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Speculation with portals

#161 · January 18, 2008, 5:47 pm

sKoToSa wrote:

lol, I tried to make sence of what you posted, but I can't lol. I don't get the jist of what it is you are trying to say? First off, the 4th Dimension is TIME and the 3 Dimensional TimeSpace that you use is only 3 Dimensional Space, for our 3 Dimensions ocupy the space of Length, width, and Depth, but not time. Only the one Dimension of time ocupys the space and time or space-time.

Aaaaand we're back on page 1.

#162 · January 18, 2008, 6:05 pm

As the developers explained in the commentary, rather than punishing the player for being in a moving/closing portal, they teleport whatever objects are between the two spacetimes to the closest spacetime where they are fully "whole". I.E. if you're mostly through the orange portal and the blue portal changes, you're forced out the orange side.

Once again we have to assume that the properties portals exibit in the game world (Even if they have no logic real-world analogue, and are used for engine/playability purposes only) are how they would work if given a real environs.

And the fourth dimension is not time. Read the rest of the thread.

#163 · January 18, 2008, 7:10 pm

DelphiAegis wrote:

And the fourth dimension is not time. Read the rest of the thread.

Most Physicists would say otherwise, read some books. (No offense)

They all refer to TIME as being the 4th Spatial Dimension...

You can even read the wiki on it if you like.

"The fourth dimension is often identified with time in physics, and as such is used to explain the non-Euclidean space-time used in Einstein's theories of special relativity and general relativity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_dimension

#164 · January 18, 2008, 7:22 pm

We spent at least five pages on this. If you're not going to read the whole thread, don't even bother posting. Seriously.

#165 · January 18, 2008, 7:31 pm

sKoToSa:- From the wiki link you posted:

Quote:

When a reference is used to four-dimensional coordinates, it is likely that what is referred to is the three spatial dimensions plus a time-line. If 4 (or more) spatial dimensions are referred to, this should be stated at the outset, to avoid confusion with the more common notion that time is the Einsteinian fourth dimension.

Ironically, the entire page of the wiki you posted was devoted to discussing 4+ spatial dimensions (as was this thread), so the "fourth dimension is time" thing does not even slightly apply here.

#166 · January 18, 2008, 7:59 pm

Ok guys ok, I did not mean to start anything, I'll just go with flow.

Sorry...

And no I will not read the whole thread, but I will post. I read the first one and that was enough... Since that is the topic of the whole thread anyways.

#167 · January 19, 2008, 9:38 am

Yes, the fourth dimension is time. One can fold the third dimension through the fourth dimension. If one wants to travel through time, however, one has to fold the fourth dimension through the fifth, and that isn't what we want. Portals let one disappear at one point in threedimensional timespace, and reappear at another point, thus travelling through the fourth dimension. It has nothing to do with timetravel, or the fifth dimension.

"Duct Tape is the answer."

#168 · January 19, 2008, 2:01 pm

Quote from Shmitz on January 19, 2008, 2:01 pm
Here is the majority of the relevant material written in this thread about what the "fourth" dimension represents.

Quote:

As for "time is the fourth dimension," that's really a matter of semantics. As much as possible, I tried to avoid saying "second dimension" and "fourth dimension" and instead used 2-space, 3-space, 4-space. These terms are shorthand for "a manifold defined by N mutually perpendicular axes." Manifold, by the way, means "a topological surface (2 dimensions) or space (3 dimensions or more) that is locally Euclidean."

The simple way to say this is: We're talking about topology, which is inherently and totally spacial. Time doesn't enter into it. You can imagine a four-dimensional space that is completely static, that never changes over time and in fact is completely untouched by time. Now imagine the same space with 4D people in it that does change over time. To them, time would be the FIFTH dimension. Like I said, it's a matter of relative semantics. Just don't think about time at all for the purposes of this discussion, for simplicity's sake. (Yeah, right. The "simplicity" ship has sailed.)

