Finding the 7th chevron - did they screw up?

[muzungu]

Hi SGPflughaupt

Although their are only 37 glyphs on the Earth gate there are likely to be many more on other gates. This is beacause each glyph represents a different constellation and astronomers have already identified 88 of them. It's likely that the Ancients found/had many more (constellations) as they had been observing the universe far longer than we have. Also as the gate system goes to other galaxies, then you must also include the number of constellations in those galaxies. Therefore there must be many more glyphs than the 37 on the Earth gate.

[snaller]

There are 39 symbols on the gate - read the thread will you.

[muzungu]

Hi snaller

I apologise for my inadvertent slip. However the rest of what i said is still applicable

[SGPflughaupt]

Still problems.

If the symbols indicate constellations then they would not be very accurate as the stars move over time and the constellations are not constant. And still...what are the gates using to mark their coordinates? If you assume a GPS system that surround the galaxy with more than 36 units then you must assume that one gate can not link up to all points in the galaxy. You would have to gate to another that had the symbols for the other GPS units. Nothing in the show has indicated this so far,in fact it seems to infer that all gates connect to all gates.

If you dont have a GPS system outside of the area where the gates are located (ie a galaxy) then you go back to the problem that the gates on the edge are unreachable because they now defined the area and therefore can not be included in the six point reference system.

Of course you could assume that these are 'special' gates that are hardwired into all gates and there for need only their symbol to active the gate (plus of course the symbol for the origin).

But once again you have to assume that there are more than 36 'special' gates or you have a heck of lot of space not included even near a coordinate (maybe thats why Thor's people still have starships?).

hmmmmm....if there are only 36 points than any coordinate point becomes stratigically important especially to the Goa'uld because you can get between those points quicker with a gate than a starship. And any space nearby would be reachable quicker from the gate by short starship trip from that gate rather than traveling all the way across the galaxy in a starship therefore allowing control of the other worlds close enough to the gate but farther than from any other gate.

The military implications are great here.

[muzungu]

Hi SGPflughaupt

In Children of the Gods Daniel Jackson says that he has traced some othe glyphs out in the night sky of Abydos. Also many of the glyphs on the stargate (such as Orion) are clearly identifiable with constellations in the night sky.

However I do agree with you on the fact that the constellations would be a poor coordinate system.

It could be that each glyph corresponds to a particular value so that the first 6 glyphs of an address are similar to the coordinate systems used by astronomers today and the seventh is simply the starting planet

[Rowan]

As a matter of fact, Daniel does mention this exact method. I believe he uses the Glactic Center as the prime point, but the coordinates are based off a 3 dimensional layout of the galatic plane: an X, Y and Z axis. Think of it as a large box that holds the universe. This box has 6 flat services or sides and they come in facing pairs: top and bottom, one set of opposite side and the last set of opposite sides. Three 'planes' as it were.

Now, I don't remember which plane comes first, but, for the sake of arguement, let's say 'X' is 'front to back', 'Y' is 'side to side' and 'Z' is 'top to bottom'.

For discussion, that would make the first two glyphs the 'starting' and 'ending' points of a line that goes directly through the center of the target planet 'front to bacl'. The second two would impale the target planet from 'side to side' and the next two hit the target planet from 'top to bottom'. Where all there line connect is your target planet. This leave the last glyph as the starting point. Travel is determined from the starting point to the target planet and is then seen as a straight line.

The shift of even one coordinate [one glyph] will have a significant effect on the way one line runs across the galactic plane and this, the exact address of the target planet.

Hope this helps.

[PTeppic]

a) apologies for late follow-ups

b) 1940s activiation - if even the daughter/fiancee of the two leading scientists didn't know about the successful opening of the gate, I reckon it is pretty slim anyone else would know - top secret and all that

c) in several places it is mentioned the gate uses 38 constellations (how would that work then?) as destinaton markers, with a symbolic representation of the start-point planet. So the symbols for Earth and Abydos etc. are planets, not constellations. The implication is that this is universal in the system.

So, since the gates must only use the constellations for navigation (since the universal drift changes still work), is there some super beacon system within each constellation (and how accurate would that be) or do the gates just "know" their own positions and those of the stars around them.

[muzungu]

Has anyone considered that the symbols on the stargate represent characters in the ancient ones language. If this were true then the symbols would simply be a three dimensional grid reference.

[PTeppic]

So effectively they used a visual representation of what they could see in the sky as a language? Saves all that pictographic stuff development! It would have the benefit of theoretically being transportable to other nearby worlds, since they MAY have some of the same constellations.

