Scaling TARDIS To Sonic Screwdriver: an article by GF Willmetts.

This article started off with me explaining how the Doctor’s various sonic screwdrivers worked, and then I saw a bigger picture that the principles of one device couldn’t work in isolation and turned my attention to the TARDIS later in the article. Obviously, something was going on when things are bigger on the inside. I suspect I might have to come back to this topic again at a future point simply because I can’t reach a past point. Such is life.

First, The Sonic Screwdriver

I remember the first time I saw the Patrick Troughton Doctor using the sonic screwdriver to undo heavy-duty bolts on a massive fuel line in ‘Fury From The Deep’ when he and his companions heard a noise in it and were attempting a rescue. To a young mind, it looked magical. As an adult, it’s easy to work out that, in reality, there was someone below pushing or rather unscrewing the bolt from below upwards. Such is the nature of our reality when it depicts an alien tool.

The design of the sonic screwdriver might change with each regeneration with a few refinements, but its mechanism is pretty much the same that it can even be adapted into different shapes, like a lipstick owned by Sarah Jane Smith and the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor’s device, which looks even more alienesque and oyster-shell-looking. The Jodie Whittaker Doctor also showed it didn’t have to be created by their TARDIS, just the right tools on present-day Earth. Even so, it is still a piece of technology, and it still has to rely on similar principles.

The first is the objective. The primary purpose of this interaction is to open or undo metallic objects. The principle of that is oscillation of magnetic fields. In its energy grip, the sonic screwdriver is essentially shaking the bolt in its mounting until it’s free of any obstacle, like rust and/or paint, and undone. In its first example of use, the heavy-duty bolts are being undone from a pipe of similar metal. The moveable bolt has its atomic structure moved contrary to the pipe, although really both are moving, but the mass of the pipe is obviously not moving but achieves the same purpose.

At an atomic level, the molecules are moving in a counter-direction, which sounds awfully like the famous quote from the Pertwee Doctor: ‘Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.’ As we should all know, neutrons do not have an electrical charge, hence no polarity. They keep the positive protons in an atom’s nucleus from repelling each other. In reality, the protons are being moved around the neutrons, making the nucleus less stable for an instant.

Our knowledge of the nucleus is from indirect observation because quantum mechanics dictates that what we see, as pointed out by Erwin Schrödinger, is not a static model. Ergo, the protons and neutrons are continually moving around each other. Introduce even more agitation and mess up this ‘flow’ with this agitation could cause it to explode, which several Doctor regenerations have done from time to time.

This shows a wide range of the sonic screwdriver’s functions. With a suitable meter and readout, it is also possible to analyse the material being used and how much energy is needed. Such is Gallifreyan science; they have access to a miniaturised power source to make this possible.

In many respects, the best way to describe the sonic screwdriver is as a high-beam nuclear oscillator and agitator. The mechanics of which require a powerful power source that can be contained in such a small unit. Terrestrial science is somewhat limited in that regard. However, if molecules can be agitated at a small level and can deliver energy, then the same principle can be applied as a power source, often from a pure crystal with a stable matrix. In that regard, once powered up, the sonic screwdriver is perpetually in the on position, just needing its power to be turned up to affect other molecules.

As such, it does not need a nuclear power source for it to function, which explains how the Whittaker Doctor could build one on Earth. Clever stuff and more advanced on terrestrial science. Sarah-Jane Smith found her original sonic lipstick inside K-9, although it might have been left there to help her keep the robot dog in good repair. One can only presume that the Doctor left more than one of these devices, realising Smith might have used it as a general tool.

The two known things that a sonic screwdriver can’t affect are wood and a deadlock seal. Molecular-wise, there is little in wood for it to work against itself, and it lacks metal, which is the easiest for the sonic screwdriver to manipulate. You’ll also note that the Doctor has never used this device against organic beings, which might well be for the same reason.

