Speculation with portals
Sure does. 
I think we have discussed the current topic throughout now.
First new portal speculation topic anyone can come up with will be the new topic.
What if Portals were volumetric entities instead of planar? Ie. portals would connect two (identically sized) volumes to eachother instead of two (identically sized) planar sections.
As the simplest example consider a cube portal. Would this in any way be distinguishable from 6 square portals aligned on the sides of the cube and connected just right?
As the simplest example consider a cube portal. Would this in any way be distinguishable from 6 square portals aligned on the sides of the cube and connected just right?
Ooooooooooh. I'll have to think about this for a while before I type another word.
Would this function as if you entered the cube from one the top you exited the other cube from the bottom?
You have to explain your idea better, I'm afraid.
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.
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.
it is easy to see when a portal is generated, it pushes aside the part of the universe it is appearing in, crushing it right against its event horizon, at the edge of the portal. all matter returns to normal, unharmed and undamaged, once the portal closes. from the standpoint of a chunk of wall where a portal is formed, i would believe it does not appear to experience anything at all happening to it.
as for other movable portals, i would have to point out that there are the "holes" in bugs bunny and road runner cartoons... and you can't forget the hole in me pocket in yellow submarine.
i always thought that if portal technology would get to be more commonplace, you'd find nanoportals used for computers, microportals used in food dispensers and weapons, portals for fountains and bathrooms. and quite a few other things besides simple transportation. *doesn't look back up at what he has just typed & hopes it made sense*
The cake is a PI
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Exactly, and thats all i really have to add at this point, lol....
As the simplest example consider a cube portal. Would this in any way be distinguishable from 6 square portals aligned on the sides of the cube and connected just right?
I think I've got it figured out, but I'm too tired to write it up now. Also I think this one could really use some diagrams.
For the time being, suffice to say that the two scenarios you propose above are very different. Just on a formal level, we can see that they are completely dissimilar:
The arrangement of six 2D portals is three separate but adjacent "folds," each one a folding of 3-space through 4-space. All the folds themselves (the portals), as we have discussed, are two-dimensional.
The volumetric 3D portal, by contrast, is -- I think, but I'm not sure -- a single fold of a 4-space manifold of which our entire 3D universe is a subset. If that's correct, it is being folded through 5-space, and the portals themselves are three-dimensional, as we would expect (and as posited in the question).
I'll post about their different behaviors tomorrow, after I've had time to Photoshop up some simple drawings.
Remember back to HL2. Kleiner's teleport. Anything in the machine's teleport field will be teleported when the portal is activated. However, this one is always active. Remember what would happen to Barney is he had jumped into the field. He would have died instantly, and I suspect that is what will happen here too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU1fixMAObI
It explains dimension in terms most people can comprehend.
It's about 12 minutes long, but easly worth the watch.
Youtube says so 
It's on the internet, so it must be true!