Finding the 7th chevron - did they screw up?

[Rowan]

Gate Coordinates

As a matter of fact, Daniel does mention this exact method. I believe he uses the Glactic Center as the prime point, but the coordinates are based off a 3 dimensional layout of the galatic plane: an X, Y and Z axis. Think of it as a large box that holds the universe. This box has 6 flat services or sides and they come in facing pairs: top and bottom, one set of opposite side and the last set of opposite sides. Three 'planes' as it were.

Now, I don't remember which plane comes first, but, for the sake of arguement, let's say 'X' is 'front to back', 'Y' is 'side to side' and 'Z' is 'top to bottom'.

For discussion, that would make the first two glyphs the 'starting' and 'ending' points of a line that goes directly through the center of the target planet 'front to bacl'. The second two would impale the target planet from 'side to side' and the next two hit the target planet from 'top to bottom'. Where all there line connect is your target planet. This leave the last glyph as the starting point. Travel is determined from the starting point to the target planet and is then seen as a straight line.

The shift of even one coordinate [one glyph] will have a significant effect on the way one line runs across the galactic plane and this, the exact address of the target planet.

Hope this helps.

 

[PTeppic]

a) apologies for late follow-ups

b) 1940s activiation - if even the daughter/fiancee of the two leading scientists didn't know about the successful opening of the gate, I reckon it is pretty slim anyone else would know - top secret and all that

c) in several places it is mentioned the gate uses 38 constellations (how would that work then?) as destinaton markers, with a symbolic representation of the start-point planet. So the symbols for Earth and Abydos etc. are planets, not constellations. The implication is that this is universal in the system.

So, since the gates must only use the constellations for navigation (since the universal drift changes still work), is there some super beacon system within each constellation (and how accurate would that be) or do the gates just "know" their own positions and those of the stars around them.

 

[muzungu]

Has anyone considered that the symbols on the stargate represent characters in the ancient ones language. If this were true then the symbols would simply be a three dimensional grid reference.

 

[PTeppic]

So effectively they used a visual representation of what they could see in the sky as a language? Saves all that pictographic stuff development! It would have the benefit of theoretically being transportable to other nearby worlds, since they MAY have some of the same constellations.

It is also easy to test - SGC just have to show that the location of the actual planets identified by the various glyph combinations are NOT in the locations which would occur if the constellations were used as astronomical co-ordinates points in space. And they appeared, in the film at least, to have technology that could track the wormhole "its guiding itself".

 

[ColONeil]

You know, if they did find it, it would be such a cliche and to quote Jack O'Neill "But that'd be a cliche, and you know how I feel about those, actually you do. *gives confused look*" I don't know they had many obvious cliches in the first movie don't think it would've made a difference.

 

[KernalK]

Glyphs = Actual Glyphs!

In retrospect, it seems so simple!

The glyphs bear only coincidental similarity to stellar formations (seen from Terra) and must be some kind of writing system!

Why did I not see that before?

That's it!

Kernal K

(Sorry for the long silence, RealLife is taking over!)

 

[Rowan]

Glyphs as letters

Makes perfect sense to me, Muzungu.

 

[PTeppic]

Allowing for percentage approximation for each constellation (perhaps using chi-squared or equivalent), what is the combined likelihood of all 38 destination glyphs (i.e. characters in an alien alphabet) ALL coincidentally resembling earth constellations?

Well:

if all were 99% accurate, then it would be about 2 in 3 chance.

if all were 90% accurate, it would be down to 1.8% likely

[But I am not sure this maths is right anyway]

 

[adele.s]

Sigh. I'm thinking too much...

I've been mulling this over and over... there is just no reason to need exactly six coordinates for the destination (I'm willing to accept the seventh symbol for point of origin).

From what I know (and I've only seen season 1, so please be gentle with me if I'm way off on this), the gates are supposed to create extra-dimensional wormholes between different points in 3-dimensional space. The gates do not on their own allow time travel or access to alternate realities.

Humans presently have two main systems of designating any point in 3-dimensional space, cartesian and polar coordinates.

Picture the standard stargate-address cube that keeps being drawn on whiteboards in both the movie and the TV series. That's cartesian, sometimes called rectagular coordinates. The point can be designated by values of x, y, and z along the vertical, side-to-side-horizontal, and front-to-back-horizontal axes (which are all at 90-degree angles from each other. But you don't need six points to determine the intersection, you only need three, combined with the possibility of negative values in addition to positive ones.

I have a hard time believing that a race advanced enough to build the stargates would have no concept of negative numbers...

Polar (sometimes called spherical) coordinates are slightly different from cartesian. Instead of values along orthogonal x, y, and z axes, polar coordinates are given in the form of rho, theta, and phi. Rho is the radius from the origin. Theta is the angle in degrees from the vertical, and phi is the angle in degrees around the vertical axis. There is an excellent online illustrated guide to this method at http://www.math.montana.edu/frankw/ccp/multiworld/multipleIVP/spherical/body.htm. This is the system of lattitude and longitude we use, and rho, although we don't use it, is actually the distance from the center of the earth to the point on the surface.

But it still only requires three values, not *six*.

So I gave up on that, and thought some more...

To determine a point, you can use the intersection of a pair of lines, provided that they are not identical. Any line can be given by two points. That method would result in needing *four* chevrons, better than *three* but still not *six*.

Another way to determine a line is to use the intersection of two planes, provided that they are not identical. Any plane can be given by three points...

Any point can also be determined by the intersection of a line and a plane. This is the closest I've gotten to a rationale for anything close to the six chevron system, and I'm still one short... three points to determine the plane, another two to determine the line. That's *five*.

