But if we look closely at the physics and thermodynamics involved around the portal boundary, we run into a few problems...
Air
Standard air that we breathe is made up mainly of heaps of Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules whizzing around bumping into to each other, like ping-pong balls in a tube. And, boy, do they whizz! At normal air pressure (one atmosphere), they're moving at about 500m/s. Granted, they only get to move a tiny distance before they bang into another molecule, but still; they are moving this fast. If you introduce the one-way portal to the air, the air molecules at the portal boundary will shoot through it, and they can not come back. Any molecule near the boundary is going to end up crossing it, or will bounce into another molecule near it, and cross it. Very quickly, you'll end up with a vacuum on the portal boundary.
Looking at our Caves of Chaos black dome, the air surrounding the dome will try to fill the vacuum, and this will manifest itself as a wind - a phenomenal wind - blowing into the dome. This wind will be faster than the biggest hurricanes and tornadoes we see on Earth. Its theoretical limit will be the speed of sound, but with the turbulence and ground-effect, you get about 70% of this. That, however, is still pretty damn quick: 240m/s, or 850km/h. This is still more than twice as strong as the strongest hurricane and tornado winds ever measured - they are around a wussy 400km/s - and will be enough to not only tear whole trees from the ground, but dirt and rocks too. The only thing left around ground zero would be bedrock and whatever the dome is attached to.
You would certainly get localized weather effects too. With the massive pressure gradient, water from the air would condense into clouds, and you would certainly get a spinning vortex, a la a tornado, around Ground Zero. The sight from Pind would be impressive - a black funnel cloud extending into the sky, with ensuing storms and lightning. There would be a massive roar too: a continuous background-growl of a thousand freight trains.
Luckily for Pind and the Shadowlands keep, the speed of these winds into the portal dome will drop off at the square of the distance. The black dome was 1km in radius, so you will get the mach 1 winds on the edge. Out at 2km, we're down to 200km/h. And at the 15km campsite, it is just a 4km/h zephyr.
Inside the dome would be Hell on Earth. As an inhabitant, you would see a wave of destruction hurling towards you at almost mach 1, tossing trees and dirt. It would smash everything over, and it wouldn't stop. There would be secondary sonic shockwaves bouncing off the ground and the pressure fronts of the incoming air. And with pressure comes temperature; within a few seconds, these would rocket up. From the snowy frosty night of -10C, to an inferno of 250C in 1.3 seconds. The pressure and temp would keep ramping up and up utterly burning everything inside the dome. The next notable stage would be at 46 seconds when the pressure hits 34 atmospheres which is when Nitrogen gas (the main component of air) becomes a supercritical fluid, and no longer behaves as an ideal gas. That gives us the small consolation that means it doesn't get so hot so fast, though by now we are at 8000C. (Tungsten, the element with highest melting point, melts at 3422C, and turns to gas at 5555C)
Molecular
Looking at the molecular level, as the molecules (mainly oxygen and nitrogen) fly across the portal boundary, there would be a fraction of a second where the portal boundary divides the molecule. The molecular and electrostatic bonds between the atoms would suddenly be at half strength (can only pull one way). The side-effect of this means that the molecule would fly apart into its component atoms. But then, as soon as these atoms pass entirely into the dome, they would recombine - and release the bond energy of the molecules as heat. Taking our most common gas, the triple bond of nitrogen's N2 molecule is one of the strongest bonds there is (945KJ/mol), so when one cubic-meter of N2 is recombined, it releases 84MJ of energy (a single-bar heater for 23 hours, or burn 2.4 litres of petrol). Bearing in mind that our in-flow of gas is 240 cumecs for each 1 metre-square section of the dome, this is a lot of extra heat. Now our poor sap in the dome will see a huge fireball roaring at him at mach 1.
Atomic
Looking down at the atomic level, things get even worse. A similar thing will happen with the nuclei of the atoms entering. The strong nuclear force that holds the nucleus together will be briefly broken causing protons and neutrons will disassociate as they pass into the dome. When this plasma recombines, it is going to do all sorts of strange things. You probably won't get the same atoms that went in. But whatever happens, I would hazard a guess you'd get even more energy. It'd probably be in the order of ten times what we have already.
Subatomic
You could apply this logic to the protons and neutrons too. They'd disassociate into their component quarks, and pre-ons and other strange subatomic particles. What this soup of elementary particles would produce is anyone's guess, but rest assured, it would be heaps more energy. Probably another ten times.
So what is our conclusion here?
- Beware of one-way portals.
- Don't go anywhere near a one-way portal.
- Don't live inside a dome
- Never give a gun to ducks.
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