Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[Stuart Mackey]

Hrm... I wonder how impressive it'll be. I mean, if Sodom And Gamorrah were "big citadels" back in the day, today they would probably be the equivalent of... a small town?

Maybe this great smiting might end up being less damaging than a B-52 bombing run, for all we know. All the melodramatic buildup, and then *poot*

I dont get the 'must nuke' bit. I would think that the response would be proportionate to the damage inflicted: If its of nuke level then have someone ride The Bomb' down by all means, but if not then appropriate conventional response. We must also remember the as yet unengaged forces of Heaven, do we wish to let all of our capabilities be know so soon when we are not aware of what the forces on the second front are capable of?

[kdahm(the same one)]

On nm vs NM vs nmi vs Nm

It doesn't matter. Context is everything. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least six different definitions for a lower case rho, and three of them are for suface and colloid chemistry.

If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

On portals:

I don't like the statement that it takes at most milliseconds to pass through, because that makes the math hideous. Either the portal is instantaneous, from the 3-space perspective of the object passing through, or it takes a variable amount of time depending on some parameter we don't know yet. Either way makes it easier to figger.

For example, what happens when a nuclear device is initiated just before entering the portal, or just after. The reaction happen on the order of nanoseconds (0.1 shakes), so the device is either in the middle of the reaction, or already out of the reaction when it comes out the other side. That could make a big difference in the reaction of the portal.

Sodom and Gomorrah:

BAsed on biblical accounts, think about a rain of suphur and brimstone - basically, large pieces of molten and semi-molten igneous rock. The direct death toll should actually be fairly low due to the protection of modern structures and modern firefighting techniques. Large economic impacts and significant damage to structures over an area, but probably closer to the scale of a Northridge or Kyoto earthquake rather than a targeteered laydown pattern. Think about the difference between randomly bombing a city vs dropping things where they will do the most damage.

Flows of lava or hot, steaming mud are unlikely to start with. To the primitives, those would be routine dangers instead of mysterious Wrath of God type attacks. Besides, they are fairly easy to defend against - slow moving, large, huigh energy. Basically, get the people out of the way and chennel it where it won't do as much damage.

[Starglider]

I don't like the statement that it takes at most milliseconds to pass through, because that makes the math hideous.

The essential reason the crossing time should be very low is because interdimensional space is likely to be a very hostile environment (specifically, exposing a 3d object to a multidimensional vacuum is likely to result in the rapid freezing and/or disintigation of said object).

Either the portal is instantaneous, from the 3-space perspective of the object passing through, or it takes a variable amount of time depending on some parameter we don't know yet.

The time taken to cross the portal is determined by roughly the same factors that determine the time taken for a cannonball dropped on the moon to hit the ground; the strength of the attractive force and the distance it has to fall. The latter is constant for any pair of planes, but may vary between say earth<->heaven and earth<->hell, though not perceptibly. The former may vary depending on the size of the portal and the entry point, but again not perceptibly.

For example, what happens when a nuclear device is initiated just before entering the portal, or just after.

In transit, the reaction will almost certainly fizzle due to the neutrons (and other radiation) escaping into extradimensional space. According to Dr Kuroneko, the portal is a seven dimensional structure, which may imply that radiative power drops off as the sixth power of distance instead of the second power. There seems to be an energy threshold for this, which results in light (and most likely neutrons) escaping 3d confinement but molecular bonds not breaking down in (a brief) transit.

Set it off just before or just after the transition (but still within a portal mouth) and you would get the same results you would get if the portal wasn't there, minus something like 25% of the yield due to energy escaping through the portal mouth into extradimensional space before it is disrupted.

That could make a big difference in the reaction of the portal.

The only thing that can affect the portal structure itself is EM radiation. Dr Kuroneko's simulation indicated that intense broad-spectrum radiation (i.e. the x-rays from a nuclear initiation) can disrupt the 'coherence' effect that creates the portal endpoints (until it is re-established by the dark energy flow). A result of this is that if you initiate a nuclear bomb on one side of the portal, relatively little in the way of blast and virtually nothing in the way of radiation will make it to the other side, because the portal mouth will rapidly disappear and the radiation will leak off into extradimensional space (just like light). However the only thing that can affect the portal structure itself is microwave radiation; for some undisclosed reason the strange matter torus isn't interactive with other energy levels.

