Speculation with portals
--Source
Paul's question is what travels faster than light? Your answer is tachyons. Tachyons are by definition particles that travel faster than light. Your answer is tautological. Also, attempting to cite a hypothetical type of particle is ... unhelpful.
Likewise with the "negative mass" business.Combining Paul's well-written description above, any object with negative mass would also have negative energy and therefore be in negative motion. The only logical (this being abstract inductive logic) thing that something with negative mass could do with relationship to the speed of light is to therefore approach the negative speed of light, which would require infinitely much "negative" energy, and we're back where we started.
Hooray for bringing up topics on the first page, but I have something to say.
This is a perfectly legitimate analogy.
If you were a 1-dimensional object, you wouldn't understand the 2nd dimension. You would only know forward and backward.
If you were a 2-dimensional object, you wouldn't understand the 3rd dimension. You would only know forward, backward, left, and right.
If you were a 3-dimensional object (and we are), you wouldn't understand the 4th dimension (and we don't.)
Back to the paper. If you were a 1-dimensional object on a line, and someone in the 2nd dimension that you are not aware of bent your line in a circle, you wouldn't be able to tell. You would reach where the end of your line used to be, and then appear back at the beginning of the line.
Same thing goes for a 3 dimensional object (us) rolling a paper (the 2D mongrels) into a roll, and they can't tell. Remember, they can't look up to see that their paper has been rolled, they only know forward, backward, left, and right.
So, when a portal is placed, I understand it to be in the same manner as above: that it is deforming in the 4th dimension in a way that we can't detect.
This is a perfectly legitimate analogy.
If you were a 1-dimensional object, you wouldn't understand the 2nd dimension. You would only know forward and backward.
If you were a 2-dimensional object, you wouldn't understand the 3rd dimension. You would only know forward, backward, left, and right.
If you were a 3-dimensional object (and we are), you wouldn't understand the 4th dimension (and we don't.)
Back to the paper. If you were a 1-dimensional object on a line, and someone in the 2nd dimension that you are not aware of bent your line in a circle, you wouldn't be able to tell. You would reach where the end of your line used to be, and then appear back at the beginning of the line.
Same thing goes for a 3 dimensional object (us) rolling a paper (the 2D mongrels) into a roll, and they can't tell. Remember, they can't look up to see that their paper has been rolled, they only know forward, backward, left, and right.
So, when a portal is placed, I understand it to be in the same manner as above: that it is deforming in the 4th dimension in a way that we can't detect.
This is actually completely false. The 4th dimension does not cover geometry, but time. The 10 dimensions we are aware of are as follows:
1-3 - Geometry
4-6 - Time
7-9 - Infinity
10 - All possibilities are contained here.
Therefore, if, as you say, a portal bends the world through the forth dimension, you would enter and exit the portals at different points in time. This only applies if the portals at hand are time or space-time, but not if they are space only.
Stop! Stop! Stop!
This thread is horribly off topic! Sure discussing relativity is fine, but we're no longer linking it back to portals.
Remember: this thread is about portals in strange real life situations
4-6 - Time
7-9 - Infinity
10 - All possibilities are contained here.
Three dimensions dedicated to time?
And doesn't three dimensions of infinity kind of overdo it? Then, on top of that, the tenth is "All possibilities", which I expect to be contained within infinity, especially if there are three of them...
For those who are wondering what is a portal into another in Portal, here's a picture.
I can't do moving portals.
Author of Minecraft mods (MAtmos, Minaptics, NoteSlider) and Garry's Mod addons (Gunstrumental, SharpeYe, GarryWare, DepthHUD).
And doesn't three dimensions of infinity kind of overdo it? Then, on top of that, the tenth is "All possibilities", which I expect to be contained within infinity, especially if there are three of them...
http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php
Watch this video. It explains it very well.
WARNING: Super-duper-ultra-long Post! Grab a beer and get comfortable, if you please.
This is a perfectly legitimate analogy. ...
Back to the paper. If you were a 1-dimensional object on a line, and someone in the 2nd dimension that you are not aware of bent your line in a circle, you wouldn't be able to tell. ...
Same thing goes for a 3 dimensional object (us) rolling a paper (the 2D mongrels) into a roll, and they can't tell. ...
So, when a portal is placed, I understand it to be in the same manner as above: that it is deforming in the 4th dimension in a way that we can't detect.
You're absolutely right. I stand corrected. The analogy is sound.
However, the writer of that post then goes on to say:
.
The paper would fold around itself so much that it becomes an invisible blip of existance.
None of these statements is demonstrable from the analogy. If you reread the post carefully, the analogy is actually a red herring (not at all saying this was done on purpose, just talking logical content). After spending a while explaining the paper-folding analogy, all of which is fine (as Volt just pointed out to me), at the end the post suddenly states these conclusions using the same words/elements of the analogy, but without demonstrating any connection at all.
If one does try to extend the analogy, it goes something like this. (WARNING: Super-long. You called down the Thunder, well now you've got it.)
1. Portals deform space in a way not observable in Euclidean 3-space, the same way we can easily deform a piece of paper in a way that would be undetectable to a 2D being living "in" the 2-space of the paper.
2. When you fold a piece of paper, the fold forms a line. We know this already, but let's put it in the terms of our discussion: Folding a 2-space through 3-space requires a one-dimensional fold.
3. Then by analogy, we can say that folding a 3-space through 4-space requires a two-dimensional fold, and indeed that's exactly what portals are.
