Random Questions Thread

Let's assume magic keeps it sharp. Is it possible to build one, or do the materials and tools just not exist?

Absolutely. In fact, one theory about why Damascus steel has its particular properties involves carbon nanotubes forming during its creation.

I thought damascus steel only had a monoatomic edge, not a subatomic one?

Subatomic doesn't really work because it'd continually form new bonds with random atoms until it forms a stable molecule.

Subatomic things don't like to be by themselves.

That kind of magic can easily use and stabilize electrons or protons as a blade, and a nanotube forms a good "grounding" for such a blade.

What kinds of foods would an underground society be able to subsist on?

Mushrooms. Rats.

Fungi and animals depending on chemotrophic bacteria.

r: Septimus: right, but then it'd technically not be subatomic any more.

re: underground food: not a whole lot. Not much energy underground that can be synthesized into food; the reason everything grows aboveground and that caves don't support a lot of life is that there's no energy source down there. (Aboveground you've got photosynthesis to start the food chain rolling.)

Maybe if you could set up some kind of hydroponics systems.

Is this like an underground city, some Metro 2033 situation or cave people or?

It's similar to a medieval kingdom.

Electrons and protons (in H-Atoms that can be attached to nanotubes) count as subatomic particles and certainly as sub-atomic in terms of size.

But underground? Like are they mole people or something?

You're gonna have to explain a bit more here. With medieval tech you're not gonna have a functioning belowground living space.

Nothing proper at least

Yes, they're kind of like mole people and have evolved to live underground.

Using protons like that is cheating, as they're technically hydrogen atoms too.

re: mole people: moles work by living close to the surface so they can come out for food. Underground living means no agriculture means no food base for society.

I'm far from an expert in this, but I imagine that the mole-folk civilisation might work if there were a source of energy coming in from outside—a surface river, full of fish, that flows underground into their kingdom, then exits back to the surface world somewhere else, perhaps, or creatures that (for some reason) travel from the underground kingdom to the world of light and back again.

The river idea could work.

Subatomic blades: You could posit that the chemical structure of the material is such that the electron cloud around it is particularly dense and consistent just past the molecular edge? :P [handwaves]

There are actually GIANT cave systems with their own ecosystems, river and animals/food sources included. It's perfectly likely that a large system would have a river going through it. Check out the Son Doong cave system in Vietnam.

edited 17th Sep '14 9:08:22 PM by Sharysa

Does anyone has any ideas on how to create small (around the size of a credit card, or smaller) rectangular pieces of glass with early-gunpowder era technology? The scale of production should be small, independently-run workshop level.

That, uh, was a thing that actually existed.

Easily?

Glassmaking has been around for millennia.

&: I'm now feeling really stupid. Thanks for the input, though. Glass is really just molten sand cooled down. (When Minecraft, of all things, shows me this, I thought the process was way more complicated in reality).

edited 20th Sep '14 4:01:55 AM by FlowingCotton

Can't blame one for being skeptical. Video games are, after all, a place where eating food can instantaneously heal open wounds.