[Darth Wong]

On nm vs NM vs nmi vs Nm

It doesn't matter. Context is everything. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least six different definitions for a lower case rho, and three of them are for suface and colloid chemistry.

If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because this is not professional work, not because it's actually OK to use the wrong units in science and engineering. In an English literature document, you can get a letter out of place and it doesn't matter, as long as you can figure it out from context. In science and engineering, you're not allowed to carelessly use a wrong letter or number, any more than you are allowed to carelessly mix up variables when you write a computer program.

On portals:

I don't like the statement that it takes at most milliseconds to pass through, because that makes the math hideous. Either the portal is instantaneous, from the 3-space perspective of the object passing through, or it takes a variable amount of time depending on some parameter we don't know yet. Either way makes it easier to figger.

Why does it necessarily make the math hideous? We don't know any of the characteristics of travel through these extra dimensions yet. If the gap is large, maybe you just spin out into these other dimensions and are lost forever, so no one would ever make a portal with a large gap.

For example, what happens when a nuclear device is initiated just before entering the portal, or just after. The reaction happen on the order of nanoseconds (0.1 shakes), so the device is either in the middle of the reaction, or already out of the reaction when it comes out the other side. That could make a big difference in the reaction of the portal.

Why would someone set a nuke to detonate milliseconds after putting it through a portal?

Sodom and Gomorrah:

Based on biblical accounts, think about a rain of suphur and brimstone - basically, large pieces of molten and semi-molten igneous rock. The direct death toll should actually be fairly low due to the protection of modern structures and modern firefighting techniques. Large economic impacts and significant damage to structures over an area, but probably closer to the scale of a Northridge or Kyoto earthquake rather than a targeteered laydown pattern. Think about the difference between randomly bombing a city vs dropping things where they will do the most damage.

Flows of lava or hot, steaming mud are unlikely to start with. To the primitives, those would be routine dangers instead of mysterious Wrath of God type attacks. Besides, they are fairly easy to defend against - slow moving, large, huigh energy. Basically, get the people out of the way and chennel it where it won't do as much damage.

To primitives, HAILSTONES were considered mysterious Wrath of God type attacks. Hailstones are even mentioned as a weapon of divine warfare in the Old Testament, which gives us an idea of how easily these people were impressed. I think these angels and demons simply operate on a much lower level of destructive power than we expect, because a cataclysmic strike in 1000 BC was really not that hard to achieve.

[Darth Wong]

Well, it all depends on speed and volume. A hundred-foot-wide hole in the sky at the bottom of a lava flow will deliver differently than a hundred-yard hole 200 feet under an ocean of lava. We can mitigate the damage, true, we've been doing it in Hawaii for years. But the city that's targeted is going to be a loss. Heck, what if they filled San Francisco Bay with lava? Or the Chesepeake? How badly would that screw us up?

How are they going to open up a portal at the bottom of an ocean of lava? Unless they have some new powers we're not aware of, it seems that they must be fairly close to the portal in order to open it. So unless they can swim in lava without injury, they're not going to be able to dive to the bottom of a large pool of it and open a portal.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Well, it all depends on speed and volume. A hundred-foot-wide hole in the sky at the bottom of a lava flow will deliver differently than a hundred-yard hole 200 feet under an ocean of lava. We can mitigate the damage, true, we've been doing it in Hawaii for years. But the city that's targeted is going to be a loss. Heck, what if they filled San Francisco Bay with lava? Or the Chesepeake? How badly would that screw us up?

How are they going to open up a portal at the bottom of an ocean of lava? Unless they have some new powers we're not aware of, it seems that they must be fairly close to the portal in order to open it. So unless they can swim in lava without injury, they're not going to be able to dive to the bottom of a large pool of it and open a portal.

I really wouldn't be surprised if demons could survive in lava, given how they've adapted to the environment of hell. Nagas, in addition, are a completely unknown subspecies.

