Portal A & B question (maybe a paradox)

[JoseAriza]

This question comes from a doubt i had while playing the popular puzzle game Portal.

1-Lets say hypothetically that we have portals, and we can move them around freely. We have portal A & B. When you enter portal A you come out through portal B and vise versa. In the case of being placed between both portal A & B and having the portals move towards each other from the same distance, at the same speed what will happen to you when both portals press together with yourself in the middle?

2-If you place two portals un directly above and one directly below then you insert a metal bar
and you burn the the top part of the metal bar together with the lower part and let go. What will happen?

3-If you place two portals un directly above and one directly below and then you jump into the one below and come out from the one above, you will be falling infinitly, is this true? Or will there be no gravity in that area since directly below you have a portal not the gravity of earth.

Hope there are some real answers to this questions, excuse me if there are any mistakes but I am not a physisist or anything i I am just curious!

Thanks! :)

 

[micromass]

Well, since portals don't exist (and probably never will) we can't answer your question. We can philosophize days and weeks over it, but this would be meaningless as it would not give us an answer.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Oh God not again! When portal 2 first came out we had multiple threads discussing the physics and paradoxes of it. What micro says is absolutely true, it's completely meaningless to pose a question like this. You are basically saying "assume the laws of physics didn't apply, what would the laws of physics say about such a situation?"

Honestly, you might as well ask "hypothetically if Harry Potter tried to disparated into a solid object what would happen?"

 

[JoseAriza]

This is not rude in any way i mean it! :) Thats why i said "hypothetically" :P

hypothetically: supposed but not real or true

 

[JoseAriza]

Thanks could you link me those other forums please! Thanks a lot!

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is not rude in any way i mean it! :) Thats why i said "hypothetically" :P

hypothetically: supposed but not real or true

Don't worry no one thought you were being rude and no one was trying to be rude to you. If you post a hypothetical question about an impossible/physics defying thing then your answer is going to be neither "real or true". I refer you again to my Harry Potter example.

 

[micromass]

This is not rude in any way i mean it! :) Thats why i said "hypothetically" :P

hypothetically: supposed but not real or true

I know you say "hypothetically", but still the question remains meaningless. There are no portals, so we just don't know how they work and what would happen.

Science is entirely based on experiments. We make predictions and then do the experiment. This is why science cannot talk about things that do not exist: we cannot do experiments on them. So your question cannot be handled by science, but merely by philosophy (who love these kinds of useless questions).

 

[micromass]

3-If you place two portals un directly above and one directly below and then you jump into the one below and come out from the one above, you will be falling infinitly, is this true? Or will there be no gravity in that area since directly below you have a portal not the gravity of earth.

This can actually be tried out in the game. If you do that, then you seem to fall forever.

But again, discussing what would happen in real life is meaningless.

 

[JoseAriza]

Thanks again Ryan, and micromass chill man its just a question! No need for that stupid question stuff there. :P

 

[micromass]

Thanks again Ryan, and micromass chill man its just a question! No need for that stupid question stuff there. :P

I am chill

And I do not consider it a "stupid" question. I consider it a meaningless question: we will never know an answer for certain.

I didn't want to be aggressive or anything Don't worry!

 

[JoseAriza]

Yeah I've tried it in the game but you just keep on falling, as you said i was wondering if that would really happen.

Cool no problem!

 

[Evo]

This thread has been answered.