Quote:

I think the confusion here is coming from a disconnect about what exactly we're discussing.

On the one hand, some of us are explicitly discussing topology, which is purely spatial, does not involve time, and is largely abstract/theoretical. That is, it does not address the question of whether 4-space or 5-space or any higher-dimensional manifolds actually exist. It concerns their mathematical properties only.

On the other hand, some people are discussing cosmology, which is the science of trying to understand the actual structure of our universe through experiment and observation. Cosmology can and often does involve multiple dimensions of time.

Quote:

psh. says who. lets just stick with geometrical higher dimensions. to think that dimensions n-x are "time" or "infinity" or anything is just sillyness. but it is very reasonable to describe additional geometrical dimensions above and beyond up down left right north south.

one sci fi writer who was having fun with a 4th dimensional universe described the two new directions hm i think vup and vown. the w axis on a chart, next to x, y, and z.

Quote:

I've watched that, and while it's an interesting thought exercise, it doesn't provide a convincing argument for time actually being the "fourth" dimension.

Consider a point traveling along vector x. The point experiences this travel as a passage through time. It has no control over the rate at which it travels, but it knows that it travels. It decides that the dimension above it, 1st, must be Time.

We as observers of a higher dimension, however, see that this point actually belongs to a set of points (a line) that are not, in fact, moving with relation to each other. This line lies along vector y. This line, y, is in its entirety, moving along vector x.

Through the magic of hypothesis and anthropmorphization, we communicate to our point that the line (1st dimension) in which it resides is not, in fact, Time. It is baffled, claiming that since Time is the only dimension it is aware of, it must be the next higher order. We grant it the ability to communicate with its neighbors, and all of the points in line y gradually become aware of each other and discover that there is indeed a dimension between them and Time.

Quickly, they conclude that Time must be the second dimension.

While it is true that this line is moving along vector x, upon closer examination we see that it is part of a collection of an infinite number of other lines, all of which exist on plane yz. All of these lines are fixed in relation to each other. This entire plane is moving at a fixed rate along vector x.

Our community in line y is willing to consider this now, when we tell them. They claim that their experience of Time, and our revelation of lines and planes, adds up to three dimensions. Therefore time must be the third dimension.

We know, however, because we have been observing and discussing the situation, that this plane yz is not moving at all in relation to us. Calmly, and with great pride in our wisdom, we tell them that because we can experience length, width, height, and time, Time must be the fourth dimension.

Immediately after that, great bulbous things grow from nothingness to the size of basketballs in the air around us, close in, and with a strange sensation rip us from our cozy collection of lines and planes.

Quote:

Not to put too fine a point on it, the people who keep trying to bring time and string theory into it are really deeply missing the point. Thinkers in those fields find it useful to refer to certain phenomena as "the nth dimension" in order to explain things to their students, to have a shorthand for discussing matters with colleagues, or sometimes simply to sell books.

Just because they are saying the same words -- "fourth dimension!" -- doesn't mean that they are referring to the same thing that a topologist or a Portal player designates by that term. Context matters. Our context is strictly geometrical. Can we please give the interruptions about time a rest?

Quote:

My point, which I maybe didn't make clear, is that it's the physicist/cosmologist types who are clouding the issue. Time is completely innocuous in Portal. Time does not affect the behavior of portals; Portals do not affect the flow of time. On the other hand, the whole game is about manipulating multidimensional manifolds.

So, my feeling is it's obvious we should talk about what's interesting about the game without confusing everyone by introducing theories from unrelated disciplines.

That's another great thing about taking the topological approach: It's abstract, but it's not pure theory. You can figure out a lot about 5- and 6-space manifolds just reasoning by analogy on your own before you run into anything really wonky or controversial. Not so with metaphysics.