Now, here's where it gets interesting:
A. If you take that piece of paper and you want to fold it through 3-space again such that the original fold touches itself, you certainly can. You take that already-folded 2-space and fold it through the third dimension at an angle exactly perpendicular to the first fold.
(Before I go on to the next part, you might want to actually take a piece of paper and fold it in fourths. Fold in half along one axis, then the perpendicular axis. Paper has thickness of course, but it's just for visualization anyway. I know this seems retarded, but trust me, it will really help towards the end of this exercise. Use up 1 sheet of paper, ya cheap bastard. 
When the paper is folded up, that is our view of the manifold in 3-space; you can mark the positions of objects on the manifold with some thick marker that will bleed through the paper, then unfold the paper for the 2D "local" view.)
B. If we had a real 2-space with no thickness, when we fold it the first time, any areas that "overlap" (kind of a misnomer in this case) actually occupy the same 2D space simultaneously.
C. When we fold the 2-space the second time, you will see that our new 2-space manifold is four "layers deep." But again, with an ideal 2D plane that has no thickness, saying it's "four layers deep" really makes no sense because it's four layers of depth 0. What this means from the local persepctive "inside" that 2-space is that now four places that had been distant and separate now literally occupy the same space simultaneously.
D. So if you were a Flatlander living in this manifold, you would notice lots of totally bizarre phenomena, but it wouldn't tear asunder the fabric of your reality. You just wouldn't be able to perceive what was happening in a way that made sense.
For example: Under "normal" 2-space conditions, before any folding through the third dimension has occured, a circle on that 2D plane would look, from the perspective of a Flatlander there, just like a line. That is, a 1D shape. But in fact everything a Flatlander sees looks like a line, albeit with varying properties. Obviously closer objects would take up more of the observer's field of view and would therefore appear larger, just as in our universe. Perhaps they would also have some form of 2D atmospheric perspective, so that things that are further away would appear as less clear or less vibrant/color-saturated. That's about the extent of what they could see.
So what would appear to us as a circle, looking down on the 2-space, would appear to a Flatlander as a line of a certain size, slightly darker or more solid in the middle and fainter or just a bit more washed-out towards its ends. A Flatlander would be well familiar with that view, and would know immediately that the object is a circle that he can move around.
Okay. After the first fold, our Flatlander (let's call him Floyd) would see the circle in two spots simultaneously, and in fact it would be in two places simultaneously. Floyd could approach either one, and it would be there, real and solid. If he moved either one, he'd also be moving the other.
And in fact, because Floyd occupies the same 2-space as the circle, he himself would be in two places at once all the time (at least at every location where the fold causes the original plane to overlap -- if you don't fold the plane exactly in half, there will be some unaffected areas).
[I want to stop here for a second and point out that the 3-space analogy of this part of the excercise is actually easily observable in Portal. Place both portals on the same wall, right next to each other, and slowly walk sideways through either portal, looking in the direction of the other. When you're halfway through, stop. There are now literally two Chells. The one that exists at the POV being shown to you the player, and the one you see in front of you. Neither one is at all illusory. If you throw an object or shoot at any part of the doppelganger, you'd hit it (and simultaneously hit yourself).]
After the second fold, both the circle and Floyd would literally exist in four places simultaneously whenever they are located in the manifold in a place where the original layers overlap.
(We're almost home, I promise.)
But notice that, as soon as any part of Floyd (or any other object in Flatland) touches the fold itself, it no longer occupies multiple distant locations at once. Rather, because of extreme proximity to the fold, Floyd's body starts overlapping itself, and two different parts of his 2D anatomy now occupy literally the same place. (Whether this would kill him is a matter for the doctors of Flatland to discover. It is more a function of the life requirements of these hypothetical 2D people than it is a function of the space itself. So unfortunately we can't reason by analogy on that point.)
After two folds have been applied to the space, here's what happens. Floyd stands near, but not touching either fold. Any local 2D observer, let's say his wife Flavia, would actually see four Floyds in different places, all mirroring each others' movements exactly.
Now say that Floyd moves towards the convergence of both folds, and stops when the single point that contains both folds is directly in the center of his body. What would Flavia (actually four Flavias) see? She would see the four Floyds move towards each other and then apparently inside one another as they touched the folds. Once he was centered and positioned, Flavia would see Floyd in only one location, (in fact four Flavias would be surrounding a single Floyd at this time) but he still wouldn't look normal. She would observe all four sides of him from any one side simultaneously. He would be a ka-Floyd-oscope (kaleidoscope).
Now, FINALLY, we are able to reason by analogy to see what that phenomenon would look like in 3-space. Basically, if you had a portal-in-portal situation -- which is analogous to the point on our paper where the two folds intersect -- and Chell approached that manifold (portal?), as soon as she reached the area where the folds cause 3-space to overlap itself (in other words, as soon as she touches the portal), an outside observer would begin to see her from four complementary angles at once, these apparent "copies" of her body all occupying the same space simultaneously. She would look like a Chelleidoscope.
Again, whether this would kill her is not something we can discover by analogous reasoning, so I leave that open to debate.
If you read all this, thank you and congratulations. You don't have ADHD. Get yourself a slice of cake and a nice frosty glass of milk. It is good for you.
Ok so I think we can all agree that portals in portals would melt our minds if it were posible.
How about some other portal speculation?
The flatlanders, you took that from a video, right? I remember seeing it