Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'reality'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Categories

  • Brandon and Book News
  • Events, Signings, & Giveaways
  • Columns and Features
  • Site News
  • Shardcast

Forums

  • 17th Shard
    • Introduce Yourself!
    • 17th Shard Discussion
    • The Coppermind Wiki
    • Arcanum Discussion
  • Brandon Sanderson
    • General Brandon Discussion
    • Events and Signings
    • Sanderson Fan Works
    • Arcanum, the Brandon Sanderson Archive
  • Spoiler Zone
    • The Sunlit Man (No Cosmere Spoilers)
    • The Sunlit Man (Cosmere Spoilers)
  • The Cosmere
    • Cosmere Q&A
    • Cosmere Discussion
    • Stormlight Archive
    • Mistborn
    • Other Cosmere
  • Non-Cosmere Works
    • Cytoverse
    • Other Non-Cosmere
    • The Wheel of Time
  • Related Works
    • Writing Excuses and Intentionally Blank
    • Reading Excuses
    • Sanderson Curiosities & Unpublished Works
    • TWG Archive
  • Community
    • General Discussion
    • Entertainment Discussion
    • Forum Games & Random Stuff
    • Creator's Corner
    • Role-Playing
    • Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds

Blogs

  • Chaos' Blog
  • Leinton's Blog
  • 17th Shard Blog
  • KChan's Blog
  • Puck's Blag
  • Brandon's Blog
  • The Name of your Blog
  • Darth Squirrely's Blog
  • Tales of a Firebug
  • borborygmus' Blog
  • Zeadman's Blog
  • zas678's Blog
  • The Basement
  • Addy's Avocations
  • Seshperankh's Blog
  • First time reading The Well Of Ascension
  • Zarepath's Blog
  • "I Have Opinions About Books"
  • Test
  • Which actors would you like to see playing the characters of Mistborn?
  • Drifted Mists
  • Jaron's Realm
  • Roshar Speculative Theories
  • ChrisHamatake's Blog
  • Paradox Flint's Blog
  • Deoradhan's Blog
  • Storm Blessed's Blog
  • Elwynn's Blog
  • firstRainbowRose's Blog
  • Rotabush ShardBlog
  • Hoid's Compendium
  • InterContinental Adventures
  • Claincy Creates
  • Theories, quotes, and details to keep it all straight.
  • WoR Thoughts and Questions
  • Blogfalcon
  • David Coppercloud's Blog
  • yurisses' notes and theories
  • Lark Adventures
  • LUNA's Poetry
  • Inspiration Board
  • Trying to be Useful for a Change
  • Cosmere Nerd Things
  • The Way of Toasters
  • An Elephant's Blog
  • Shhh Spoilers for Ronald.
  • Wyn's Adventures in Geekiness
  • Words With Ene
  • Dapper's Blog
  • Things to talk about, stuff to do
  • Zelly's Healthy-Accountability Blog
  • Dapper's Music Blog
  • GM Test Blog
  • Rhythm of War Liveblog
  • Zephy’s Art Blog
  • Axioms Idioms & Adages
  • Weather Reports
  • Unnecessarily Overcomplicated
  • 5
  • The Blog of Dubious Copyright Legality
  • Trutharchivist's Rambles
  • Xino's corner of insanity
  • The Perfect Space Opera
  • My Journey Through Roshar (A Liveblog)
  • Lost Metal Liveblog by ccstat
  • D&D campaign design.
  • My Depression Log
  • Story Ideas and Whatnot
  • deltarune AU concept.
  • How I Relate to Every Character in The Stormlight Archive
  • A thing
  • random jank and jabber.
  • FNF crem

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End


Group


Website URL


AIM


MSN


ICQ


Yahoo


Jabber


Skype


Member Title


Location


Interests

Found 2 results

  1. So I'm a blacksmith [helps with pocket change while in grad school] in my spare time, and I've been thinking about the dimensions of shardblades and what they might weigh. I promise to keep the math low key here. Let's start by establishing the dimensions of a hypothetical shardblade. For this exercise, I'll use a shardblade with a 70 inch [American] blade, 2.5 inches wide for most of its length, with a 12 inch handle. I'll convert this to metric for later calculations, but not just yet. Based on the geometries of historic weapons, just the blade and tang [yes I know shardblades are solid, but I'm breaking this down the way I would if I were figuring out how much of each material I would need if I were actually building something like this] would add up to about ~18 cubic inches. This figure accounts for the bevels from the spine of the blade to the edges (double edged design), and for a taper along the blade from 1/4 inch [at the spine] near the handle to 1/8 inch [at the spine] at the tip. For figuring out the handle, pommel and guard, to account for sharblades being solid, I'll subtract the 2.8 cubic inches that make up the tang from the blade total. If the crossguard takes up 1/2 inch of the handle space, and extends 5 inches to either side from the center of the blade, assuming a square cross-section for simplicity you have 2.5 cubic inches there. Now, let's assume a maximum diameter (and this is squiffly, because handles have tapers in two directions, and other design peculiarities dependent on design, and I'm trying to keep the math simple here) of 1 inch for the handle. Factor in the shape of the handle, [no, I'm not going to show that math] and you have ~10 cubic inches. Add a pommel, call that another 2 cubic inches. So, the blade is 15.2 cubic inches, + 2.5 inches for the guard, + 10 inches cubed for the handle, + 2 inches for the pommel, gives you a grand total of: 29.7 cubic inches of material in your shardblade. For my non American metric lovers, that equals 486.7 cubic centimeters. Now, as said in the books, this blade could never be made out of steel, not and be usable. Steel has an average density [depending on alloy] of 7.86 grams per cubic centimeter, so if it was made out of steel, this blade would weigh 38.25 kilograms, or a whopping 84 pounds!!! For comparison, a standard broadsword shouldn't weigh more than 4 pounds. Okay, so what are the other options? Titanium has a density of 4.51 grams per cubic centimeter. A titanium shardblade would weigh almost 22 kilograms, or about 48 pounds. That's better, but still not exactly usable. If it were made of pure aluminum, at 2.6 grams per cubic centimeter, it would weigh in at 12 kilograms, or 26 pounds. That is much, much better-- still not great, you would have to be really, absurdly buff to swing it more than a few times, and mind, once you get it moving it sure as all get-out isn't going to stop, but still, we are at least getting into the realm of possibility now. Thankfully, aluminum is not the lightest metal around. Unfortunately, most of the alternatives tend to be a little unsafe, whether that means flammable, explosive in contact with water, or just plain toxic or radioactive. Your best bet for getting something about close to the right weight, as seen in the books, would be potassium or lithium. Potassium is 0.89 grams per cubic centimeter, lithium 0.53. So a potassium shardblade would be 4.3 kilos, or 9.4 pounds, while a lithium shardblade would weigh in at 2.58 kilos, or 5.7 pounds. So, lithium has the closest weight to what is described in the books. So, yeah, if you can find that much lithium, you could make a usable shardblade. Except it would bend, wouldn't take an edge, would dent left and right, and oh yeah. Don't get it wet, or your priceless shardblade will disappear in a flash that will leave you with permanent retinal damage.
  2. So I know that realmatic theory has its inspiration in Plato's Phaedrus but I am really interested in the inspiration behind the interpenetration of the cognitive and the physical realms. For example: Does anyone know where Brandon might have gotten inspiration for the idea that perception affects the structures of reality? It seems so similar to something you'd read in Michel Foucault's work on the gaze and how perception is reality-producing. I looked up "Brandon Sanderson and postmodernism" but the only thing that came up was something Brandon posted about deconstructing the fantasy genre.
×
×
  • Create New...