As the cube enters the portal, it will take on energy from the piston
Why would it take the energy of the piston? It never interacts with the piston at all.
Comment on Which is it Lemmy?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 4 days ago
B.
As the cube enters the portal, it will take on energy from the piston, slowing the piston down in the process, and that energy will propel it out. If it enters the portal fast, it has to exit the portal fast.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Regardless of the how the portal works, if the cube enters the portal at a certain rate, it has to exit the portal at the same rate and everything else has to follow.
The cube doesn’t interact with the piston, but it does interact with the portal and the portal is fixed to the piston. The same way that when I hit a nail with a hammer, I feel the resistance of the nail though the hammer handle. I don’t touch the nail, but the force is transferred through the hammer and in the hypothetical, the force would be transferred to the portal.
The hypothetical does not bring up the possibility that the portal has infinite sharpness at it’s edges and would cut though the piston head or the possibility that relativity is somehow involved and would allow the cube to exit the portal at a different rate that it enters. Wormholes moving at different rates is a theoretical form of time travel, but not at these speeds.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The cube doesn’t interact with the piston, but it does interact with the portal and the portal is fixed to the piston.
The portal isn’t an object, the cube doesn’t interact with it either. Saying you interact with the portal is the same as saying the hole in a lasso is an object that you interact with.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
If the portal is being pushed down by the piston, that means it interacts with piston. A portal isn’t a lasso because lasso’s exist and have known rules to them. The only things we can know about portals is what’s presented in the hypothetical.
BitUnWise@programming.dev 3 days ago
It pushes off of the bottom platform, the cube accelerates by pushing off of itself (if it didn’t it would flatten into a pancake). And because there’s a downward force on the bottom of the cube it pushes down on the platform
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m not sure what you’re saying. You mean the piston and portal would compress the platform? Even if that’s the case, that still means force is being transferred through the portal.
BitUnWise@programming.dev 3 days ago
The momentum the cube gains comes from the platform. The piston “can’t tell” the cube is there, it experiences the same forces if the cube is there or not