Wormhole Velocity....

[shazstar]

Hi guys...just thought of this while posting in another tech thread.

Would the velocity of a travelling wormhole be constant? Would it fluctuate? What ratio in regard to light speed (c) would be a good approximation?

Any ideas?

 

[PTeppic]

Well, we have seen that pretty much all journeys SEEM to take about the same length of time - which from the gateroom is about 5-10 seconds.

But then again, are they "travelling" at all - maybe it is just an instantaneous transportation between two points, and it is the actual disintegration and re-integration which give the appearance of travel.

[But, I think the travel in "Fifth Race" disproves the idea!]

 

[Jedispara]

Well in one they said that the speed that you enter a wormhole is the speed that you exit, and one would assume that it is the dematerlization and rematerliaztion that would take the time.

 

[PTeppic]

But, the speed through the wormhole wouldn't be affected by my theory... During the disintegration and "encoding" of the bodies data it would need to capture quantum (or sub-quantum!) information, including velocity and direction of every (insert name of very small particle here). During re-assembly, all the (insert particle name)s would have to be given the same direction and velocity again, thus maintaining the canon requirement that a person (or objects) velocity entering the wormhole is the same when the eject.

However, we ALSO have from canon information, we are given impressions of the item going through the wormhole (e.g. the MALP) being tracked in various ways. So there must be SOME velocity through the wormhole. But it is impossible to say what the velocity is - since we don't know the distance, as it crosses dimensions. Against what would the velocity be measured?

[sorry for errors, I've been at the Embassy wine cellar ]

 

[shazstar]

maybe velocity should be defined in hyper space dimensions.

 

[Ko'or Oragahn]

Hi everyone !
I'm really pleased to post here, since I've been searching for a certain amount of time a decent forum about the Stargate universe.

Btw I'm very fan of tech debates.

I have a big problem about the travel velocity.

WHen we look at the movie, Daniels passes half od his head through the gate and don't instantly start to zap to the other gate but instead has time to open his eyes. Then we see half of his head being broken dow into pieces.

Question : What if Daniel had stepped backwards ? Would have he been dead, half of his head being transported millions years away from SGC ?

I think I would have been pleased to see what happened to his hands.

Btw, if objects are being distorted through the wormhole, how can even a MALP be able to send information while travelling, and how can the traveller see what happens ? (I must guess the distorsion effect is only a visual consequence from the point of view of... of who ? the cameran man ? ).

Well anyway, despite what is shown in the movie with the MALP seemingly sending information about its localisation in space while it's travelling and Daniel's visual experience, a stargate may possibly use an instantaneous transport system, since it his not a device that teleports a whole group of material at once, but only what has passed through the "surface" of the gate.

It is not a teleport system à la Star Trek, Aschen nor Asgard. This is what I tried to point out with Daniel's head problem.

If you pass your arm through the surface, wait three or four seconds, and then move backwards, will your arm still be attached to the rest of your body or come back seconds later after recomposition and drop on the floor ? (ouch)

But if it is instantaneous, why do we see all this trip across the stars and the MALP signal transmitted to the SGC ?

:dead:

Ouch, my head hurts.

Btw, I must precise that I didn't see all the episodes, and missed pretty interesting ones, but anyway, I plan buying the movie DVD as so on for the series. Then it will be frame by fram hard analysis.

 

[PTeppic]

Originally posted by Ko'or Oragahn
Hi everyone !
I'm really pleased to post here, since I've been searching for a certain amount of time a decent forum about the Stargate universe.

Welcome...hopefully you will find we are friendly and thorough in sensible debate.

I have a big problem about the travel velocity.

WHen we look at the movie, Daniels passes half od his head through the gate and don't instantly start to zap to the other gate but instead has time to open his eyes. Then we see half of his head being broken dow into pieces.

Question : What if Daniel had stepped backwards ? Would have he been dead, half of his head being transported millions years away from SGC ?

This one may be quite easily. The gate seems to have a buffer zone within the event horizon. As objects go in they are buffered within the silvery area (as seen by Daniel in the movie) until the whole object/person is through the wormhole. THEN the decomposition occurs and transmission i.e. travel. This would be needed precisely to stop people/things being pulled apart as the front half went in before the back half.