[kdahm(the same one)]

It doesn't matter because this is not professional work, not because it's actually OK to use the wrong units in science and engineering. In an English literature document, you can get a letter out of place and it doesn't matter, as long as you can figure it out from context. In science and engineering, you're not allowed to carelessly use a wrong letter or number, any more than you are allowed to carelessly mix up variables when you write a computer program.

It's still a matter of context. There are only a limited number of two and three letter combinations, and it's inevitable that the ones used in one field will overlap with those in another. For example, writing that my car has a range of 375mi clearly means that it can travel 375 miles rather than 375 milli-inches. The use of "nm" to mean nautical miles has a history of close to a century, as my copy of 1914 Jane's Ships uses that abbreviation.

To claim otherwise is shear pedantry.

Do you use lbs(m), lbs(f), or slugs? I use all of the above, where appropriate. Does "c" to you mean couloumbs, the speed of light, a coefficient, or something else? Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nm for a short list of things "nm" can stand for.

Carelessly, nothing. Use the units and symbols appropriate for the problem, be consistent about your use of them, and know the accepted abbreviations for the field.

And yes, on occasion I do have tendencies to be pedantic.

[Darth Wong]

It doesn't matter because this is not professional work, not because it's actually OK to use the wrong units in science and engineering. In an English literature document, you can get a letter out of place and it doesn't matter, as long as you can figure it out from context. In science and engineering, you're not allowed to carelessly use a wrong letter or number, any more than you are allowed to carelessly mix up variables when you write a computer program.

It's still a matter of context. There are only a limited number of two and three letter combinations, and it's inevitable that the ones used in one field will overlap with those in another. For example, writing that my car has a range of 375mi clearly means that it can travel 375 miles rather than 375 milli-inches. The use of "nm" to mean nautical miles has a history of close to a century, as my copy of 1914 Jane's Ships uses that abbreviation.

Why the fuck would I care that a catalog book uses that abbreviation? What does that have to do with scientific and engineering work?

To claim otherwise is shear pedantry.

I'm sure you told that to your professors when they marked your answers wrong for incorrect units, which they would have done.

Do you use lbs(m), lbs(f), or slugs?

Rarely lbm or lbf if I can help it, and I never use slugs. The imperial system is a horrendous joke anyway.

I use all of the above, where appropriate. Does "c" to you mean couloumbs, the speed of light, a coefficient, or something else? Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nm for a short list of things "nm" can stand for.

In SI units, "nm" stands for precisely one thing: nanometers. c is the speed of light. C is coulombs. This is all quite well-defined; why do you act as though there is any ambiguity?

Carelessly, nothing. Use the units and symbols appropriate for the problem, be consistent about your use of them, and know the accepted abbreviations for the field.

You are supposed to be consistent with the international standard, not yourself.

And yes, on occasion I do have tendencies to be pedantic.

That much is clear.

[Kuroneko]

If during transit, a person rotates in an extra dimension, effectly replacing all molecules with their enantiomers (at least, all molecules than can have enatiomers), what effect would injesting sugars and proteins of normal handedness have on his or her body?

[Darth Wong]

If during transit, a person rotates in an extra dimension, effectly replacing all molecules with their enantiomers (at least, all molecules than can have enatiomers), what effect would injesting sugars and proteins of normal handedness have on his or her body?

Not to ask silly questions, but why would rotation in any axis turn a molecule into an enantiomer? Don't you have to "twist" the molecule to change its structure rather than merely rotating it?

[phongn]

It sounds like Kuroneko is postulating not just a 3D rotation, but another dimenstional level effectively "mirroring" any stereospecific molecules. That also gives me a huge headaches just thinking about that - I'm not sure if the body's chemistry would be able to properly operate, even with a 'whole' switch.

[Kuroneko]

Not to ask silly questions, but why would rotation in any axis turn a molecule into an enantiomer? Don't you have to "twist" the molecule to change its structure rather than merely rotating it?

A reflection is a rotation from the point of view of an embedding in a higher-dimensional space. For example:

Code: Select all

* +-----+   |   +-----+     In a plane, those figures are
* |     |   |   |     |     non-superimposable reflections,
* +--+  |   |   |  +--+     but with an extra dimension (out
*    |  |   |   |  |        of screen), the axis of reflection
*    +--+   |   +--+        can serve as as an axis of rotation.