Sigh. Going one step further, the intersection of three non-identical planes *can* be a point, but if any pair of the three planes are parallel, it's possible that the three planes wouldn't intersect at all. So although this method would provide for needing *nine* points to determine the destination point, there's no reason that such a point would even exist. And *nine* is too many, I'm trying to justify needing *six*.

Grrr.

So I'm stuck on that problem. I've got another question... for anyone with a good screen capture or photo of a stargate, can you do me a favor? Starting with a chevron lined up with the top locking V-shaped mechanism labeled as number 1, can someone please tell me the numbers of the chevrons that appear under the other six locking V-shaped mechanisms?

And another pesky question: does the stargate's chevron ring only spin in one direction, or can it spin freely both clockwise and counterclockwise? Is one direction used only for dialing out, and the other used for incoming "calls"?

Gahk. Too much thinking. Thanks for any help (or counseling) anyone can provide...
-- Adele

 

[PTeppic]

Looks at about 4, 9 and 13...

Which is perhaps understandable: each glyph is 9.23 degrees each, and there are 9 (presumably) equally spread chevrons. Which would put them at a 40 degree spread....

Or, another way, 39 glyphs divided by 9 chevrons = 4.333 glyphs per chevron.

So the maths supports the estimate from a 200x200 photo!



Of course, the locking is done per chevron, not based on relative position to the top chevron.


PS - Stuff about positions is also correct - I wondered about the need for six points the first time I saw the movie...

 

[adele.s]

More thinking...

Something just hit me about the original question of this thread... if the military groups had known that they needed to lock seven symbols, and they had the first six, then, yes, trying each of the remaining symbols should not have taken that long.

HOWEVER, until Dr. Jackson pointed out that the seventh symbol is actually below the cartouche, not it it, it is quite possible that the researchers thought they only needed to do the six, and then use their computers to somehow chart the course... so they never tried *any* combination of seven symbols until then.
-- Adele

 

[Rowan]

The last one

I think was we were seeing was a case of 'too focused syndrome', which can be found anywhere from computer science to archaeology to the military. They - the entire research team of military and civilians, were thinking 'in the box'. With the inclusion of Daniel Jackson, the original 'think out of the box' guy things took a different turn.

Also, to give points to the original decyphering team, they'd been staying the problem in the face for a long time. Jackson stepped in from the outside with no preconcived notions. that can sometimes help a lot.

 

[PTeppic]

As I have just put in another thread:

the military did not seem at all surprised about the need for a 7th (origin) glyph; the hard part seemed to be identifying it: as if they knew all along the symbol below the cartouche was the 7th, but "that symbol isn't on the device" - which would bring into play the whole "why didn't they just try all 39 symbols" argument.

Also - the dialling computer has space for 7 glyphs, even before Daniel identifies the Earth glyph as it flashes past on the monitor.

 

[KernalK]

Ahh, the Rhee'tou have been through the Tau'ri gate and told NID what to do...

 

[muzungu]

To go back to an earlier point about coordinate systems, would it be possible that The Ancients used a six dimensional system rather than the three dimensional system we use. If that is not the case then perhaps 2 numbers are needed for each coordinate.

 

[KernalK]

Maybe the Ancient's marketing team already ordered the cartouches before the tech team had finalised the co-ordiation system? :-D

(It is quite late)

Or, if we take the glyphs to be an arbitrary identification system rather than a positioning system that just happened to fit the bill once or twice, having 6 address elements vastly increases the number of possible combinations over just 3 or 4.

 

[shu_hunter]

what if they need 6 points in space because theyre just general areas? that way you'd need 6 points, because if it were just 4 it'd be too general.

never mind. those who understand my babble, good for you.

 

[PTeppic]

Originally posted by shu_hunter
what if they need 6 points in space because theyre just general areas? that way you'd need 6 points, because if it were just 4 it'd be too general.

never mind. those who understand my babble, good for you.

Four points will always give a very precise centre of location - mathematically that is how it works!

Yet bizarrely, the destination of gate travel is notoriously IN-precise. Imagine the Earth, which SG-1 gate to every episode virtually. The Earth's position changes (ignoring universal expansion) by up to 185 million miles. But the gates position is moving at 1000mph (surface rotation), 66,000mph (planetary orbit around sun), 45,000mph (solar system drift) and 375 miles per second (galaxy drift).

So how on earth does the gate know where to dial to? Because the gates themselves must have some sort of beacon saying "I am here - dial me up"!

 

[sg14ever]

I am more wondering how they knew that they needed only 7 chevrons to make is work when there are 9 on the gate!!

Did they just guess!

 

[shu_hunter]

Originally posted by PTeppic
Four points will always give a very precise centre of location - mathematically that is how it works!

Yet bizarrely, the destination of gate travel is notoriously IN-precise. Imagine the Earth, which SG-1 gate to every episode virtually. The Earth's position changes (ignoring universal expansion) by up to 185 million miles. But the gates position is moving at 1000mph (surface rotation), 66,000mph (planetary orbit around sun), 45,000mph (solar system drift) and 375 miles per second (galaxy drift).

So how on earth does the gate know where to dial to? Because the gates themselves must have some sort of beacon saying "I am here - dial me up"!

what if the outgoing stargate finds a co-ordinate in space and just tries to find a compatible stargate and establish a wormhole? if it can't, you get a busy signal or the wormhole doesn't engage, or it locks on to one and establishes.
that would support my theory that the glyphs represent rather large areas, so even with spacial drift and the rotation of the earth and the revolution around the sun and all that, you'd be able to dial in. that's also why you'd need 6 points instead of 4, because the intersections would be too inprecise without an additional line converging.

~Shu Hunter
:upto: stargate fan{atic}