Btw, if objects are being distorted through the wormhole, how can even a MALP be able to send information while travelling, and how can the traveller see what happens ? (I must guess the distorsion effect is only a visual consequence from the point of view of... of who ? the cameran man ? ).

I personally think this is poetic licence from before they considered the realities/technicalities. Things COULD be detected in the wormhole (and this appears to happen e.g. "incoming traveller en-route") using some sort of 2-way radar at the SGC gate. However, as you say, anything actually en-route would be incapable of such transmission.

As for view, who can possibly say what happens to the visual cortex of the brain when travelling through an artifical black-hole. I think its just significant visual licence, and heck, its looks pretty and dramatic.

But if it is instantaneous, why do we see all this trip across the stars and the MALP signal transmitted to the SGC ?

I don't think it is instantaneous. In line with the ring transport the item/person goes into the gate, gets molecularised, then beamed as a blob of energy (seen in the film, and various episodes, notably "The Devil You Know"). This beam has a fixed speed which seems quite slow by comparison to perhaps the expected one. However, since the wormhole drastically shortens the distance between the two end gates (by travelling through one or more other dimensions?) this actual speed doesn't matter!

 

[shazstar]

Welcome Ko'or Oraghan!

This one may be quite easily. The gate seems to have a buffer zone within the event horizon. As objects go in they are buffered within the silvery area (as seen by Daniel in the movie) until the whole object/person is through the wormhole. THEN the decomposition occurs and transmission i.e. travel. This would be needed precisely to stop people/things being pulled apart as the front half went in before the back half.

Raising a question here, could we say the "buffer zone", at each end of the wormhole, is the moment/period of acceleration to beyond infinite molecular speed (i.e the speed of light), that is the travelling wormhole velocity? And once the travellor reaches destination, enters the exit "buffer zone" and reintegrates as they decelerate from infinite dimensional speed?

So essentially these buffar zones are the areas where molecules are reintegrated from anti or unreal matter, into real matter and then the person/object is then travelling within "real" velocity and can exit the wormhole?

 

[Ko'or Oragahn]

Re-me.

I have a question : What do you mean by the "event horizon" ?

Anyway, the buffer zone is a great concept but in the movie we precisely saw that the gate didn't wait to have all Daniel's body and outfits in the buffer zone to start the mollecular decomposition.

Maybe the corpses are swallowed ?

 

[PTeppic]

Originally posted by Ko'or Oragahn
I have a question : What do you mean by the "event horizon" ?

Ooh - you have missed a few episodes! Including the pilot!

The "event horizon" is the liquid-effect surface of the gate when activated. Or, as Sam would say "I think you are looking at the event horizon of an artificially created worm-hole"...

 

[shazstar]

Originally posted by Ko'or Oragahn
Anyway, the buffer zone is a great concept but in the movie we precisely saw that the gate didn't wait to have all Daniel's body and outfits in the buffer zone to start the mollecular decomposition.

Maybe the corpses are swallowed ?

But the molecular decomposition is caused (theoretically) by the acceleration of matter to BEYOND light speed. In reality, we cannot travel beyond the speed of light because essentially it would cause our mass to become infinite. The wormhole, is a medium that allows for our matter to pass this limit and be integrated into something capable of hyper velocities, and then to be reintegrated to its original form. If, this is the case, then at some point in the wormhole light speed must be passed. In the movie we see this molecular deconstruction occuring in suspended animation (for lack of better wording) at the entrance to the wormhole, which to me suggests that this is the period where matter is accelerated almost instantaneously to beyond c (c=speed of light) and then in its new state, being hurtled across the galaxy to the new event horizon, where deceleration occurs at the same rate of the original acceleration, and so matter can reintegrate.

Perhaps this "buffer zone" (I don't really know what you call it) at the event horizon occurs because if acceleration to c occured slower or below a certain rate, matter would not be able to differentiate into whatever it is needed to become to travel through the gate. Also, perhaps as the matter approaches and passes c, there is a defining fail safe or something that stops half your arm being ripped off and thrown a million light years away without the rest of your body. This could actually be explained through some of the events in 48 hours, where we learn that

Spoiler

any person travelling through the gate leaves an energy signature within the gates memory. When Tealc was trapped in the wormhole, they had to try and find a way to get the original DHD from the russians so they could get the gate to redial and let Tealc through. This energy signature is perhaps taken within this so called "buffar zone" before the matter is entirely deconstructed and converted. And then when the person or object reaches the other side, reintergration can occur using this matter/energy protocol signature to reconfigure the matter exactly how it was before.