Since transit through a portal is described as giving direct embedding to a higher-dimensional space, it should be technically possible to do tricks like turning right shoes into left shoes, and so on forth. This may have unfortunate effects on giving the wrong handedness on the molecules of a person undergoing this procedure, so I'm wondering just how drastic ingesting food of the wrong molecular handedness would be. The body chemistry should function the same, but getting food might be a problem.

[phongn]

Well, one issue is that we only use Vitamin C in the L-enantiomer form. The D-form is ignored entirely; assuming a switch between the two we'd be in trouble - though couldn't this be resolved simply by pushing food through a portal and having its molecules rearranged as well?

[Kuroneko]

Well, one issue is that we only use Vitamin C in the L-enantiomer form. The D-form is ignored entirely; assuming a switch between the two we'd be in trouble - though couldn't this be resolved simply by pushing food through a portal and having its molecules rearranged as well?

Well, the whole situation is just curiosity on my part, but that may depend on whether the mirroring was a random happenstance, dependent on parameters we don't know about or can't control. Are the other protein enantiomers similarly non-reactive or can they actually be poisonous?

[Darth Wong]

The infamous thalidomide debacle is a pretty obvious indication that some rather severe complications can occur when you substitute an enantiomer. I doubt that anyone could actually predict in advance what would happen if large fractions of your body were mirrored at the molecular level.

[kdahm(the same one)]

Why the fuck would I care that a catalog book uses that abbreviation? What does that have to do with scientific and engineering work?
Quote:
Carelessly, nothing. Use the units and symbols appropriate for the problem, be consistent about your use of them, and know the accepted abbreviations for the field.

You are supposed to be consistent with the international standard, not yourself.

Because "nm" IS the international standard for nautical miles, and has been for a century. Citing Janes was providing a reference.

I'm sure you told that to your professors when they marked your answers wrong for incorrect units, which they would have done.

Nope, because the decades ago when I had professors, I used the correct symbols and abbreviations for the field. It didn't matter that the same symbol or combination, used elsewhere, meant something entirely different. It doesn't matter that in another system of units, whether SI, Imperial, or Furlong-Fortnight-Firkin, uses the same combination of letters.

For that matter, when I'm writing or reading engineering papers these days, I use the standard units as well, even if it does mean concentrations in mg/l and flow rates in MGD.

It's clear we are both pedants. I suggest you resolve your cranial-rectal superposition, and realize that SI is not only set of units, nor the best set of untis for all cases, nor is it the final word of God on metrology.

Enough of this blather. Lets get back to the story.

[Coop D'etat]

An entantiomeric switch of some portion of your body would have severe reprecussions. Every amino acid except glycine has a chiral site around the alpha-carbon and only the L-enantiomer is used biologicaly. A shift of orientation would have drastic effects on protein folding and conformation and cause catalytic sites in enzymes to not recognize their targets (this is actually a trick used by some bacteria on their cell walls, using short chains of right-handed amino acids as linkers which will not be recognized by proteases and degraded). Not to mention cellular recognition and signalling is often mediated by recognition of specific polysaccherides on glycoproteins and glycolipids which are usually in right-handed orientation and may not be recognized if flipped. In short, a chiral shift of a significant amount of the body's organic molecules would wreck havoc upon its biochemistry and I would imagine to be very likely fatal.

[Darth Wong]

Why the fuck would I care that a catalog book uses that abbreviation? What does that have to do with scientific and engineering work?
Quote:
Carelessly, nothing. Use the units and symbols appropriate for the problem, be consistent about your use of them, and know the accepted abbreviations for the field.

You are supposed to be consistent with the international standard, not yourself.

Because "nm" IS the international standard for nautical miles, and has been for a century. Citing Janes was providing a reference.

Wrong. "nm" means "nanometers" according to the SI unit system which is internationally accepted. Jane's is not an authoritative source on unit systems. It is a listing of military vessels, for fuck's sake.

I'm sure you told that to your professors when they marked your answers wrong for incorrect units, which they would have done.