Quote:

I present 3d cube folding vs. 4d cube folding. Load it up in Portal, look at the labeled diagrams, press the buttons, watch the magic. It is important to note that in both scenarios, the blue "box" is smaller at the end because it's farther away! Likewise, the orange box is bigger because it's closer.

If I had more time, I'd have made it so you could unfold them back and repeat as desired, so just restart the map if you want to do that. Also thought about adding commentary, but that might've been going just a little overboard.

I think it might be possible to use this example to start actually talking about how portals connect two locations through the higher dimensions. ;P

Quote:

great work! i wish i was so proficient at mapping that i could use it like that to illustrate a point. wow. *applause*

so just to be clear, when you see the cubes folding up into the 4th dimension into a hypercube, you are seeing the distorted 3d shadow of it. in the real 4th dimension, all vertices are 90 degree angles.

also, in your demo here, the 3d box you make as well as the 4d tesseract, you have chosen to include a top and a vop. to keep it simple, one might simply imagine 4 squares around a center square. lift those up into the 3rd dimension, and you have a cube. plop a top on it and its closed.

same with the hypercube. you can take a cube and put a cube on each of its 6 sides. fold them all vup into the 4th dimension, and viola, you have a tesseract/hypercube. plop another cube on vop of that, and you close it. the cube on vop would look really distorted in the 3d shadow, yet it would be perfectly squared up in 4 dimensions.

from there, it becomes at least a little more imaginable to proceed to even higher dimensions. take a tesseract, and attach another tesseract on each of its 24 faces, and then you can fold that wup into the 5th dimension, and viola! you have a 5-cube.

Quote:

in spaceland, the author points out that flat 2 dimensional creatures would likely die if they got lifted into the third dimension, because the new "sides" would become exposed. so to make a 2 dimensional creature survive, they must get a 3 dimensional skin attached on the top and bottom in the z axis to keep them closed as they get lifted up.

that also goes for 3 dimensional creatures such as ourselves. if we were to get lifted up into the 4th dimension, all our insides would become exposed on all the new sides and we'd just fall apart. so somebody would first have to attach some kind of 4d skin to us to keep us together when we enter into the 4th spacial dimension.

Quote:

Okay here's one for you Paul. If a 4-spacer picked me up and moved me 3 feet in whatever-the-fourth-axis-is-called, what would happen to me then?

Quote:

Well, unlike speculating about using the fourth axis to leave and return, this question requires we make some assumptions about the environment outside of our own 3-space.

First assumption: Your body remains perfectly rigid and contained along the new axis. This frees us from worrying about your blood all falling out at once, or the 4-spacers accidentally "rolling" you up along the new axis.

Second assumption: We're dealing with one 3-space transition to one 4-space. There aren't any other local 3-spaces that you would be placed in that would seem normal to our 3-dimensional experience. Once out of ours, you would be experiencing the world of the 4-spacers, even if limited by 3-dimensional perception.

Quote:

(Thanks for the qualifications, Shmitz. Good thinking.)

That one's easy. If the 4-spacer lifted you along the W axis (that is, along the axis we don't have in 3-space), then you would disappear from our universe entirely and be detectable to us nevermore unless a 4-spacer brought you back "wdown" to the 3-space where you started. As iamafractal mentioned, because your skin only encloses you in 3D, it is highly likely at this point that all your organs would tumble out "through" (actually around) your skin and you'd die a painful death.

For the sake of argument, if we assume that doesn't happen, perceptually speaking you'd be in a real world of hurt. Once again, the key here is an analogy.

Suppose you could go and pick up Floyd the Flatlander, and rather than rotating him and replacing him in 2-space, you take them right up into 3-space, away from his entire universe/2-space/"piece of paper." Assuming (again, for the sake of argument) that his perceptual faculties still worked at all, he would see a rapidly fluxuating world full of shapes moving, deforming, and growing/shrinking for no apparent reason.

