This is a bit of a red herring, but in the first draft for the script to T1 there were actually two soldiers who went back to 1984. Kyle appeared in mid air above the floor of the alley, and his unfortunate companion appeared intertwined with the nearby fire escape. He's mortally injured by the metal bars that are now running through his body, and after a very brief dialog Kyle smothers him as an act of mercy. Even having just read the script the idea gives me the willies.
Of course, Cameron removed the second soldier entirely from the story in later revisions, and what's shown in T2 (with the bubble annihilating everything in its path) makes it pretty clear that the TDE physics has also changed. But I think it's interesting to note that the idea was at least considered, even if it didn't make it into canon.
I think that it's not unreasonable to assume, as Roxy mentions below, that the annihilation only happens at the destination point. I love the extended future war scenes from T2 script (they're in the novelization, BTW), and don't see a conflict. It's doubtful that the humans in the future would've known everything there is to know about time displacement physics. IIRC, in that scene they also had Kyle slather himself with conductive jelly in addition to simply disrobing, but it's been years since I read it and I could be mistaken. But between that and the fact that they set his destination point above the alley rather than risking him merging with the ground could indicate that they were just playing it safe.
The matter displaced doesn't undergo fission- it simply ceases to exist. This leaves open the question of what happens to the individual atoms whose nuclei are stuck right on the boundary of the bubble. I'd love for a nuclear physicist to tackle this question, but my seat-of-the-pants guess would be that nuclei are so small (even compared to atoms) that it would be statistically unlikely for a critical number of them to be split by the bubble, and brownian motion would cause most of the atoms along the edge to be completely annihilated in the few seconds that the bubble is in existence. You could however wind up with quite a bit of ionization due to annihilated electrons, which would provide at least a weak explanation for the electrical disturbance (at least while the bubble exists, though not before). The handful of atoms that did get split wouldn't be near any fissile isotope, so you'd get a flash of light and a burst of radiation, but no chain reaction.
Wow. Did I really just geek out that much? I'll stop now before someone calls the authorities. :-)
Re: Bit of an essay, but I like to think about these things.
Of course, Cameron removed the second soldier entirely from the story in later revisions, and what's shown in T2 (with the bubble annihilating everything in its path) makes it pretty clear that the TDE physics has also changed. But I think it's interesting to note that the idea was at least considered, even if it didn't make it into canon.
I think that it's not unreasonable to assume, as Roxy mentions below, that the annihilation only happens at the destination point. I love the extended future war scenes from T2 script (they're in the novelization, BTW), and don't see a conflict. It's doubtful that the humans in the future would've known everything there is to know about time displacement physics. IIRC, in that scene they also had Kyle slather himself with conductive jelly in addition to simply disrobing, but it's been years since I read it and I could be mistaken. But between that and the fact that they set his destination point above the alley rather than risking him merging with the ground could indicate that they were just playing it safe.
The matter displaced doesn't undergo fission- it simply ceases to exist. This leaves open the question of what happens to the individual atoms whose nuclei are stuck right on the boundary of the bubble. I'd love for a nuclear physicist to tackle this question, but my seat-of-the-pants guess would be that nuclei are so small (even compared to atoms) that it would be statistically unlikely for a critical number of them to be split by the bubble, and brownian motion would cause most of the atoms along the edge to be completely annihilated in the few seconds that the bubble is in existence. You could however wind up with quite a bit of ionization due to annihilated electrons, which would provide at least a weak explanation for the electrical disturbance (at least while the bubble exists, though not before). The handful of atoms that did get split wouldn't be near any fissile isotope, so you'd get a flash of light and a burst of radiation, but no chain reaction.
Wow. Did I really just geek out that much? I'll stop now before someone calls the authorities. :-)