Deadlock seals aren’t totally impenetrable but consist of magnetic fields that deflect the sonic screwdriver’s beam. It takes some manipulation to get through them, and inevitably, the Doctor doesn’t have that much time to find the right combination.

Although we know what oscillators are, we aren’t advanced enough to create such a powerful device at such a small scale; you do have to wonder what the sonic screwdriver evolved from. After all, you don’t make such tools for no other reason.

The TARDIS

For this we need to look at the Gallifreyans most famous device, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, the TARDIS. Its name actually describes its most startling feature—being far bigger on the inside than out— rather than its ability to act as a space and time machine, being able to move across the span of the universe. By stepping inside a TARDIS, its passengers have essentially stepped into another dimension and are not beholden to the outside reality. This disparity might not be obvious to the people who do this. The console controls can then be used to manipulate the outer hull to the destination by first dematerialising and using what is commonly called the time lanes.

These are really the energy pathways that the likes of subatomic particles and other matter flow through time and space. The process of the TARDIS is actually an oscillation as it dematerialises and reduces its matter contact to where it is. The movement of matter through time and space is a complex process using a lot of energy, and the less of that to be moved, the better. The versions of the TARDIS used by the Daleks and Cybermen employ the same principles. It isn’t known whether they stole the technology from the Gallifreyans or developed it themselves knowing the principles existed.

The only known instance of Gallifreyan technology being actually stolen and used, even then in a limited fashion, was by the War Chief in the so-called ‘War Games’ to an unknown race. Given that they vanished from existence, this could account for their lack of a name or the lack of anyone remembering them in the past. Based off this, it is presumed both Daleks and Cybermen developed their own technology, both species taking advantage of the innerspace to carry more of their people.

The unique aspect of the Doctor’s TARDIS is its damaged chameleon circuit. We know from Logopolis that its chameleon circuit has its 37 dimensional points, 4 of which are in our dimension and the rest in this interdimensional space. Some of these points pertain to appearance, while others are necessary for direct connection to the control room. The control room is actually in between both dimensions, which accounts for some of the effects beyond the TARDIS’s exterior that can affect it. With Gallifreyans going to Logopolis or Karn for modifications to their TARDISes, it does suggest that certain aspects have been farmed out to other races. We rarely have the opportunity to see a fully functional TARDIS; even those of the Master and Rani are only seen briefly.

The main space inside the TARDIS is actually in another dimension, and one might be able to assume that it is actually stationary and, for want of a better word, timeless, poking into our reality.

That being the case, all we really need to focus on is the control room, which is actually a giant oscillator and therefore shares parallels to the sonic screwdriver but at a much larger scale. Hardly surprising that the sonic screwdriver is so effective as its main tool. The TARDIS effectively vibrates out of our space before travelling to another destination. We see the motion from the outside as a dematerialisation. The depictions of the TARDIS travelling in the time lanes might just be a convenience for inferior minds to comprehend. Since the demise of Gallifrey, the Doctor has had to resort to other energy sources to power the TARDIS from time to time. Unlike the sonic screwdriver, it uses a lot more energy for such activities.

Since its repair, the Doctor’s TARDIS can have a controlled flight or go to a trouble spot. It also keeps a record of this and the order across time to prevent earlier regenerations of the Doctor from attending the same event. Considering the number of times in Earth’s past the Doctor has prevented alien invasions, he must be aware that he had to have been successful, or his future fights would probably not have happened or history would divide up into a series of alternative realities. We are aware of at least three or four of these. In many respects, the Doctor’s mission is to keep reality on track, knowing that humanity has a bigger part to play when it colonises the galaxy, but that’s a different story.

As I was completing this article, I did a cursory Google check of time travel devices and oscillators, and I’m not the first to come up with that observation, although what was shown wasn’t the TARDIS, hence my focus on the sonic screwdriver, the ultimate quantum tool. The fact that the Doctor sees it as a tool that he can use beyond repairing the TARDIS shows how much he thinks beyond his Gallifreyan people.

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