It is also easy to test - SGC just have to show that the location of the actual planets identified by the various glyph combinations are NOT in the locations which would occur if the constellations were used as astronomical co-ordinates points in space. And they appeared, in the film at least, to have technology that could track the wormhole "its guiding itself".

[ColONeil]

You know, if they did find it, it would be such a cliche and to quote Jack O'Neill "But that'd be a cliche, and you know how I feel about those, actually you do. *gives confused look*" I don't know they had many obvious cliches in the first movie don't think it would've made a difference.

[KernalK]

In retrospect, it seems so simple!

The glyphs bear only coincidental similarity to stellar formations (seen from Terra) and must be some kind of writing system!

Why did I not see that before?

That's it!

Kernal K

(Sorry for the long silence, RealLife is taking over!)

[Rowan]

Makes perfect sense to me, Muzungu.

[PTeppic]

Allowing for percentage approximation for each constellation (perhaps using chi-squared or equivalent), what is the combined likelihood of all 38 destination glyphs (i.e. characters in an alien alphabet) ALL coincidentally resembling earth constellations?

Well:

if all were 99% accurate, then it would be about 2 in 3 chance.

if all were 90% accurate, it would be down to 1.8% likely

[But I am not sure this maths is right anyway]

[adele.s]

I've been mulling this over and over... there is just no reason to need exactly six coordinates for the destination (I'm willing to accept the seventh symbol for point of origin).

From what I know (and I've only seen season 1, so please be gentle with me if I'm way off on this), the gates are supposed to create extra-dimensional wormholes between different points in 3-dimensional space. The gates do not on their own allow time travel or access to alternate realities.

Humans presently have two main systems of designating any point in 3-dimensional space, cartesian and polar coordinates.

Picture the standard stargate-address cube that keeps being drawn on whiteboards in both the movie and the TV series. That's cartesian, sometimes called rectagular coordinates. The point can be designated by values of x, y, and z along the vertical, side-to-side-horizontal, and front-to-back-horizontal axes (which are all at 90-degree angles from each other. But you don't need six points to determine the intersection, you only need three, combined with the possibility of negative values in addition to positive ones.

I have a hard time believing that a race advanced enough to build the stargates would have no concept of negative numbers...

Polar (sometimes called spherical) coordinates are slightly different from cartesian. Instead of values along orthogonal x, y, and z axes, polar coordinates are given in the form of rho, theta, and phi. Rho is the radius from the origin. Theta is the angle in degrees from the vertical, and phi is the angle in degrees around the vertical axis. There is an excellent online illustrated guide to this method at http://www.math.montana.edu/frankw/c...ical/body.htm. This is the system of lattitude and longitude we use, and rho, although we don't use it, is actually the distance from the center of the earth to the point on the surface.

But it still only requires three values, not *six*.

So I gave up on that, and thought some more...

To determine a point, you can use the intersection of a pair of lines, provided that they are not identical. Any line can be given by two points. That method would result in needing *four* chevrons, better than *three* but still not *six*.

Another way to determine a line is to use the intersection of two planes, provided that they are not identical. Any plane can be given by three points...

Any point can also be determined by the intersection of a line and a plane. This is the closest I've gotten to a rationale for anything close to the six chevron system, and I'm still one short... three points to determine the plane, another two to determine the line. That's *five*.

Sigh. Going one step further, the intersection of three non-identical planes *can* be a point, but if any pair of the three planes are parallel, it's possible that the three planes wouldn't intersect at all. So although this method would provide for needing *nine* points to determine the destination point, there's no reason that such a point would even exist. And *nine* is too many, I'm trying to justify needing *six*.

Grrr.

So I'm stuck on that problem. I've got another question... for anyone with a good screen capture or photo of a stargate, can you do me a favor? Starting with a chevron lined up with the top locking V-shaped mechanism labeled as number 1, can someone please tell me the numbers of the chevrons that appear under the other six locking V-shaped mechanisms?

And another pesky question: does the stargate's chevron ring only spin in one direction, or can it spin freely both clockwise and counterclockwise? Is one direction used only for dialing out, and the other used for incoming "calls"?

Gahk. Too much thinking. Thanks for any help (or counseling) anyone can provide...
-- Adele

[PTeppic]

Looks at about 4, 9 and 13...

Which is perhaps understandable: each glyph is 9.23 degrees each, and there are 9 (presumably) equally spread chevrons. Which would put them at a 40 degree spread....

Or, another way, 39 glyphs divided by 9 chevrons = 4.333 glyphs per chevron.

So the maths supports the estimate from a 200x200 photo!



Of course, the locking is done per chevron, not based on relative position to the top chevron.


PS - Stuff about positions is also correct - I wondered about the need for six points the first time I saw the movie...