Comment on Which is it Lemmy?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 days agoRegardless 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 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.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sure, because the portal is affixed to the piston, but you should note that the portal is not affixed to the box. The box doesn’t interact with the piston, or the portal, in the same way it doesn’t interact with a hoola-hoop that is passed around it.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
If the box enters the portal at a certain rate, it has to exit the portal at the same rate. Unless there’s relatively involved, that has to be true and everything else follows.
How is the portal affixed to the piston? Whatever made up system that affixes the portal to the piston would also allow it to interact with the box.
The box has to exit at the same rate it enters and the law of conservation of mass and energy dictates that no new energy is created and it has to come from somewhere. If there is no way for the energy to be transferred from the portal to the box, then simply, portals cannot exist.