Lets talk Lift

[maxal]

Not fair, you can't respond twice to the same post 

My great-grandmother also suffered from delusions and died when I was around 8 years old, yet I remember, so no reason for Adolin to have been at least 10 to remember his grandfather.

 

I did :ph34r:   Did I, at least, say the same thing? :ph34r:

 

My grand-mother died when I was 6 and my grand-father died when I was 7. I hardly remember any of them, especially my grand-mother. I cannot tell how she was or even what she looked like. The only reason I know what she died of if because I asked about it many years later.

 

So yeah, I guess it is possible an 8 years old would remember such things, I suspect he probably was older based on the comment he had on the subject. He wouldn't be worried his father is turning crazy if he barely remembered the facts. Anyway, I guess this is open speculation, but I am betting on older then 10

 

 

Since Shallan is betrothed at 17 and that's perfectly acceptable, then having the first child when you're under 20 is to be expected, so the second one is likely to be born before the parents are 25 years old. 

 

The average life-expectancy should be lower than you estimate because it includes everyone. ~75 is unrealistic, modern life-expectancy is lower. Adolin's grandfather was privileged, so he lived longer than the average citizen (better healthcare, more food, others do the hard physical work for him and so on). 

 

We don't know how many years the first five books will cover. We can guess it won't take longer than 5 in-world years, but it may or may not be correct, so we don't know how old the characters will be in book 6. 

 

She is betrothed, but we don't know how long betrothals are supposed to last until the wedding. Adolin, at 22 closing on 23, is considered old to not be married yet. Elhokar was married at 19, which I suspect must be the "standard" age to get married according to the Vorin society. Children seem to come a few years later. So yeah, grand-daddy must have been around 25 years of age upon Dalinar's birth.

 

Dalinar, another oddity, married late and had Adolin at nearly 30. Grand-daddy is now nearly 55.

 

Add 10 years for Adolin to get decent memories of his old man and he is nearing 65. Adolin also claimed the old man though he was back in the wars... Which wars was he referring to? I believe the likely guess must be the war to unite Alethkar as previous conflicts would have been the equivalent of border skirmishes. Now, if my memory serves me right, this war started shortly after Renarin's birth and latest about 5 years bringing Adolin to about 9 years of age. Grand-daddy must have died a few years after in between the age of 65 and 70 years of age.

 

We must not forget that the older we get, the higher our life expectancy is. 80 years old is the life expectancy of a baby born today in America. Now, once said baby reaches 80 years old, his chances of making it to 100 are half and half. I therefore believe it is quite possible Dalinar would live a long life, providing he can steer away from the conflicts.

[Oudeis]

Don't forget that a Rosharan year is about 37% longer than an earth year, so by the time he's "three", he's really four, by the time he's nine, he's twelve.

 

Also, my great-grandmother died when I was four, and I remember her quite clearly (I hope this doesn't come across as snotty or arrogant, I'm simply trying to point out that, at that age, brains and bodies develop at vastly different rates. I was a tiny kid with other mental deficiencies, but the long-term memory centers of my brain were clearly something my body felt like developing first. In your case, those memory centers must've taken longer to develop, and I'm sure something else was given priority. I've got 26 younger cousins and five nieces and nephews, and it's my conclusion that until you're 12 or so your body/brain develop in an entirely random order. There's a reason there's a cliche about that one kid in middle school who's already reached his adult height and started shaving.).

[Aleksiel]

Geez, I only just realized how that must've sounded It's not exactly what I meant.

 

I have absolutely nothing against Dalinar living even long after the whole SA has ended. Or even if he died peacefully in the back five, surrounded by loving family. I rather meant that it would be kind of anti-climatic in my opinion if we learned that he died during the time skip. For me it's either we see him in the back five still alive or he dies in book 4-5 a truly heroic death.

 

We could see him on his death bed in Ren's or Jasnah's memories when his/her book comes, but I agree no matter how he dies, the proper way is for it to be on-screen.

 

I did :ph34r:   Did I, at least, say the same thing? :ph34r:

 

 Not exactly, but it's ok   I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't go back to re-read the whole of my post you quoted. It's been months you know, I've forgotten what I wrote.

 

 

We must not forget that the older we get, the higher our life expectancy is. 80 years old is the life expectancy of a baby born today in America. Now, once said baby reaches 80 years old, his chances of making it to 100 are half and half. I therefore believe it is quite possible Dalinar would live a long life, providing he can steer away from the conflicts.

 

I agree Adolin's grandfather was likely at least 70, however you misunderstood my point - the average life expectancy for all Alethi should be lower. Dalinar could live long (and prosper  ) or not. 

 

 

Don't forget that a Rosharan year is about 37% longer than an earth year, so by the time he's "three", he's really four, by the time he's nine, he's twelve.

 

Rosharian year is 1.1 Earth years, so when someone is 3 Rosharian years old, he's 3.3 Earth years and so on.

[Oudeis]

Rosharian year is 1.1 Earth years, so when someone is 3 Rosharian years old, he's 3.3 Earth years and so on.

 

Do you have a quote on that? I was under the impression that we do not yet have confirmation on how long a Rosharan hour is compared to an Earth hour, a day to a day, so working on the basis of 24 earth hours in a day, 500 days a year (five days a week, ten weeks a month, ten months a year) works out to approximately 137%.