Because, you see, just because you've moved him into the 3rd dimension doesn't mean you've made him 3D. He's still 2D, and his vision is 1D (a line, remember?). So even though Flatlanders are quite adept at using distance/FOV and atmospheric perspective to understand coplanar 2D shapes with that limited vision, they have no prayer of understanding three dimensions.

For the simplest example, consider a ball that exists on our vertical axis, sitting atop the 2-space where Floyd began. Without rotating him at all, you begin to move him straight up. You can imagine what Flloyd can see by extending the XY plane of his body in all directions. Anything intersected by that plane, Floyd could see at that instant (if he looked in its direction). So what Floyd sees as you abduct him from his whole world is, first and foremost, that world blipping away instantly.

Then he would see a single point, the lowest point on the ball. But, contrary to a lifetime of experience, that point wouldn't stay that way. It would immediately jump two dimensions (points are 0D, circles are 2D) and become a circle. To Floyd, this is ludicrous. Points can't become circles on their own. It takes a whole team of engineers, any child knows that. They have to take two points and draw a line, (or ship in a prefab line) and then use that line to describe the circle as its radius. Once they have described the circle's "floor plan," notice that if they want it to be solid/filled-in/have area, they have to start building from the inside out, because once they've built the outside walls they can't reach the space enclosed within anymore. This is analogous to our building the inside parts of the building first, like the steel in skyscraper. If we tried to build from the outside in, not only would the building tumble and fall, we'd look really dumb.

Now he's seeing an object perform this complicated construction process on itself, unbidden, perfectly and smoothly growing. Then it gets worse. Just as his view passes the ball's midpoint, it starts to shrink back down to a point, and then it disappears.

In 2-space, area is analogous to 3-space's volume. So to Floyd's way of thinking, he just saw a point (a 0D object) grow immediately into a 2D object. Floyd naturally would assume that the circle is solid/filled in, that it has area, the same way we assume an object we see has volume -- and to him that would connote "2-mass" (I just made that up), which as far as Floyd is able to tell is as solid as things can ever get). It would look to him as if a huge amount of matter was being created from nothing. And then it shrunk again and disappeared, destroying all the matter that had just been created.

Needless to say, this would make NO sense to Floyd, and that's about the simplest 3D shape we got!

What would you look like to him as you lifted him? Well, he would see the fingers you're lifting him with as circles/ovoids, unconnected to each other as far as he can tell. As he was lifted past your legs he would see two mostly-circular masses whose contours seemed to undulate for no reason. When he got to crotch-level, he would see these two distinct areas merge into one (what the?!), and then that area would wiggle its contours a bit, and he'd start seeing your non-lifting arm in cross-section as a deformed circle, entirely unsure whether that part was or was not connected with your torso. From his POV, it would look completely distinct and unconnected. And so on. He'd be in a nightmare world where objects refused to hold their shape, where they popped into and out of existence, constantly changing their mass and properties.

Quote:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lwL_zi9JNkE

Simple. Understandable. Perfect.

If you are going to continue to cry "tl;dr", you are effectively just trolling, and will kill the thread. Congratulations.

Here is the majority of the relevant material written in this thread about what the "fourth" dimension represents.

Quote:

As for "time is the fourth dimension," that's really a matter of semantics. As much as possible, I tried to avoid saying "second dimension" and "fourth dimension" and instead used 2-space, 3-space, 4-space. These terms are shorthand for "a manifold defined by N mutually perpendicular axes." Manifold, by the way, means "a topological surface (2 dimensions) or space (3 dimensions or more) that is locally Euclidean."

The simple way to say this is: We're talking about topology, which is inherently and totally spacial. Time doesn't enter into it. You can imagine a four-dimensional space that is completely static, that never changes over time and in fact is completely untouched by time. Now imagine the same space with 4D people in it that does change over time. To them, time would be the FIFTH dimension. Like I said, it's a matter of relative semantics. Just don't think about time at all for the purposes of this discussion, for simplicity's sake. (Yeah, right. The "simplicity" ship has sailed.)

