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Questions tagged [physics]

For questions about the physics of a fictional universe. Questions purely concerning real-world physics are off-topic. Always use in conjunction with the specific work tag in question.

20 votes
3 answers
965 views

Do you keep momentum when you Apparate?

For example, if you were falling, facing upwards, and you Disapparated, would you continue to move backwards really fast once you got there? If so, could you change your momentum by Apparating to a ...
CHEESE's user avatar
  • 18.6k
1 vote
0 answers
114 views

Firing from Starkiller Base [duplicate]

In the movie we see This event appears to be observed simultaneously and instantaneously/in real-time by multiple characters from a variety of very different vantage points. For instance: Han, Rey,...
aroth's user avatar
  • 905
4 votes
2 answers
531 views

In ST:VOY why didn't fluidic space collapse into a black hole?

I've been thinking about this question for many years, and today I came upon this amazing question, Why didn't fluidic space crush Voyager?. Part of the accepted answer is: It is safe to ...
Athena Widget's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
1k views

"The Martian" and weight units [closed]

In the book (and probably in the movie too, can't remember) there's several mentions of kilograms, with no mention of the difference between kilograms on Mars and on Earth, at least if you try to lift ...
Haakon Steigre's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
1k views

How strong would Clark have to be to lift the school bus out of the water? [closed]

How much additional weight would the water have added to the bus and how much strength would be needed to lift the bus out of the water in the way that he did?
user31418's user avatar
  • 727
-1 votes
3 answers
860 views

Spells such as Wingardium Leviosa - where does the force come from?

In the Harry Potter universe, spells such as wingardium leviosa can move objects with no apparantly visible force being applied. Is there an canon explanation (or non canon otherwise) explanation of ...
Edge's user avatar
  • 117
3 votes
1 answer
848 views

Are the space sounds in Star Wars diagetic or not (i.e. Do the characters hear them)? [duplicate]

This question relates to this one: Why and how can you hear explosions in space in Star Wars? Among the answers are this one and this one, among others, that simple put, point out that just because ...
ThePopMachine's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
872 views

Why doesn't The Flash catch fire due to air friction? [duplicate]

What protects The Flash from air friction? At the speed at which he moves, he should be affected by air friction.
Chloritone_360's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
302 views

To the other side

If the Millennium Falcon went into light-speed, it'll be on the other side of the galaxy by now. ~ Admiral Piett As far as I know, it takes a couple of days to cross the galaxy at light-speed. It's ...
Mast's user avatar
  • 456
7 votes
2 answers
941 views

Story set inside a sphere

This is a story with a civilisation whose "planet" is the inside of a sphere, like an inverted/hollow world (or Dyson sphere but that's not quite the same thing). The physics in the story is made up. ...
Ben C's user avatar
  • 291
33 votes
3 answers
22k views

How does mass conservation work in the MCU Ant-Man movie?

In Ant-Man, it's (briefly) explained that the Pym particle reduces the distance between molecules, allowing a person to shrink while retaining his mass and strength. Much of the movie is consistent ...
Robert's user avatar
  • 2,047
4 votes
0 answers
717 views

How much power does the Martian heat ray output? [closed]

In the influential H. G. Wells story, The War of the Worlds, the Martian fighting machine has a heat ray capable of projecting intense heat against anything it is turned on. I think the most ...
Dan Hulme's user avatar
  • 433
7 votes
1 answer
328 views

How was the messaging system in The Arrows of Time (Orthogonal #3, by Greg Egan) supposed to work?

In particular, why didn't messages being relayed from the future use up bandwidth and prevent new messages from being sent back?
Charles's user avatar
  • 71
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

What is the wattage of the Death Star's superlaser? [duplicate]

A question on /r/askscience talks about how big a nuke would have to be to disperse Jupiter. A question here on StackExchange talks about whether or not the Death Star could "Take out Coruscant" due ...
JohnN's user avatar
  • 1,061
7 votes
1 answer
766 views

Looking for the name of a book where a physicist gets transported to a medieval world

The character meets a witch of some kind that sucks the life from men, but manages to escape. He first encounters her when she seems to be running from some kind of creature or guards. He helps her ...
Jim's user avatar
  • 73

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