Questions tagged [chemistry]
For questions that have to do with chemistry, chemical reactions be they biological or artificial, or the industrial processes of chemistry.
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Could it be possible to predict the effects of a universe with universal constants different to ours?
I am attempting to construct a relatively hard-sci-fi world involving a universe that 'evolved' with different universal constants to ours
The more I thought about it, the more I realize it is unable ...
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Is it possible to produce cheap saccharide oil solely from fossil fuels? I’m meaning cheaper than currently based agriculture carbohydrates prices
Simple question : in my country with the rise of conservatism is rising the calls to have food containing as most as sugar possible with lowest nutrients/vitamins as possible in order to decrease ...
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How Would I Break the Molecular Bonds of A Fictional Polar Atom
My world itself revolves around and adheres to real world physics, chemistry, biology, etc., with one difference, a fictional atom.
This atom, which we will call X Atom/Matter as a placeholder, is an ...
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Is it possible to use PNA as a replacement for DNA in an alien living being?
I am working on a project that involves creating alien life from scratch and I was wondering if PNA would be a good replacement for DNA, since I want it to be able to function with a carbon-based ...
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Will fire still burn well in my atmosphere?: concentration vs partial pressure
I recently learned from this article that flammability in oxygenated environments is far more dependent on the concentration of the Oxygen in the air rather than the partial pressure of the Oxygen.
In ...
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Could there be a sulfuric acid fluid cycle on a colder Venus analogue?
For Venus, as it is, sulfuric acid in the clouds cannot reach the surface as it would evaporate before it does so.
If instead, we have a Venus like planet further out in the habitable zone, we can ...
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Minerals in asteroids that can only be detected indirectly
A small team of astronauts are sent to setup a mining operation on an asteroid. They are specifically equipped for mining and refining one very specific mineral.
This mineral is common, ~99% of ...
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Chemical Coin Flipping as Divination
Let me explain what the odd title means. In the I Ching, a book of ancient Chinese divination, there is a process of using 50 rods to produce what is essentially a binary outcome. The details aren't ...
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Is it possible for plant life to evolve (and adapt) on a low CO2 planet?
C4 photosynthesis, which can operate in Carbon Dioxide levels as low as 10ppm
A question related to these two questions:
Habitable inner planet with large oceans, fast rotation and earth-like ...
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What factors can I use determine if my runaway greenhouse planet will have a thick water vapour atmosphere?
A question related to this question
When Earth’s oceans evaporate, one of two feedback situations could occur:
The "moist greenhouse" where water vapour dominates the troposphere while ...
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Could saltpeter be discovered from fertilizer?
One day, while going down a black-powder rabbit hole, I stumbled upon the neat historical fact that, in various times and places in the early modern period, urine was used as the source of saltpeter ...
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How much Methane could reasonably exist on a world with 6% (60,000 ppm) Oxygen in the atmosphere?
Let’s say I have a world that has an atmosphere similar to both Titan (lots of Nitrogen and organic compounds) and Earth during the Boring Billion. Oxygen is present on this world, but only about the ...
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Is it possible to create a rocky moon with high volcanic activity but that has underground water?
I am creating a moon for my gas giant, I am going to give the data and a little more context but first I need to make it clear to everyone that there is no life on this moon and I do not plan that, ...
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What would happen to the sky colour if SO2 made up 95% of the atmosphere? [duplicate]
Because of the Rayleigh scattering phenomenon, I'm interested in how the G2V-type star light would interact with this composition, especially how it would change the colour of the sky. What kinds of ...
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Could a creature "image" its environment through chemoreception?
Most organisms that can “see”, or create an image their surroundings, use either photoreception (sight) or mechanoreception (sound, in the form of echolocation).
I am considering a fantasy race that ...
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Dark clouds on gas giants
One of the gas giants in my star system has large areas of its atmosphere filled with cloud layers that are pitch black when looking at them from space.
What material could those clouds be made of to ...
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Looking to shape a magic system based as much as possible in actual science [closed]
I am looking to create a magic system that is grounded in science. My initial thought was the ability to manipulate electrons on the atomic level. Since I do not want the magic users to be walking ...
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Negative pressure projectile propellants (Alternatives to gunpowder)
While I was looking into alternatives to gunpowder I stumbled onto a comment talking about an ignited chemical propellant that could be placed in front of a bullet and effectively suck it forwards out ...
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How easily could a pre-scientific people purify a substance and hence grow a pure crystal?
Consider a pre-scientific human civilisation. They have some alchemy nonsense, and are used to experimenting with boiling, filtration, etc, but do not have an atomic theory, or a mechanistic view of ...
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How would fire behave in an oxygenless atmosphere with a significant percentage of chlorine?
I’m mostly interested in chlorine since (as far as I understand) it’s the most viable, but I’m open to others as well (if it’s worth it).
I’ve been working with a sort of “worldbuilding challenge” on-...
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Acetylene Manufacture: How would Mermaids do it?
Acetylene is useful for making fire underwater. This might be used for cooking, or so you have a way to start a fire right after coming out of the water, or for some underwater welding. Or, maybe even ...
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Burning Steel as Firewood
On Planet FeC, residents commonly burn naturally occurring steel ingots as what we would call firewood. As with actual firewood on Earth, these ingots vary in fireworthiness: a large, "green"...
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Readily available MIR refracting material
I am looking for a material that could serve to do the following: build a 5m x 5m wall that looks pretty normal (not necessarily during construction) but has the ability to transmit and refract MIR, ...
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Can a vampire carbonate serum to make blood soda?
I have a vampire. Said vampire would like a drink. But they're bored of their wine and their raw blood, and they'd like to try something more processed. You only die once, after all.
