Talk:Glyph

Flawed Math, etc.
The math/logic on this page is flawed. A normal gate address for a point in our galaxy consists of seven symbols, or glyphs. The seventh is the point of origin for the outgoing wormhole. Only on Earth is it Earth's (the delta with the circle above). Also, if this is the symbol for Earth (a planet), then it is the only symbol on the gate that does not represent a constellation. This would also mean that each planet with a stargate would have a unique series of symbols (which would fit with the feature film as Jackson was going to be needed to decipher the glyphs necessary to dial home). Also, since constellations only exists as we see them from a single point of view, the constellation design representing "point A" in our view from earth would look totally different from another planet.

However, I digress. Let us say that this is a given, that all gates ARE different, so that the above can be true. This still means that the math is flawed. A gate address uses six unique glyphs to locate the destination, with the seventh always being the point of origin. The point of origin can also be called the point of view. Let us say, for example, that glyph A (whatever it is) represents the constellation on the right side of the cosmic 3D cube surrounding the destination, glyph B is for the left side, C is for the front, D is for the back, E is for the top, and F is for the bottom. It will not matter what order I put those six glyphs in, A is for the right side. The constellation will never “jump” to the left side, the top, the bottom, or anywhere else from my POV (the point of origin, the seventh glyph). So ABCDEF would give me exactly the same stargate that FABECD, DACEFB, or any other combination of those six letters would.

The math on this page assumed that the point of origin glyph will be used in every gate address from that gate. Correct. So we removed it from every combination. That leaves 38 other glyphs. However, the math then went on to come up with EVERY combination of six glyphs, NOT taking into account the non-uniqueness of most of those addresses. "1,987,690,320 possible addresses" is incorrect. It should read "1,987,690,320 possible combinations." But not all those combinations will be unique gate addresses. Only 1 in 720 (6x5x4x3x2x1) will be unique. Which should reduce the number to 2,760,681 possible addresses.

Right?

-Dtubbe 17:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Seems pretty sound, but on the first sentence of the second paragraph you say all gates are different but they're not, they all have the same glyphs which is how you can dial the same address from any planet and reach the same destination. Also, I think all the gates use Earth as the viewpoint for the constellations as it was where the ancients came after leaving their galaxy and it bcame their homeworld. Sman789 18:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * "you say all gates are different but they're not, they all have the same glyphs which is how you can dial the same address from any planet and reach the same destination." Exactly! Which means that no one from any planet that is not earth would ever be able to figure out what the glyphs mean because the constellations would not look the same from another planet. So how did anyone else figure out how to use the stargates? Trial and error? Would "we" have ever figured out how to use our gate if the Ancients' new homeworld wasn't Earth? -Dtubbe 19:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I am wondering, why did the Tollana stargate have a regular glyph as the point of origin? (I mean the Crater constellation) It would make them unable to dial any stargates with this glyph (or at least the intergalactic addresses having this glyph as the last one), wouldn't it? I believe their gate is not the only one having a regular glyph as a point of origin (for instance P3R-233).

--87.105.132.146 14:15, 27 June 2009 (UTC)Neo_b

Concerning the mathematics: I believe the math is indeed incorrect, but Dtubbe's proposed emendation is also flawed. He says that the page should read "1,987,690,320 possible combinations", but what the number represents are all the possible permutations of the 38 non-point-of-origin symbols. I think this is what Dtubbe meant, but mathematical lingo was used incorrectly - essentially the difference is that a 'combination' is an unordered set (so ABC == CBA) and a 'permutation' is an ordered set (so ABC =/= CBA). He suggests that each combination of 6 symbols can lead to only 1 destination, that ABCDEF is equivalent to FEDCBA or any other permutation of those 6 'symbols'. However, we need to remember the physics in play - the 6 points are used to form 3 intersecting lines through space as illustrated at left.

Changing the order of dialing would change which points are connected to which to form the 3 lines. By doing this, we can use the same set of 6 symbols to access multiple different planets simply by changing the order of dialing. I created a 2-d illustration (image at right) of this to help in understanding - I use the same 4 symbols and located 3 distinct destinations just by changing the order of input:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/2/24/Address.png http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq11/Statisturin/Random/StargateExample.jpg

So to do the math, let's assume first that the address ABCDEF is interpreted by forming 3 pairs of letters, for the sake of argument let's say it's the first two, the middle two, and the last two. So this address has line AB, line CD, and line EF which intersect to locate a destination. Then geometry says that we can reverse the endpoints of a line, AB = BA, etc. So each pair of endpoints can be written in 2 ways, and since we have 3 sets of endpoints, the means that we get 2^3 ways of dialing the same address just by reversing the endpoints. However, since all the matters is that each endpoint is associated with it's proper 'mate' (ie: A and B, etc), we can think of the address as having 3 pairs which then can be arranged in any order so long as the association between symbols remains the same; in other words: AB CD EF == AB EF CD. This increases the ways to dial a given address by a factor of 6. So for the actual computations:


 * We start with all the permutations of the 38 non-point-of-origin symbols: 1,987,690,320
 * Then we have to divide by 8 to correct for repeats from simply reversing the endpoints.
 * Then we have to divide by 6 to correct for simply rearranging the lines within an address.
 * This leaves us with 41,410,215 unique addresses to dial.

I was a math/stat major in university and am currently pursing a PhD in stats. I did this math in two ways and got to the same answer, so I'm relatively confident in it.

--QuicksilverTurin12 23:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

SGU Glyphs
Symbols 31 and 35 are the same glyph. Is this an error on the part of the show writers, or the person making the images here? Also, glyphs 21 and 24 are identical, except one is upside down from the other, but considering the device spins, they should still be considered the same.

Issues
In trying to determine the address for Desert planet (Air), I discovered a few things:
 * The template is really messed up.
 * The glyph images are not scaled to each other properly and have zero padding, making it look terrible when linked together. UniverseGlyph05.svgUniverseGlyph06.svgUniverseGlyph07.svgUniverseGlyph08.svgUniverseGlyph09.svg <-- Like that.

Cheers. - 21:14, October 12, 2009 (UTC)