STANKULI%cs.umass.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA.UUCP (06/06/86)
Another response to phayes AILIST vol 4 # 125 and subsequent replies on the
intuitions of tardis inside and out... particularly Ken Laws reply. i will
include references to relevant episodes which test the limits of tardis
functions.
the tardis is not a portal to another dimension. Gallifreyan temporal
mechanics are particularly limited to our 4-dimensional universe (they call it
N-space) in its operation. theoretically the time lords can go to any time and
place in N-space but they accept informal constraints they call "time laws"
which they try to enforce to lower the occurrence of paradox phenomema. but
even the high council of time lords will violate these regulations once in a
while at great expense of energy ('the five doctors' peter davidson). the
fundamental piece of Gallifreyan technology is called a dimensional stabalizer
which was discovered by Omeger and perfected by an engineer called Rasilon.
the metauniverse of dr. who is at least five dimensional. there have been
times when the doctor's tardis has been transported through accident into other
parallel 4D universes where it functions with different precision than in
N-space. the doctor (jon pertwee) had this happen once when repairing the
tardis console and later the tardis was thrown into E-space by a stellar
accident for a number of episodes (tom baker). E-space was a much smaller 4D
universe which was collapsing instead of expanding.
punching holes in the side of a tardis has happened. in 'terminus' (peter
davidson) the tardis was breaking apart in transit and attached to the side of
a space vehicle. the doctor and companions came and went from the tardis
through an unstable hole in the wall of nyssa's room. the hole acted just like
a door, but they could not control its opening and closing.
there is no fundamental reason why the inside of a tardis is always larger
than the outside. the relative dimensions of inside and out are uncoupled.
the 'outer plasmic shell' is controlled by a chameleon circuit and can be any
size. the outside could be larger than the inside. tom baker once designed an
exterior the size of the pyramid of cheops but since his chameleon circuit was
broken, it reverted to the police box. the master once had his tardis
materialize around a Concorde SST ('time flight' peter davidson). there is no
reason why a tardis outside could not be the size of a shoe box or postage
stamp, except that a humanoid could not exit the craft in such case. an error
in 'logopolis' (tom baker) caused it to become three feet high, trapping the
doctor inside. a tardis can also jettison portions of its interior space in
emergency ('castrovalva' peter davidson).
some other interesting properties have arisen in the 20+ year series. if a
tardis is turned over on its side, there is a control which can rotate the
interior so the floor orients with gravity ('time flight'). when a tardis
materializes, it incorporates the space it appears in. the master's tardis
contained the original SST inside his own. a dimensional anomaly arises when
one tardis materializes around another tardis ('logopolis'). the dimensional
stabilizer works by folding one dimension into another-- apparently a
point-for-point mapping mechanism. they call this 'block transfer
computation'. if one tardis incorporates another one, they are both in danger
of losing external reference. since they both contain the same folded space,
they both contain each other. it is possible to walk from the outer one through
the inner one to the outer one... like infinite regression in a hall of
mirrors.
for one of the longest running dramatic series in history, the BBC staff of
writers is to be admired for their conceptual detail in metauniversal design.
their spacetime mechanics have interesting and plausible ramifications on a
different order of magnitude than purely child fantasy like alice through the
looking glass. the limitations of temporal technology, genetic regeneration,
metalinguistic translation, and even the sonic screwdriver make the series
intriguing beyond the fun of watching.
stan