The Physics of Portals (Made With Love) 

Sabine in a cosplay is not something i expected, until i remembered that every scientist is a nerd at heart lol

The costume makes the video all the more scientific

I don't think anyone could fall asleep watching Cosplay Sabine open a whole can of wormholes on a classic physics game 😂

Sabine Cosplay was something I never expected but fully support!

“I’m not here for the fun” in full costume 🤣

*looks at thumbnail*. "No, she didn't..." *plays the video*. "Holy GLaDOS! She did!!"

I'm so glad you did this. My daughter and her friends were nuts about Portal. And she got her father a shirt that said The Cake Is A Lie on it. Can't wait to send her this.

You do accelerate as you fall in Portal. There are puzzles which require you to jump down from different heights into portals to build enough momentum. Also the reason why there's a cap on the maximum velocity of the player is that terminal velocity exists (this is also the title of the achievement you receive for putting 2 portals facing each other vertically and jumping inside).

Sabine promised us there'd be cake. She did not disappoint

Let no one ever say that Sabine isn't dedicated to her craft.

The portal gun doesn't use wormholes, it uses quantum tunnelling. One of the images of the disassembled images of the portal gun deliberately state this

This is one of my favorite videos by physicist

"I'm not here to have fun, I'm a physicist!" Hilarious!!! The costume was great. More, please!!!

Seeing Sabine in a cosplay wasnt something I expected for today, but I'm glad it happened.😂

I'd argue that thinking and talking about the science behind anything, no matter how fictional, is an EXCELLENT use of your time. Applying the knowledge we have to different hypothetical scenarios is a great way to reinforce our understanding of it, as well as test the limits of what we know. Examining what we've learned from different angles and taking concepts to their extremes is how we discover new things or gain a deeper understanding of what we thought we knew. And, if nothing else; it's a fun way to keep yourself and others inspired, engaged, and thinking creatively. Based off her content, Sabine definitely understands the importance of making science fun and engaging.

Back when I was young and had lots of energy (in the 1970s) I used to fantasize about having portals at the top and bottom of my favorite ski hill so that when you got to the bottom, you could ski into the portal and come out at the top and just keep skiing and skiing. Now that I'm older I appreciate the break provided by taking the lift back up to the top!

Puts on a costume, hair, portal theme background, animations, gameplay footage and nerds out about portals and their science and says “I’m not here for fun” with a straight face. 😂

Best birthday gift today: Sabine in full cosplay talking about portals and nerding out about their science. 10/10

In Portal, there is acceleration as you fall, however, terminal velocity is relatively low.

I'm a black South African living in the rural areas. I love Sabine Hossenfelder because she makes me think beyond my village circumstances. Her way of explaining scientific concepts is humerus and intriguing.

"I'm not here for fun - I'm a physicist" Such a humble statement.

Holy costumes! The physics needed for it to fit so well adds a whole new dimension to your videos! ❤

On the left "this guy again" and on the right Sabine in that outfit, and then repeatedly claiming "this is not about fun!". Gotta love German humour!

I expected that the thumbnail was just a photoshopped image or an AI generated image and that's all. Wow, Prof. Sabine has improved the fun factor of the video exponentially!

I played that game for MANY hours, and never once thought about it possibly being a black hole. Thanks Sabine.

What better way to get science to the masses? Keep this up and we'll soon have a scientifically literate majority

You crack me up Sabine ! Much love, care and blessings to you and your family/ channel/ efforts ! 💛

Cosplay + Cake = the worlds most interesting class. We need this in public schools!

I don't need a degree to know that Sabine looks amazing in that cosplay outfit.

You wouldn’t end up falling to “the speed of light”… there is wind resistance… you would stop accelerating at your terminal velocity…

I can appreciate the level you went to for a good thumbnail. Because I've seen plenty of your videos, and I appreciate the brain of and admire the individual who puts so much effort into creating videos to help the world understand physics. Excellent work.

Portal in the ceiling and floor accelerates a LOT. But just like in real life, eventually air resistance brings you to terminal (constant) velocity. Makes TOTAL physics sense!

I did not expect Sabine to be in full cosplay one of these days. I am not disappointed.

When I see people walking through a portal in a movie, I can always tell it's not real because they never show any wind. Unless the atmospheric pressure at both locations is exactly the same it is going to be a very windy portal. We should be thankful nobody has ever opened a portal between earth and a location in deep space. That happened on Mars once and you can see how that turned out.

Debates have raged on in forums for years about the physics of entering a moving portal, with no clear consensus, so I was surprised to see you arrive at a definitive answer seemingly without a violation of momentum or energy at the end.

appreciate how dedicated you're in your video, with this cosplay!

