leave any traces that can be used…
Rolf ツ
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54
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10 answers
Does my shipboard computer slow down as I approach light speed?
This question about time dilation got me thinking.
The speed of an electron through copper is a whole heckofa lot slower than the speed of light, but if I understand the limits of relativity correctly, the electron can never travel faster than the…
JBH
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54
votes
12 answers
How can a fish that explodes by itself prosper enough to reproduce on a grand enough scale to persist as a species?
In the underwater survival game Subnautica there is a fish called Crashfish that, upon being too close to it, swims out of its plant to chase you and eventually explode. The explosion leaves no remains of the fish, it is completely vanished.
The…
Cartman
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53
votes
7 answers
Dragons and aviation bureaucracy
Once you do the handwaving needed to explain a modern-day world with flight-capable dragons in it, how would said dragons interact with the bureaucracy surrounding flying in the modern world? What sort of pilot's license would they hold? Would…
Shalvenay
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53
votes
14 answers
Does a hexagon-based bread loaf make any sense?
Back in the day, during a writing jam, I started wondering it'd be good if a culture in my world would have loafs of bread resembling a hexagon-based tube. Almost like a cylinder, but with six well distinguishable sides.
In terms of practical…
Z..
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53
votes
19 answers
How can I build a Nuclear Reactor in my backyard?
In my world, having a nuclear reactor at your own house is legal, in fact government donates money in the form of subsidies ( So no constraints of funds). This might have been practical because of energy crisis and lack of expert engineers, or might…
Ashwani Tanwar
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53
votes
19 answers
How to conceal my immortality without hiding for a hundred years?
In my story, I have this character that cannot die and cannot grow old. She got this from a curse. When ordinary people see her, she probably looks like 20 or so.
How can I make it so that nobody knows she is immortal? I know she can just hide in a…
Herlyks
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53
votes
16 answers
What kind of recurring phenomena could cast darkness on a planet for days/weeks at a time?
A century ago, after a catastrophic event on our planet, many of us were were forced to find a new home. There was one world that caught our attention: a tidally-locked blue planet orbiting a red dwarf. Since the planet was 70% ocean, had an ideal…
kathyra
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votes
17 answers
What would an out-of-water submarine (for water-breathing mer-people) look like?
My mermen & women (fish from waist down and human from waist up, but breathe only in water) are at WWII era warfare and interested in their version of 'underwater,' meaning they want out-of-sea vehicles (sorry, there is no antonym to submarine) to…
Mikey
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53
votes
14 answers
Fallout from aliens destabilizing economy by counterfeiting all global currencies?
Let's say a species of naive, yet well-intentioned aliens came across the Earth.
They generally like humans and decide to try to increase their happiness by supplying the thing which they have deduced all people clearly most desire: Money.
As they…
AngelPray
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53
votes
21 answers
A small group recreating modern technology
Suppose a group of people get transported back in time (say 2500 years). Then, in a manner reminiscent of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, they try to re-design modern technology. Assume that there's no shortage of labor or materials;…
abcde
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53
votes
5 answers
How long would people live in the US if an immortality treatment was available?
Very narrow question: assuming an immortality treatment keeping people at a biological age of a fit 30's, free of infections and cancers & ruling out death by aging, how long would people live (in the US) before dying from an accident (including…
JDelage
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votes
13 answers
How should a country introduce a constructed language as the official language?
Story background
The government has chosen to use a constructed language as a part of the process of building national identity. They don't want to use a foreign language. They also don't want to use local dialects because they are quite similar…
SapirWhorf
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votes
8 answers
How would one build a refrigerator to survive a nuke?
It's 2016, but for some reason, the Cold War never ended. You've been inspired by your (for some inexplicable reason) favorite movie, Indiana Jones 4, to start a new business: building refrigerators. However, the market is so saturated that in order…
STARGATEBG
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53
votes
21 answers
How would humans adapt if low-wage labor was done by robots?
Background: Nearly all low-wage labor is done by humanoid robots (retail, factories, transport, sanitation, construction, mining, and similar fields). These robots have all the physical capabilities of humans and more, but jobs that require…
Drew
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