Nope, because the decades ago when I had professors, I used the correct symbols and abbreviations for the field. It didn't matter that the same symbol or combination, used elsewhere, meant something entirely different. It doesn't matter that in another system of units, whether SI, Imperial, or Furlong-Fortnight-Firkin, uses the same combination of letters.

There's a word for that: non-compliant. It leads to confusion in inter-disciplinary work and people have been trying to FIX it because it can lead to serious problems, like remote-controlled spacecraft fucking up due to a unit conversion problem. The fact that it was more of a problem a long time ago is obvious.

For that matter, when I'm writing or reading engineering papers these days, I use the standard units as well, even if it does mean concentrations in mg/l and flow rates in MGD.

It's clear we are both pedants. I suggest you resolve your cranial-rectal superposition, and realize that SI is not only set of units, nor the best set of untis for all cases, nor is it the final word of God on metrology.

Enough of this blather. Lets get back to the story.

No, actually SI is the best set of units for all cases, moron. Everyone around the world has come to realize that, except for the dinosaurs like yourself. The fact that you're so decrepit that you think slugs are a useful unit says it all. The whole concept of standardized units is to avoid confusion and possible miscommunication of quantities. The idea of saying that each field should just use whatever units and symbols it wants, with no regard for how that relates to what other fields do, is positively archaic.

PS. You may think that if you insult someone using medical terminology, it somehow sounds more erudite. All it does is make you look like the pompous dipshit that you most certainly are, fucktard.

[layman]

Why the fuck would I care that a catalog book uses that abbreviation? What does that have to do with scientific and engineering work?
Quote:
Carelessly, nothing. Use the units and symbols appropriate for the problem, be consistent about your use of them, and know the accepted abbreviations for the field.

You are supposed to be consistent with the international standard, not yourself.

Because "nm" IS the international standard for nautical miles, and has been for a century. Citing Janes was providing a reference.

Wrong. "nm" means "nanometers" according to the SI unit system which is internationally accepted. Jane's is not an authoritative source on unit systems. It is a listing of military vessels, for fuck's sake.

I'm sure you told that to your professors when they marked your answers wrong for incorrect units, which they would have done.

Nope, because the decades ago when I had professors, I used the correct symbols and abbreviations for the field. It didn't matter that the same symbol or combination, used elsewhere, meant something entirely different. It doesn't matter that in another system of units, whether SI, Imperial, or Furlong-Fortnight-Firkin, uses the same combination of letters.

There's a word for that: non-compliant. It leads to confusion in inter-disciplinary work and people have been trying to FIX it because it can lead to serious problems, like remote-controlled spacecraft fucking up due to a unit conversion problem. The fact that it was more of a problem a long time ago is obvious.

For that matter, when I'm writing or reading engineering papers these days, I use the standard units as well, even if it does mean concentrations in mg/l and flow rates in MGD.

It's clear we are both pedants. I suggest you resolve your cranial-rectal superposition, and realize that SI is not only set of units, nor the best set of untis for all cases, nor is it the final word of God on metrology.

Enough of this blather. Lets get back to the story.

No, actually SI is the best set of units for all cases, moron. Everyone around the world has come to realize that, except for the dinosaurs like yourself. The fact that you're so decrepit that you think slugs are a useful unit says it all. The whole concept of standardized units is to avoid confusion and possible miscommunication of quantities. The idea of saying that each field should just use whatever units and symbols it wants, with no regard for how that relates to what other fields do, is positively archaic.

PS. You may think that if you insult someone using medical terminology, it somehow sounds more erudite. All it does is make you look like the pompous dipshit that you most certainly are, fucktard.

Are you going through an abused childhood? I'm sure there are places where you can seek help in Toronto.

[KlavoHunter]

Are you going through an abused childhood? I'm sure there are places where you can seek help in Toronto.

And now that your reply is quoted, you can't edit it out...

[Dargos]

Are you going through an abused childhood? I'm sure there are places where you can seek help in Toronto.

And now that your reply is quoted, you can't edit it out...

Good thinking man! I wonder when the the trash will be taken out.