Sabine’s deadpan delivery works well with the costume 😂

Sabine, I am but a simple bass player with an EE background. In the two years or so I've followed you on RU-vid, you give me hope: for those who distrust mainstream physics, because of your tact, and for those who look down on others with disdain, because of your tact. I've commented on many of your videos, and appreciated all the time you've put into this. Your channel has changed and adjusted a lot over the years. And it was never appropriate before, and might not be now, for me to say, that, I hope you know that you are, and always have been, very easy on the eyes. From an Alaskan who just crawled out from under his broken wheel bearing. You were hot before you put the suit on. This would be the only video or context I felt I could say that without taking away from what you do. Thank you for talking to people. And the suit :-P

Had to look at Sabine twice. And again. 😊 As doctor Seuss said, "a portal that's red, a portal that's blue, not any kind of portal will do!"

Thank you. Thank you for being wiling to be silly and have some fun and still teaching us at the same time. I think too often scientists fall into the "I am working on things you can not and will never understand and I feel no need to explain why I am doing what I am or how it is being done." Thank you for continuing to make learning about science fun.

You made more fans happier than you can imagine today

Between Sabine style of speaking and the waving of the pistols, I kept waiting for her to say “ Go ahead punk make my day”

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS! Danke. Damit habe ich nicht gerechnet ^^

This video is so above the integrity of click bait, that it actually starts out with what the thumbnail and title is advertising. And actually stays interesting. I'd been subscribed for a while. But this is very well placed to where I could show it to some friends and they'd be hooked. Which I'll probably do next time I see them....

Now you've done it. We demand the catsuits to stay.

Sabine calling the game "Portals" is such a perfect version of grandma asking if you had beaten "pokeymans" yet lmao.

OMG!!!! Sabine!!!! That was amazing! AND, looking the way you did…(CGI? Body suit?! wig?) it was very hard to concentrate on the actual content of the video! I’m 58 and not very tech savvy, but very interested in physics my entire adult life. I love your content! Anyway, this one blew me away. Keep up the GREAT work!

I'm going to have to play this video again but with my eyes closed to be able to concentrate on what's being said! ...This is definately your "look". A physically perfect physicist ! Ooh la la ❤

It turns out GLaDOS' full name was Caroline Hossenfelder.

Very impressive. The portal information was good too.

Sabine's dedication to her channel is something for all of us to be proud of!!!! You're Amazing!!! ❤❤❤

From what I remember, the portal gun was a "quantum tunneling device", meaning it didn't use wormholes.

I bought Portal-2 for my nephew when he was just in the 4th grade, because I wanted him to think three dimensionally. He mastered it quickly. Now several years later, he just completed his PhD in Physics. I'm hoping this game played a factor in expanding his mind and influencing his love of STEM.

This video was a great excuse to wear your sci-fi suit, wasn't it? 😂

I've been thinking about the game portal since ive been playing it a few years back ,with how the momentum conservation works and what would happen if you put portal at the ceiling and floor; I knew it wasnt gonna work like the same as the real world but its an interesting thinker to solve! Thanks for explaining it more further, Sabine!

I love seeing Sabine cosplaying here!

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

You were a world class science educator, you are now also a world class entertainer. Thank you for your work.

Yes the costume of course. But an entire 15 minute video waving around 2 colorful plastic squirt guns with every gesture is also absolutely priceless.

Sod the Physics. I stayed for the costume! Much more like this please, Sabine.

I wouldn't have understood portals without that costume.

This might not win you a Nobel prize but you just appreciably increased the happiness of humanity. Good work!

Some aspects of physics in the game have been tweaked after it was re-released for consoles. Originally, you could accelerate quite a bit with two portals on floor and ceiling (although the terminal velocity was still a bit lower than in real life). They also removed drag: originally, if you had both portals on the floor and jumped in, you'd lose quite a bit of momentum in each turn, which was changed later.

I have also used the idea portals to bring about interest in my Physics lessons. I think that portal mechanics is fascinating, and the further we develop it (using the criteria of consistency), the closer it approaches reality, and the more it take us into the wormhole.....

Sabine, you're becoming my favourite scientist/science communicator. I love the way you explain things while stating your personal opinion on the matter.

3:00 Objection. Terminal velocity. You fall through air. Turbulence will occur. The air in the closed system (room) will eventually stop your acceleration, you reach your terminal velocity, dependent on the air flow in the room. You falling forever through the portals will just heat up the room, even if slowly. When the room has nowhere to radiate heat, it will heat up forever. I expect that you would die of thirst long before the room heats up to any uncomfortable level, as the energy added into the system by your body falling down is rather small.

Sabine, wouldn't the logical explanation for the portal function in the game be that the particles spread on the wall opening the portal itself act as a mitigating force for gravity at their borders, meaning that the colored circles merely serve as the boundary markers for a thin "film" between both that acts as a sort of permeable gravitational screen?

Epic! This reminds me of my student days in the third quarter of the last century of the last millennium. We didn't have video games, but we did have science fiction books. Actually, there was a collection of them in bathroom, just in case one needed a good read. I am sure we analyzed wormholes at the time.