Quote:

I think the confusion here is coming from a disconnect about what exactly we're discussing.

On the one hand, some of us are explicitly discussing topology, which is purely spatial, does not involve time, and is largely abstract/theoretical. That is, it does not address the question of whether 4-space or 5-space or any higher-dimensional manifolds actually exist. It concerns their mathematical properties only.

On the other hand, some people are discussing cosmology, which is the science of trying to understand the actual structure of our universe through experiment and observation. Cosmology can and often does involve multiple dimensions of time.

Quote:

psh. says who. lets just stick with geometrical higher dimensions. to think that dimensions n-x are "time" or "infinity" or anything is just sillyness. but it is very reasonable to describe additional geometrical dimensions above and beyond up down left right north south.

one sci fi writer who was having fun with a 4th dimensional universe described the two new directions hm i think vup and vown. the w axis on a chart, next to x, y, and z.

Quote:

I've watched that, and while it's an interesting thought exercise, it doesn't provide a convincing argument for time actually being the "fourth" dimension.

Consider a point traveling along vector x. The point experiences this travel as a passage through time. It has no control over the rate at which it travels, but it knows that it travels. It decides that the dimension above it, 1st, must be Time.

We as observers of a higher dimension, however, see that this point actually belongs to a set of points (a line) that are not, in fact, moving with relation to each other. This line lies along vector y. This line, y, is in its entirety, moving along vector x.

Through the magic of hypothesis and anthropmorphization, we communicate to our point that the line (1st dimension) in which it resides is not, in fact, Time. It is baffled, claiming that since Time is the only dimension it is aware of, it must be the next higher order. We grant it the ability to communicate with its neighbors, and all of the points in line y gradually become aware of each other and discover that there is indeed a dimension between them and Time.

Quickly, they conclude that Time must be the second dimension.

While it is true that this line is moving along vector x, upon closer examination we see that it is part of a collection of an infinite number of other lines, all of which exist on plane yz. All of these lines are fixed in relation to each other. This entire plane is moving at a fixed rate along vector x.

Our community in line y is willing to consider this now, when we tell them. They claim that their experience of Time, and our revelation of lines and planes, adds up to three dimensions. Therefore time must be the third dimension.

We know, however, because we have been observing and discussing the situation, that this plane yz is not moving at all in relation to us. Calmly, and with great pride in our wisdom, we tell them that because we can experience length, width, height, and time, Time must be the fourth dimension.

Immediately after that, great bulbous things grow from nothingness to the size of basketballs in the air around us, close in, and with a strange sensation rip us from our cozy collection of lines and planes.

Quote:

Not to put too fine a point on it, the people who keep trying to bring time and string theory into it are really deeply missing the point. Thinkers in those fields find it useful to refer to certain phenomena as "the nth dimension" in order to explain things to their students, to have a shorthand for discussing matters with colleagues, or sometimes simply to sell books.

Just because they are saying the same words -- "fourth dimension!" -- doesn't mean that they are referring to the same thing that a topologist or a Portal player designates by that term. Context matters. Our context is strictly geometrical. Can we please give the interruptions about time a rest?

Quote:

My point, which I maybe didn't make clear, is that it's the physicist/cosmologist types who are clouding the issue. Time is completely innocuous in Portal. Time does not affect the behavior of portals; Portals do not affect the flow of time. On the other hand, the whole game is about manipulating multidimensional manifolds.

So, my feeling is it's obvious we should talk about what's interesting about the game without confusing everyone by introducing theories from unrelated disciplines.

That's another great thing about taking the topological approach: It's abstract, but it's not pure theory. You can figure out a lot about 5- and 6-space manifolds just reasoning by analogy on your own before you run into anything really wonky or controversial. Not so with metaphysics.