Great story Stuart! I can actually see images of thousands of grunt labor demons shoveling fire and brimstone through a portal, bitching about how it didn't take so long last time they destroyed a city this way.

[Starglider]

Since transit through a portal is described as giving direct embedding to a higher-dimensional space, it should be technically possible to do tricks like turning right shoes into left shoes, and so on forth.

Certainly it should be technically possible. It wouldn't normally happen because 3D objects don't start with any extra-dimensional rotational inertia, and on a normal trajectory through the portal they don't pick up much from the interaction with the strange matter torus, certainly not enough to disrupt their re-embedding into 3D space at the far end. I can't think of an obvious way to impart extra-dimensional spin from anything we can do in 3space, but it's possible that there are exotic stable portal geometries (not known to the demons) that will do things like this. I am sure that postwar this will be a major area of research.

Whether specific molecules can rotate without the whole object rotating is unknown; I would tend to think that this would only occur when the whole object is disintigrating into a higher-dimensional mist anyway, but I do like the idea as a harmful side effect of trying to traverse a portal that's close to the maximum threshold for solid objects staying coherent (e.g. a portal between a dimension several 'levels below' earth and another one well 'above' it).

Might I humbly suggest splitting the units debate to another thread? As I've said, I deserved the original jab, and the acrimony seems a bit out of place here.

[Darth Wong]

Are you going through an abused childhood? I'm sure there are places where you can seek help in Toronto.

Oh look, a heckler. I'll bet you think you're super-clever, because everyone knows the guy with a snide comment but nothing else to contribute is always the smartest guy in the room. Right?

[kdahm(the same one)]

[quote="Starglider]

Either the portal is instantaneous, from the 3-space perspective of the object passing through, or it takes a variable amount of time depending on some parameter we don't know yet.

The time taken to cross the portal is determined by roughly the same factors that determine the time taken for a cannonball dropped on the moon to hit the ground; the strength of the attractive force and the distance it has to fall. The latter is constant for any pair of planes, but may vary between say earth<->heaven and earth<->hell, though not perceptibly. The former may vary depending on the size of the portal and the entry point, but again not perceptibly.

For example, what happens when a nuclear device is initiated just before entering the portal, or just after.

In transit, the reaction will almost certainly fizzle due to the neutrons (and other radiation) escaping into extradimensional space. According to Dr Kuroneko, the portal is a seven dimensional structure, which may imply that radiative power drops off as the sixth power of distance instead of the second power. There seems to be an energy threshold for this, which results in light (and most likely neutrons) escaping 3d confinement but molecular bonds not breaking down in (a brief) transit.

Set it off just before or just after the transition (but still within a portal mouth) and you would get the same results you would get if the portal wasn't there, minus something like 25% of the yield due to energy escaping through the portal mouth into extradimensional space before it is disrupted.

[/quote]

The physics would be far easier to describe with an instantaneous transition. When getting discontinuities and apparent small time step events, the math gets much easier. This is not a criticism, just a thought.

I'm not seriously looking for answers to the following questions, so don't bother making something up. They may or may not be important for the storyline. Look at it as a bit of brainstorming.

Why would nuclear reactions fizzle? Is there a fundemental change in the behaviour of some of the basic forces? Do the weak and strong forces change, and how does that effect other items and processes that rely on the same forces? Gravity? Electromagnetism? If the forces change, what happens to computers that travel through? What about biochemical ones and neuron firing? Does DNA in the process of mitosis rejoin normally, or do people traveling through frequently get higher rates of cancer? Colloid and surface chemistry (what holds cell membranes together) work because of the weak and strong forces. If a cesium clock travels through repeatedly, does it lose or gain time? What happens if it's traveling at close to "c"?

If we shove an end of a cable through, made by handwavium out of unobtanium and with a breaking strength of 1,000+ ksi and a modulus of elasticity of at least 100 ksi, what happens? The other end is anchored to something signficantly larger than the portal opening. Does the cable stretch, bend, or break? Can we send trolleys carrying cargo down the cable? Does it matter if its a rod or a cable?

See what I mean. The math and physics are likely to cause more breakdowns than the introduction of quantum mechanics. It's just food for thought, and because my mind is somewhat warped.

