I think you’d be able to get it in a little ways before top of the box pushes against its own lid, preventing it from going in any further. If the lid pops back open, then the top of the box will begin sticking out of the box which will likely make it too wide to fit all the way through the wall portal.
But the rules of Portal is that the portals themselves break when moved by any substantial extent anyways so in the game it would just disable the portal altogether.
But the rules of Portal is that the portals themselves break when moved by any substantial extent anyways
It’s the scene with the lasers innit? So many “paradoxes” are solved with the answer of “portals cannot move relative to one another,” and then they do the bit with the laser. -_-
The thing is, movement is relative. Everything on earth is constantly in motion if you’re observing from any other celestial body, so motion itself can’t be what breaks portals. What it might be, though, is acceleration. Those panels in the video seem to be moving at a constant speed, so aren’t experiencing any substantial acceleration, making a portal on them possible
you can say they cant move ‘relative to each other’, but what about the universe supposedly expanding?
The same reason the Earth or your body isn’t expanding along with the universe - gravity is stronger than the expansion rate
They can move at a constant speed in a constant direction, but the acceleration would break them.
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You can pass two 2d ovals through each other in a 3D space no problem if they’re exactly the same size.
Yes, but can you maintain the property that each point on the orange portal is connected to a point on the blue portal and vice versa? My intuition is that you’d end up with a paradox because you’d end up with a point on one portal connected to two different points on the other, but my analytic geometry skills aren’t good enough for me to attempt a proof.
Not sure I’m following. If the portals are exactly the same size, and stay that size, then why would you have to connect one point on one to two points on the other?
Consider these two pixel-oval portals:
xx oo x x o o x x o o x x o o x x o o xx ooThey are the same size, and you can easily make a bijective mapping for each of their pixels.
Rotate one two times in 3D space by 90°, and it fits through the other. If you want more wiggle room, make them taller.
Heres an answer from minutephysics
I guess the question becomes if one portal is in a box, what happens to the box? Does the whole process just get blocked after the first few inches as the outside of the box collides with the inside; does it push itself open; do the portals just slice though and turn the pieces of box in the way into confetti?
Just came here to check whether someone already posted the minutephysics video.
I think their explanation is rather good for passing portals through themselves. The box doesn’t add much to the equation: it is just physical objects smashed into eachother…
I love that video.
Can’t move portals.
Of course you can. They’re on moon rock. There are a few puzzles with moving platforms with portals.
You can’t place a portal on anything the game physics would allow to go through another portal.
Yeah but that’s by game design, not internal world logic.
Theoretically you can if they’re moving in a constant direction at a constant speed a la an inertial frame.
That doesn’t work because gravity makes the game’s reference frame non-inertial. One of the big takeaways of general relativity is that idea a reference frame that’s inertial except for gravity is meaningless. Even ignoring relativity, everything is subjected to centripetal acceleration due to the Earth’s rotation (and the story canonically takes place on Earth).
I think the real answer is probably the least satisfying: the game’s physics just don’t correspond to real physics. Most portals appear to exist in a privileged reference frame that can be said to be motionless, but even that isn’t the real rule; the real rule is that portals can exist where the level designers want to allow them to exist. They try to make it feel like there’s a certain logic behind it, but they’ll bend the rules as necessary to make a cool puzzle work, and they keep the everything consistent within a single puzzle, but some subtleties of how portals appear to work are subject to change between puzzles.
Except that one time in Portal 2.
When you cut the tubes to the big gas chambery thing.
Box moves 1 inch and the portal poofs due to an unstable surface.
This always bothers me when people argue what would happen if you pushed Portal portals into each other. You can’t. The moment the surface moves, it’s unstable and the portal pops. They’re quite specific about this in the games.
They have a flag to disable that specific behaviour for that specific scene IIRC.
It’s still canon, no?
In this case, the portals are only moving in planes parallel to each other, so there is no stability introduced.
Portal surfaces can move. By nature everything is moving, we just happen to be in the same frame of reference.
Regardless, here is a video of a portal on a moving surface from portal 2. https://youtu.be/OrAHvenjZpA?si=VY5dRvUP8_LPgOPO (around the 1 minute mark)
Additionally shooting a portal on the moon also demonstrates that movement is allowed (since the moon is in a non synchronous orbit)
So how do you find a box that can fit a blue portal inside, but also itself fits through the orange portal; given that both portals are equal in size?
Turn it
Duh, that makes sense
Pivot
Move it really fast and let relativity do the rest
That’s only in direction of motion. The height still won’t fit. Of course, all hell breaks loose if they touch even if they don’t pass all the way through.
It would repel or bounce the box as each portal acts as opposite like magnets.
Is their anything that can escape the “self referential” paradox?
Gödel and Russell would be very pleased. Or maybe dismayed. I’m not sure how they felt about their discoveries.
it just turns the cosmos inside out like a sock . Don’t do it.
I just assume as soon as one touches the other they fizzle out. I guess the top of the box gets cut a bit.
It’s like folding space. They basically occupy the same location. Its just two “sides” of a 2D plane. The portal can’t go into itself.
Worst case if it can it’s like bottle so they just flip positions and the whole thing reverses and the box just comes right out and the colors swap.
Nothing crazy.
It will hit the lid
you open a rift to the astral plane.
The result is a box with a portal in it, in a box with an portal in it, in a box with an portal in it, in a box with an portal in it…∞
You cant move surfaces with Portals on them
Explosion :P
Should have used circles, like a manhole cover
