this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Portal would fail due to being placed on moving object
The world is moving, checkmate.
It's all relative.
Tell that to einstein
Oh wait
I would imagine that the relative motion between the entry/exit portal would be more important than the absolute motion of the two portals.
Portal 2 ends with you (Chell) placing a entry portal on Earth vs an exit portal on the Moon.
That means the portals were ~2236 mph (aka Mach3) relative to each other.
Hmm well if an object passed through that portal and it wasn’t moving ~2236mph relative to the surface of the moon, then I guess the question from the OP has been answered already haha.
Wouldn't that provoke all air in the Earth to get sucked to the Moon due to the difference in atmospheric pressure?
Vacuum doesn't suck. The atmosphere on Earth would push air through the portal with a pressure of about 1 bar.
Yes, but the flow rate is only so much. It was only open for a short time before Glados closed it.
So if portals didn't have a distance maximum, assuming that they twist through some higher dimension or into an alternate universe and back or something like that, it would make sense that you could open a portal on Earth and on Mars and anything you push through that portal would maintain its velocity relative to Earth.
Which could result in some hilarious events where things basically detonate the instant they are pushed through as they are slammed into the surface of Mars at potentially ten of thousands of miles an hour depending on the Earths and Mars' relative velocities.
Despite that, there would also undoubtedly be times where their velocities synchronize due to their varying rotational locations and orbital velocities around the solar system, during which times you could conceivably quite easily step from Earth to Mars in a single go.
The safe thing to do though would be to decant from the Earth into a portal that is in orbit around Mars far enough away that at the worst you would experience some relatively gentle abrasion from the smattering of hydrogen atoms in the space surrounding Mars and then parachute down from orbit.
Except for that one section in Portal 2 /s
Why the
/s?It's true. Obviously it makes for simpler puzzle design plus was easier to ignore the full capability (even the version in 2 seems to just work enough to allow the set-piece), so it seems silly to use developer limitation as a gotcha.