Quote:

I present 3d cube folding vs. 4d cube folding. Load it up in Portal, look at the labeled diagrams, press the buttons, watch the magic. It is important to note that in both scenarios, the blue "box" is smaller at the end because it's farther away! Likewise, the orange box is bigger because it's closer.

If I had more time, I'd have made it so you could unfold them back and repeat as desired, so just restart the map if you want to do that. Also thought about adding commentary, but that might've been going just a little overboard.

I think it might be possible to use this example to start actually talking about how portals connect two locations through the higher dimensions. ;P

Quote:

great work! i wish i was so proficient at mapping that i could use it like that to illustrate a point. wow. *applause*

so just to be clear, when you see the cubes folding up into the 4th dimension into a hypercube, you are seeing the distorted 3d shadow of it. in the real 4th dimension, all vertices are 90 degree angles.

also, in your demo here, the 3d box you make as well as the 4d tesseract, you have chosen to include a top and a vop. to keep it simple, one might simply imagine 4 squares around a center square. lift those up into the 3rd dimension, and you have a cube. plop a top on it and its closed.

same with the hypercube. you can take a cube and put a cube on each of its 6 sides. fold them all vup into the 4th dimension, and viola, you have a tesseract/hypercube. plop another cube on vop of that, and you close it. the cube on vop would look really distorted in the 3d shadow, yet it would be perfectly squared up in 4 dimensions.

from there, it becomes at least a little more imaginable to proceed to even higher dimensions. take a tesseract, and attach another tesseract on each of its 24 faces, and then you can fold that wup into the 5th dimension, and viola! you have a 5-cube.

Quote:

in spaceland, the author points out that flat 2 dimensional creatures would likely die if they got lifted into the third dimension, because the new "sides" would become exposed. so to make a 2 dimensional creature survive, they must get a 3 dimensional skin attached on the top and bottom in the z axis to keep them closed as they get lifted up.

that also goes for 3 dimensional creatures such as ourselves. if we were to get lifted up into the 4th dimension, all our insides would become exposed on all the new sides and we'd just fall apart. so somebody would first have to attach some kind of 4d skin to us to keep us together when we enter into the 4th spacial dimension.

Quote:

Okay here's one for you Paul. If a 4-spacer picked me up and moved me 3 feet in whatever-the-fourth-axis-is-called, what would happen to me then?

Quote:

Well, unlike speculating about using the fourth axis to leave and return, this question requires we make some assumptions about the environment outside of our own 3-space.

First assumption: Your body remains perfectly rigid and contained along the new axis. This frees us from worrying about your blood all falling out at once, or the 4-spacers accidentally "rolling" you up along the new axis.

Second assumption: We're dealing with one 3-space transition to one 4-space. There aren't any other local 3-spaces that you would be placed in that would seem normal to our 3-dimensional experience. Once out of ours, you would be experiencing the world of the 4-spacers, even if limited by 3-dimensional perception.

Quote:

(Thanks for the qualifications, Shmitz. Good thinking.)

That one's easy. If the 4-spacer lifted you along the W axis (that is, along the axis we don't have in 3-space), then you would disappear from our universe entirely and be detectable to us nevermore unless a 4-spacer brought you back "wdown" to the 3-space where you started. As iamafractal mentioned, because your skin only encloses you in 3D, it is highly likely at this point that all your organs would tumble out "through" (actually around) your skin and you'd die a painful death.

For the sake of argument, if we assume that doesn't happen, perceptually speaking you'd be in a real world of hurt. Once again, the key here is an analogy.

Suppose you could go and pick up Floyd the Flatlander, and rather than rotating him and replacing him in 2-space, you take them right up into 3-space, away from his entire universe/2-space/"piece of paper." Assuming (again, for the sake of argument) that his perceptual faculties still worked at all, he would see a rapidly fluxuating world full of shapes moving, deforming, and growing/shrinking for no apparent reason.

