Adonalsium Inspiration

[blakismaximus22]

Hello all,

In an astronomy lecture today my professor talked about inflationary theory. In this theory, prior to the Big Bang the universe had an extremely small volume, where the 4 universal forces (strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational) were unified as one force, meaning the laws of the universe as we know it currently did not necessarily apply. This unified force was split when the Big Bang occurred, resulting in the forces we now know.

Sounds a little familiar to me. 

A single unified "force" (Adonalsium) that was split into multiple pieces (Shards).

Does anyone know if Mr. Sanderson has studied cosmology? Or if he has said anything in the past about his inspiration for the Shattering of Adonalsium?

[skaa]

Well, we do know that the Surges of Roshar were inspired by the fundamental forces:

Quote

Q: Is [the Division surge] a reframing of, at one point in time you were talking about weak/strong forces?
A: Um, weak/strong forces, yes, that's the one that sent me there partially. Like, I'm not actually... the idea of the fundamental forces is a cool thing to me so it's not like I'm actually trying to use the weak and strong forces, the idea of there being fundamental forces. I wanted to go off on it in a fancy way. Like this one right here I told them was surface tension. But it's not really surface tension.

As for whether the idea of a unified force inspired the idea of Adonalsium... maybe. I did theorize once that Stormlight is a sort of "Unified Surge" based on the Unified Field Theory, but that's just my speculation.

Edited March 15, 2017 by skaa

[+Extesian]

Brandon is pretty scientifically astute and often uses fundamental scientific principles (with a lot of the detail I think ironed out by the indivisible Peter Ahlstrom). There's mathematical patterns (Roshar is a slice of the Julia Set), fundamental forces, relativity, astronomy and many others. It's one of the best things about the Cosmere, he takes fantastical idea and scientificizes them (totally a real word).

I spent a good deal of time trying to formulate a ridiculous theory where Adobalsium was a star and the Shattering was an accelerated supernova that created the metals, each of which was one of the Shards. I totally failed but the point is he makes readers actually really delve into the science yo come up with theories. So whether or not the Shattering is based on that it's a nice way to think about it