I have most likely made a few blindingly blonde and ridiculous statements or presumptions there, as I usually do.

 

[PTeppic]

[Not yet seen 48 Hours, but]

Your point is entirely valid and logical. I would imagine the biggest single reason is to stop transported things (e.g. people) being split in half during transport!!

However, there MAY be a limit. Take for example the "food stream" in S2 "Prisoners". Would that realisitically be fully buffered before transmission? It certainly doesn't need to be. At the other end, the Gate-Glider in "Into the Fire" is much larger than the normally transported item, yet it is presumably fully buffered to prevent splits and damage. So perhaps there is a size limit to the buffer, beyond which things get chunked?

 

[Ko'or Oragahn]

When I was saying swallowed, I meant that the gate literrally swallows the complete structure of an object into its buffer zone before sending it through the wormhole.

Your theory is truely good, safe the fact that the gate started to disintegrate Daniel much too early.

What happened to his bottom ?

How could he even tell to the rest of his muscles that hadn't yet passed the event horizon to continue the movement and cross the line when half of his brain was already melted into some hi level of pure energy ?

What would have happened if as near as Daniel was approaching the other gate, someone on earth decided to pul him back, or at least to pull what was left back ?

Some people may say it's due to some time distorsion, ok, but anyway, a trip through a wormhole seems to not be instantaneous.

In fact, what the movie has shown tells us that even if you're transformed into pure energy, you can still think, see and sense, as the MALP was able to send a message while he was travelling.

Things seem to be simply stretched.

What is sure is that we can't rely at all on what is shown in the show, just by the fact that the trip doesn't include the first stage, where we see this "mouth of stars" and by the other fact which is the duration which is quite the same, wherever they're going.

What bogguses me is that in the movie we see the "mouth of stars" at the beginning of the trip (which may imply some kind of acceleration) but not at the end.

If there's a slower acceleration at the beginning, I bet it's because of the safety feature.

By the way, even if it looks somehow awesome, I really dislike the pause effect. The only reason to ahve a pause would have been to wait to have solid mollecular structure, with its own velicity, enter the buffer zone before being sent.

Btw, this forces us to assume that a gate is able to send the data back before it has reached the other end of the tunnel.

 

[PTeppic]

I would suggest that the disintegration doesn't start until the object/person is FULLY within the "buffer zone", irrespective of what the SGC monitors show!

As for the stars effect during the stargate travel - just effect, since as you say the body is disassembled during travel.

I think the MALP tracking in the film is something that has not been copied in the series, and can therefore be "ignored" as a technical no-no and technically not possible. Within the series we know they can say if something is near the far-end of the wormhole, but not where in space it is. This can be done with the in-wormhole sensors. Or even, just by timing the travel time and estimating!

 

[shazstar]

Originally posted by PTeppic
I would suggest that the disintegration doesn't start until the object/person is FULLY within the "buffer zone", irrespective of what the SGC monitors show!

Or if what we see relatively is correct, then disintegration via acceleration does begin but does not pass light speed, meaning, the travel part does not begin until total molecular breakdown occurs. But I am inclined to agree with Pteppic, what we see is cool special effects!

I think the MALP tracking in the film is something that has not been copied in the series, and can therefore be "ignored" as a technical no-no and technically not possible. Within the series we know they can say if something is near the far-end of the wormhole, but not where in space it is. This can be done with the in-wormhole sensors. Or even, just by timing the travel time and estimating!

In other words, the very convenient poetic license strikes again!

 

[PTeppic]

Alas it is a fact of life, and a fait accomplit.

If the film and series differ, there is little we as fans can do about it. As suggested earlier, the best bet is pretty much ignore them and perhaps hope that the writers can think of brilliant cover-up, and will show it in a later episode. Or we can think one up for them!