The costume, the wig, the toy guns... Hallmarks of a dedicated physicists ❤❤❤❤❤

Larry Niven wrote an article on this called "Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" where he discussed this sort of thing. It was published in his story collection All The Myriad Ways in 1971.

Dear Sabine, I really did enjoy your analytical approach to pop culture from a scientific point of view. Could you see yourself doing more videos of this kind? It is very intriguing to watch you philosophize about Portal in a deeper level

Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative and timely video. Great job. Keep it up.

I freaking love this woman

Sabine in a skin suit pointing a gun at you. The thing that none of us knew we needed.

Hossi, you rock. Lots of appreciation from a fellow physicist here.

Wow. Ok. Do we get more of this in the future? How creative can you go with this?

This is synchronicity at it's best. I played both games for the first time during the past week and got hooked. Then this shows up. For games that old. Unbelievable.

THIS is why Sabine has the BEST science channel on YT!!!

Well done Sabine, setting a new standard for science content creators 🤯

Thanks for this amazing video. i loved the Portal games, now even more with the scientific context given by you.

I always hypothesized that Sabine was fit. Today, hypothesis confirmed.

OK, Sabine in a skin tight Portal cosplay suit wasn't on my Bingo card for 2024. Glad my wife didn't walk in forcing me to mumble something about 'science show'.

i mean, I already loved you, now this nerdiness is quite amazing.

Did anyone manage to pay attention to the theoretical part? I had never been "excited" by Physics before... Very good, my teacher.

I almost dropped my phone. Never ever thought I see this. 😁

Sabine is one of the funniest humans I've ever "seen" - and they say Germans don't have Humor. I love her Charisma

I loved this! 😂 I’ve watched other videos trying to determine the physics of Portal but I think this is the first time I’ve seen a physicist do it. Surprisingly, your explanation differs from the others because all other theories that I’ve seen ignore gravity and the curvature of space.

Love how you took two things I like and made it fun but I am learning something.. by the way you getup is awsome.. you should do more videos like this..

Hard to focus when I'm thinking "damn she's looking hot in that outfit" Kudos Sabine

Dang Sabine, I don't know what you do to keep in shape but keep it up because it is definitely working.

Maybe what happens is you don't actually "produce" the portal with your gun, meaning that all the necessary mass is not actually being ejected from the gun. But instead the guns may trigger the portal to form indirectly, by acting on some particle fields (like the Higgs at least). Disturbing these fields could be what causes virtual particles there to suddenly appear and acquire mass and arrange themselves in the shape of a portal. That way it does not require the gun to store all the portal's mass. After all, matter, thus particles are just disturbances in quantum fields, right? So if you control these fields then you can shape the world as you wish! Or at least I like to think it's that simple :)

The guns add that little extra bit of persuasiveness.

I never noticed before how much Sabine gestures with her hands.

Her energetic, serious gesturing with the weapons is hilarious. Science communication triple plus.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a new dimension of Sabine! Plus I've learned so much more about portals than ever before.

Dr., another great, facinating and entertaining video with a splash of humor! It's still mostly over my head. It does raise a question about a "theory" having any merit, at all. The "theory" is that black holes are this side of white holes, a.k.a big bangs to an observer not in our space-time. It would solve the questions of "Where does the matter/energy in a black hole go?", "Where did the matter/energy of the big bang come from?", "Where are the dark matter and dark energy such that we can't directly detect them?", and "Why and to where is the universe expanding?" In other words, if enough matter collected densely enough to exceed the carrying capacity of the fabric of (our) space-time, does a new space/time come into existance as the overloading matter/energy creates a new, rapidly expanding "bubble"?. Consider it a "daughter" space-time, if you will. If all or most galaxies harbor a black hole in its center, is it reasonable to think that each one has a daughter space-time universe within, though the broken fabrice or our space-time? Give a detective these clues: (1) Something amorphous comes out here, (2) stuff looses its form going in over there, (3) there is a lot of unaccounted for "stuff", and (4) there are forces that are pulling stuff into "theres" and exploding it out of "heres" . Would it not be unreasonable to consider that there is some connection (suspect) between all these leads? Has anyone tried to estimate the mass/energy in all known galaxies and have they compared that number to the estimated mass of dark matter and the energy of dark energy? Even if there _wasn't_ an order of magnitude match, might that give a clue to ..., well, something?

Now this is how to keep people engaged in educational content.

Sabine rarely surprises this well - this is one; when she did music also comes to mind.

Thank you for this gem, seeing you talk about this important piece of cultural heritage makes me very happy, I hope it will lead to some new fans of the game. Back in the day I thought about some of the aspects you analyse here but was too lazy or lacking the competence to think them through. Thank you for your inquisitive mind.

Thanks for the love, Sabine x. And for the video. Not forgetting the science, too. Always wonderfully engaging.