Because, you see, just because you've moved him into the 3rd dimension doesn't mean you've made him 3D. He's still 2D, and his vision is 1D (a line, remember?). So even though Flatlanders are quite adept at using distance/FOV and atmospheric perspective to understand coplanar 2D shapes with that limited vision, they have no prayer of understanding three dimensions.

For the simplest example, consider a ball that exists on our vertical axis, sitting atop the 2-space where Floyd began. Without rotating him at all, you begin to move him straight up. You can imagine what Flloyd can see by extending the XY plane of his body in all directions. Anything intersected by that plane, Floyd could see at that instant (if he looked in its direction). So what Floyd sees as you abduct him from his whole world is, first and foremost, that world blipping away instantly.

Then he would see a single point, the lowest point on the ball. But, contrary to a lifetime of experience, that point wouldn't stay that way. It would immediately jump two dimensions (points are 0D, circles are 2D) and become a circle. To Floyd, this is ludicrous. Points can't become circles on their own. It takes a whole team of engineers, any child knows that. They have to take two points and draw a line, (or ship in a prefab line) and then use that line to describe the circle as its radius. Once they have described the circle's "floor plan," notice that if they want it to be solid/filled-in/have area, they have to start building from the inside out, because once they've built the outside walls they can't reach the space enclosed within anymore. This is analogous to our building the inside parts of the building first, like the steel in skyscraper. If we tried to build from the outside in, not only would the building tumble and fall, we'd look really dumb.

Now he's seeing an object perform this complicated construction process on itself, unbidden, perfectly and smoothly growing. Then it gets worse. Just as his view passes the ball's midpoint, it starts to shrink back down to a point, and then it disappears.

In 2-space, area is analogous to 3-space's volume. So to Floyd's way of thinking, he just saw a point (a 0D object) grow immediately into a 2D object. Floyd naturally would assume that the circle is solid/filled in, that it has area, the same way we assume an object we see has volume -- and to him that would connote "2-mass" (I just made that up), which as far as Floyd is able to tell is as solid as things can ever get). It would look to him as if a huge amount of matter was being created from nothing. And then it shrunk again and disappeared, destroying all the matter that had just been created.

Needless to say, this would make NO sense to Floyd, and that's about the simplest 3D shape we got!

What would you look like to him as you lifted him? Well, he would see the fingers you're lifting him with as circles/ovoids, unconnected to each other as far as he can tell. As he was lifted past your legs he would see two mostly-circular masses whose contours seemed to undulate for no reason. When he got to crotch-level, he would see these two distinct areas merge into one (what the?!), and then that area would wiggle its contours a bit, and he'd start seeing your non-lifting arm in cross-section as a deformed circle, entirely unsure whether that part was or was not connected with your torso. From his POV, it would look completely distinct and unconnected. And so on. He'd be in a nightmare world where objects refused to hold their shape, where they popped into and out of existence, constantly changing their mass and properties.

Quote:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lwL_zi9JNkE

Simple. Understandable. Perfect.

If you are going to continue to cry "tl;dr", you are effectively just trolling, and will kill the thread. Congratulations.

#169 · January 19, 2008, 2:22 pm

JUst some stuff for people to watch if they are intreasted. I thought they were intreasting.

Carl Segan 4 Diminsons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KT4M7kiSw

Michio Kaku on String Theory 1-4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnQLsERqTIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMG7LA4R ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOzP6Xht ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du0LqsBe ... re=related

Edit: Oh snap, I didn't even see that one post that guy made of Carl Segan, my bad. Oh well, thiers a better version, for those who want to see it.

#170 · January 19, 2008, 7:00 pm

Hey I have another speculation.

What would happen if you spawn a portal on one wall and then another portal directly opposite of the first one(exactcly in front of it). Then you stand right in between the two(right in the middel of them) and then lets say the walls were to slowly move closer to each other, so they would crush you(you know some Indian Johns shit)

What would happen by the time the two portals meet with you standing inbetween them??? Both in game and in reality?