[Starglider]

The physics would be far easier to describe with an instantaneous transition.

It's fairly certain that the different 'planes' are exist in a higher dimensional space (they would actually be hyperplanes if there were four spatial dimensions, but there appear to be at least seven in this cosmology). An instantaneous transition is problematic, because I can only think of two obvious explanations for it, neither good. The first is that the relevant higher dimensions are quantised and that the interplane transition respresents a minimal step in these dimensions. The major problem with this is that it leaves no room in intradimensional space for any kind of physical artefact that creates the portal effect. It would have to be some magic flaw in space itself, and the notion of microwaves alone rewriting spatial geometry in just the right way to create a flaw that flips physical objects one quanta across a higher dimension is rather implausible. Furthermore without the attractive force mechanism there is no obvious reason why objects placed in the portal mouth should make one trip through and then stop, rather than alternating back and forth indefinitely. The second explanation retains the meaningful distance, allowing a complex portal structure to exist, but requires that the matter be tunnelled instaneously across the gap. Aside from locally violating the speed of light, never a good thing for plausibility, there is no obvious reason why physical objects would tunnel across as a unified whole, as opposed to individual particles crossing over independently as they enter the portal. Finally while the attractive mechanism I specified is somewhat vague, it is at least somewhat descriptive, while there is no real explanation for a macroscale tunnelling effect other than 'magic'.

When getting discontinuities and apparent small time step events, the math gets much easier.

True but I think QCD illustrates that reality has no particular tendency to be easy to solve.

Why would nuclear reactions fizzle? Is there a fundemental change in the behaviour of some of the basic forces? Do the weak and strong forces change, and how does that effect other items and processes that rely on the same forces? Gravity? Electromagnetism? If the forces change, what happens to computers that travel through? What about biochemical ones and neuron firing? Does DNA in the process of mitosis rejoin normally, or do people traveling through frequently get higher rates of cancer? Colloid and surface chemistry (what holds cell membranes together) work because of the weak and strong forces. If a cesium clock travels through repeatedly, does it lose or gain time? What happens if it's traveling at close to "c"?

A naïve embedding of a three-dimensional object in a seven-dimensional space results in all fields attenuating in proportion to the sixth power of distance instead of the second power. As far as I can see this would reduce normal matter to diffuse plasma. As Kuroneko pointed out it also makes various additional sorts of rotation possible, which would break normal chemisty regardless. Clearly an object in transition through the portal is not naively embedded; the particles transition as a group which is locally confined to a (moving) 3D surface. The pitch black portal mouths imply that when individual photons travel through they are either absorbed or scattered. However the lack of massive airflow into the portal mouths demonstrated that individual air molecules are making it through without trouble (which incidentally implies that the earth mouth of a portal to hell will smoke ominously and reek of sulphur, which I like). I am postulating that individual particles with enough kinetic energy can break local confinement (during the interdimensional crossing) and shoot off into 7space, never to be seen again.

The implication of this is that low energy processes work fine but high energy (nuclear, mainly) processes are likely to fail completely, as if 'dampened'. With this model there should also be a perceptible chill from just a few milliseconds of crossing, because for that period every atom in your body is effectively an uninsulated radiator. I like this side effect from a narrative point of view.

If we shove an end of a cable through, made by handwavium out of unobtanium and with a breaking strength of 1,000+ ksi and a modulus of elasticity of at least 100 ksi, what happens?

It will resist the attractive force of the central (hyper)toroid and not get sucked through the portal. You can't poke the cable directly into extradimensional space, for the same reason that you can't orient an arbitrary physical object at right angles to reality. Bending through 7space is ruled out by the local confinement mechanism that keeps 3D objects together in transition; no possible cable you could construct out of normal matter could maintain integrity in 7space anyway.

See what I mean. The math and physics are likely to cause more breakdowns than the introduction of quantum mechanics.

This model may or may not cause problems in the future, but it's the least magical one I could think of that fits the observed properties, and (ironically, for a story about going to war with hell) the plausibility goal is to minimise the amount of handwavium. Of course even if it is accurate most likely very little of this background info will actually be referenced in the narrative.