Now, blood doesn'...
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Is silicon-based blood possible?
I'm building a project featuring several very exotic alien worlds, one of which I had a question about the blood of aliens since the amount of Metals like iron are scarce, so I opted for something ...
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Possibility of anachronistic fossils due to time travel
In my story, I have a character who travels back in time to Africa just after the Youngest Toba supereruption, about 74,000 years ago in order to collect genetic samples from the human survivors at ...
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How do you make a metallic bonded compound stay liquid? Necessary for flying vehicles [closed]
I have a fuel that has a lot of metallic bonds but I need it as a liquid to be used in engines. Otherwise I have to figure out how to use a solid fuel in the air non-rocket style. It reacts with water ...
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Can magnetic fields be used to either strengthen or weaken chemical bonds? [closed]
My understanding is that magnetic fields compress atoms slightly. Could this conceivably be used in combination with certain substances with very specific properties to strengthen them in the presence ...
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What is the stability of this compound? I'm not a chemist
I want to make a McGuffin of sorts, a compound called BAP. Its slang as fuel. It's composition is BiAtPu. Would I need to add elements to make it stable? (If I can't make it stable, I'll need to not ...
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Possible reactions for Artillery Plants?
I am looking for a chemical reaction which can generate a lot of Gas in a short period of time, on the order of seconds, to build up pressure and allow a plant to propel a seed like projectile.
The ...
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How to create three new chemical elements? [closed]
I'm trying to create a universe with 3 new chemical elements. I want them to be as realistic as possible but I'm not a chemist, so I need some help. I need to create:
A gold coloured element
Three ...
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Is this ocean-planet stable?
I'm building a cold, water-based ocean-planet for my current setting, its temperature being below 0°c at all times and in all of its regions. Even despite the freezing temperatures, the planet's ...
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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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All arsenic not in the ground is magically removed. What effect would that have?
The land of Koyokuni has been depopulated of people and their domesticated animals for many years, and had been sown with ergot spores, venomous insects, large, aggressive venomous birds and even ...
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The miraculous substance of carrangan: can it exist, and what does it change about its planet of origin?
First, this account is a replacement for my old one, Jobah_HigherMind, because I forgot the password after being inactive for four months. But I’m moving away from Algennon questions, at least for now,...
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Which hypergolic compounds are best suited for dragon fire?
I'm looking for input from chemists, biochemists, and those familiar with rocket fuel propellants. I'm a fantasy world builder, but that doesn't mean everything in my fantasy world is excluded from ...
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How Do I Contain Hydrogen Gas With Pre-Modern Technology?
I finally figured out how my alchemy system works. The problem is, when my characters perform alchemy, they release loads of hydrogen gas. Why? Well, basically, they will take an object and cause ...
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Fire Analogue on Hydrogen Methane atmosphere Planet
Okay to summarize I have a planet with an approximate atmosphere of 44% nitrogen gas, 30% hydrogen gas, 23% methane and 3% other trace gases. I am working on an intelligent alien race on this planet ...
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All this salt, and it's useless! Why?
Once upon time, there was a shallow inland sea, leftover meltwater from a previous ice age trapped because of nearby mountain ranges. The arid climate with almost no rain and weak flow to and from the ...
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How does this microbe recognize specific chemical patterns?
This species of bacteria is electroreceptive, and when it receives an input pattern of electric spikes, it can “translate” that input pattern into a pattern of chemical signals internally via its ...
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What would the consequences of abusing my fictional drug be? [closed]
In this world there exists a potent psychogenic drug named Soma(lifted from Brave New World because I like the name and vibe).
The effects of the drug are thus.
In small doses the drug ‘softens’ the ...
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A Chemical Formula for a fictional Room Temperature Superconductor
I am working on a Hard Sci-Fi novel. In this novel Humanity has set up a drilling operation on the fictional exoplanet Hela. They are drilling for Trivesene, which is an Oil like viscus organic ...
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How can a plant have pure graphite cell walls instead of cellulose?
So like, how could a plant extract carbon out of other organic molecules and make their cell walls out of graphite instead of cellulose?
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How could a remote controlled bacterium work?
How could a radiowave controlled remote-controlled bacterium be possible?
Criteria:
The receiver for the radiowaves would not be bigger than the bacterium (which is the size of a cyanobacterium)
The ...
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Can cells and other materials be controlled electromagnetically
I'm trying to make a creature with a specialized organ that can be controlled telekinetically with cellular precision. Basically the creature would have a specialized organ connected to the brain that ...
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Can just heat be used to power ATP production?
I want to have some lifeforms that live around and in hot environments and absorb the heat around them to produce ATP without using any other energy sources. Is this possible? How can this be done? ...
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Reductive instead of oxidative based metabolism
Is it possible to have a cellular metabolism based on reduction instead of oxidation? All known life currently uses some sort of oxidation in cellular respiration, either from oxygen or from oxidizing ...
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What would be the fastest way to generate heat energy for damage?
For a suit of armour to deal damage via the hands/palms/claws primarily as an antihero/vigilante gimmick. Now thinking around ~2000°C (3632°F) (Containment is another question) but I need it hot ...
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On a planet whose waters are super rich in iron, could life forms use the iron as a basis for their skeletons?
One of my planets has surface waters that are incredibly rich in oxidized iron, and I was intrigued by the possibility of alternate materials for bones when I came across Stephen Gillett's Clorox ...
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How would an animal produce oil that creates a purple flame when burned?
In a short story I'm writing, a non-tropical island nation has an economy centered around selling an oil made from a particular animal. The oil is special because it produces a light purple flame when ...
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