Editor’s Picks: January 2016
Remember the Best Of Worldbuilding series we sort-of did at the end of last year? This is that, but renamed and with the format slightly changed. In this sort-of new series, someone will pick a few posts from Worldbuilding Stack Exchange that they really liked, and have a more detailed look at them.
1. Building a Bridge to the Stars
This question, asked by user Whelkaholsim, asked if it’s possible to build a bridge to somewhere in our cosmic neighbourhood. Surprisingly, the answer is yes.
First off, do you know of handwavium? Or unobtainium? Those fictional elements that exist for the sole purpose of making the impossible possible? They have a new name now, thanks to this question: lalalaicanthearyouium. It’s a bit of a mouthful, I’ll admit, but 10/10 for creativity.
My first thought of this question was sort of “what? No, that’s never going to happen.” According to the answers, though, if you use the all the resources of iron the Earth has, you still get 50,000 tons of building material per metre. That’s far more than you need.
I mean I know we’re totally ignoring the effects of the relative movement of the two points in space, but… lalalaicanthearyou.
2. What sort of problem would drive a near omnipotent civilization to seek an “outside the box” solution?
Let’s talk Kardashev scales. Well, one of them, there is only one. The Kardashev scale is a simple measure of the technological development of a civilisation, based on its energy consumption. There are three levels:
- can harness all the energy on their planet
- can harness all the energy from their star
- can harness all the energy from their galaxy
Humanity is at level 0.71. This question, on the other hand, starts out by describing a civilisation at a level of 3.5. That’s a civilisation able to effect change on a near-universal scale.
Of course, this civilisation now has a Problem with a capital P, and they need to come up with an outside-the box solution to it. What is this solution? Oh, only creating a quantum-level simulation of the entire universe.
I love worldbuilders.
3. Pew Pew Lasers! What would directed energy weapons actually sound like?
When you’re trying to use a flashlight of doom against your foes, having a range of inches isn’t desirable.
Lasers go pew-pew. It’s a sci-fi thing, they just have to.
Unless you’re a scientist or a worldbuilder who wants things to make sense, that is. That’s what this question was all about — assuming that lasers don’t, in fact, go pew-pew, what noise do they make?
Turns out the effect is surprisingly similar to that of being downrange of a machine gun. You get a ‘crack’ as the bullet (or the laser) passes overhead (in the first case, a sonic boom; in the latter, the low-pressure channel that the laser creates being filled rapidly), then a ‘thump’ of the weapon actually firing.
Alternatively, if your laser weapon is firing really fast with really short pulses (thinking in the thousands of pulses per second and pulses of a few femtoseconds ranges), then you’ll get a melodious tone, the pitch of which is determined by the exact frequency of the firing.
Ah, the sweet middle C of death.
