this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
558 points (100.0% liked)
Memes
1357 readers
7 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Unfortunately, this isn't testable in Portal because portals can't be affixed to moving surfaces.
I would assume the people just plop out fine since they would retain their momentum (which is nil), and the portal's own momentum wouldn't be applied to them. But God damn it I wish I could just make a Portal map with a moving portal and see.
If we assume local relativity, their momentum, which would then be relative to the orange portal (the one which they will interact with), wouldn't be "nil". It is pretty clear to me that both portals have different relativities, and therefore, would clearly lead to case B.
Then I could imagine a sport where you have a racquet with a portal on it, and you swipe at a suspended ball, with a target somewhere beyond the other portal.
Think of a portal like a doorway or just a frame of one. Stepping through it seamlessly puts you on the other side. If you were standing still, and the door went around you, would any force be exerted upon you, causing you to move? That's why I think it would be A. Nothing is applying any force to you, you're just basically teleporting. You may not even actually fully emerge from the portal, being trapped on the threshold, since no force is moving you beyond the point where the two ends meet.
No, a doorway means the two portals don't move relatively to each other. Which is clearly not the case here.
Trouble is even if you could, all that would show is what would happen under the developer's implementation of the concept in their simulation, not what would happen if portals were real and you tried this which is really the spirit of the question.
EDIT: Actually mate, if you want to know what the game does with it, looks like a few people actually managed to experiment with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S85nudR6D-Y ages back. Disappointing result, again it just shows what the game would do though.