Wikipedia:Portal:Portal
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The portal of portals
A portal is an opening in the walls of a building, gate or fortification, and especially a grand entrance to an important structure. Doors, metal gates or portcullis in the opening can be used to control entry or exit. The surface surrounding the opening may be made of simple building materials or decorated with ornamentation. Elements of a portal can include the voussoir, tympanum, an ornamented mullion or trumeau between doors, and columns with carvings of saints in the westwork of a church.
Portals in science fiction, such as wormholes and gates, allow rapid travel between distant locations, often originating from some combination of natural phenomenon and technological device. These fictional devices are required for most stories on an inter-solar scale, otherwise transit time would be excessive for storytelling purposes. An advantage of portal technology over a faster-than-light drive is that it can be imagined to work instantly, and can travel to the past or future. In other forms of fiction, a portal may be magical, and connect to an alternate universe or plane of existence.
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A porthole is a small, generally circular, window normally used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Though the term is of obvious maritime origin, it is also used to describe round windows on armored vehicles, aircraft, automobiles (the Ford Thunderbird a notable example), and even spacecraft.
On a ship, the function of a porthole, when open, is to permit light and fresh air to enter the dark and often damp below-deck quarters of the vessel. It also affords below-deck occupants a limited, but often much needed view to the outside world. When closed, the porthole provides a strong water-tight barrier.
A porthole on a ship may also be called a sidescuttle or side scuttle (side hole). The use of the word sidescuttle is meant to be broad, including any covered or uncovered hole in the side of the vessel.
Portholes on spacecraft must be made from glass that can survive rapid temperature changes, without suffering the cracking that can result from thermal shock. Those on the International Space Station were made from quartz glass mounted on titanium frames, covered with enamel. Conversely, portholes on submarines are generally made of acrylic plastic, and can be several inches thick.
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Michel Portal (born 25 November 1935 in Bayonne, France) is a French composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.
Portal studied clarinet at the Conservatoire de Paris. He also studied conducting with Pierre Dervaux.
During August 1969, Portal played on several of the recordings in Stockhausen's cycle of intuitive works, Aus den sieben Tagen.
Portal might be noted most for film music and has won the César Award for Best Music Written for a Film three times. His first win was for the music to The Return of Martin Guerre.
In the news
- Door opens mid-Qantas flight; plane makes an emergency landing
- Belgian Indymedians discuss participatory journalism at open door day
- Alaskan plane crash survivors say cargo door swung open
- World Health Organization launches clinical trial website
- Kids game portal BBC Jam to close after competition complaints
- With pressure from France, Chad and Sudan open door to possible troop deployment
- Switzerland shut door on Korean Republic 2-0 in Group G
- Sydney train doors stuck, passengers delayed
- Entrepreneur's RFID chip implant to open doors, start car
Categories
- Doors — panels or barriers used to cover an opening
- Gates — entry points to an enclosed space
- Portals — focus pages which highlight a particular subject
- Portals on Wikimedia Commons - images of portals
Did you know?
- Portal hypertension is often the result of cirrhosis of the liver
- The Dark Portal is the first book in the Deptford Mice trilogy
- Fort Portal in Uganda is the seat of both Kabarole and the Toro Kingdom
- Portal's Weighted Companion Cube has fan-created plush and papercraft versions
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Selected geography
Portal is a town in Bulloch County, Georgia, United States. The population was 597 at the 2000 census.
Portal's past residents include Dr. Leila Denmark, once the oldest practicing pediatrician in the world.
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O ye who sit in bondage and continually seek and pant for freedom, seek only for love.
Love is peace in itself and peace which gives complete satisfaction.
I am the key that opens the portal to the rarely discovered land where contentment alone is found.
- — Leo Tolstoy, A Letter to a Hindu
Related portals