 

Hrm... if we DO know that it is 1.1 ... then surely we could work out how long a Rosharan day is? Using the Rent cheat, we know there are 525,600 minutes in a year. If it's 1.1 longer, that's 578,160 earth-minutes in a Rosharan-year. With 500 Rosharan days a Rosharan year, that's 1156.32 Earth-minutes to a Rosharan day. With 60 earth-minutes to an earth-Hour, that means one day on Roshar would be only 19.272 Earth-Hours long. I wonder how they break up their hours. Suddenly, these "six hour" bridge runs look like they might be closer to only four.

 

Pssh, Bridgemen, always exaggerating how desolate their lives are.

 

How on Roshar do they have time for three moons to cross the sky every night, especially since there is a period of time between each moon? If they're traversing so fast, why in the world don't they also cross two or three times during the day? Considering the percentage of the sky each moon takes up, solar eclipses should happen... like twice a day.

 

CURSE YOU, ROSHARAN ASTRONOMY! YOU GIVE ONLY QUESTIONS, NO ANSWERS!

[Aleksiel]

Do you have a quote on that? I was under the impression that we do not yet have confirmation on how long a Rosharan hour is compared to an Earth hour, a day to a day, so working on the basis of 24 earth hours in a day, 500 days a year (five days a week, ten weeks a month, ten months a year) works out to approximately 137%.

 

Hrm... if we DO know that it is 1.1 ... then surely we could work out how long a Rosharan day is? Using the Rent cheat, we know there are 525,600 minutes in a year. If it's 1.1 longer, that's 578,160 earth-minutes in a Rosharan-year. With 500 Rosharan days a Rosharan year, that's 1156.32 Earth-minutes to a Rosharan day. With 60 earth-minutes to an earth-Hour, that means one day on Roshar would be only 19.272 Earth-Hours long. I wonder how they break up their hours. Suddenly, these "six hour" bridge runs look like they might be closer to only four.

 

Pssh, Bridgemen, always exaggerating how desolate their lives are.

 

How on Roshar do they have time for three moons to cross the sky every night, especially since there is a period of time between each moon? If they're traversing so fast, why in the world don't they also cross two or three times during the day? Considering the percentage of the sky each moon takes up, solar eclipses should happen... like twice a day.

 

CURSE YOU, ROSHARAN ASTRONOMY! YOU GIVE ONLY QUESTIONS, NO ANSWERS!

 Here. A day on Roshar is 20 hours

 

edit: I'm not completely sure the 20-hour-day is canon, but the Rosharian years being 1.1 Earth years is.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Aleksiel

[Oudeis]

Thank you!

 

Yeah... the 20-hour citation seems a bit cyclical, since it's just two sources, sourcing each other. Still, 1.1 years is canon (even though I feel it's reasonable to assume it gets approximate when you break it down to actual minutes) so a Rosharan Day should be very close to 1156.32 Earth minutes long... if there ARE 20 hours in a day, that would then mean 57.816 minutes to an hour, the same math I presume Cheese Ninja did to arrive at the "a few minutes shorter" conclusion.

 

It helps nothing at all that there are times the words "week" or "month" are bandied about to mean the Rosharan time frame, and yet other times they're used to give us, the Earth reader, an idea of our own frame of reference.

 

I wonder how much of the day is daylight, and how much is night. With low axial tilt, this would not change in any given location, but given that the supercontinent seems to stretch from their equator (according to one of the maps) down to a place where the ocean freezes, it's presumably different as you travel north or south.

[Kyats Rani]

Since the Rosharian year is 1.1 of the year on Earth then every we could safely assume that SA characters are a year older than their age is stated in the book if we want to compare it to our measurement of age. So it's not a big difference for a child or a young peron around 20, but at the age of, say, 70, those 7 years can make a difference.

 

Basing on my own experiences and a query among my friends I assume that a child can have vivid memories around the age of 7-8, less if the memory is particularly important or traumatic to said child. Honestly, I remember the day my cat died when I was 3 but I barely can recall thing from the time I started primary school So if Adolin was very close to his grandfather he would remember him well even if he died when Adolin was 5-6, but he may not remember something that happened to him when he was 9 if he didn't consider it important.

 

But I don't think the fact that Adolin says he remember his grandfather's metal condition means that he was old enough to understand it. He possibly remembered the way his grandpa behaved and the strange things he did or said and only when he was older (teenager propably) he understood what had been happening to his grandfather before.

 

So it could have been that the grandfather (later called simply Kholin as it's shorter) died when Adolin was, say, 6. Assuming that Alethi males marry at 22 (as I'd put it in the range of 20-25 because men are usually older than their wives in such cultures) it's reasonable that the second child in an important lighteyed family (who propably considers it vital to have an heir so the first is propably born during the first or second year of marriage) may be born around 28. So we have our Kholin being 28 and having baby Dalinar. Now, during the SA Adolin is 23 and Dalinar is 50, so simple maths gives us that Adolin was born when Dalinar was 27, so it's kind of late for the first son. But I don't really think this contadicts my reasoning too much as we know that Dalinar spent 3 years courtning his future wife.So Dalinar was 33 when Adolin was 6 and therefore the eldest Kholin would be 61. Taking into account the length of the year on Roshar we can say he would be around 67 years old on Earth, which isn't too uncommon.

 

Now, I know that I've taken much liberty in my reasoning, but that's in my opinion not bad approximation of the lower boundary of his age. And he may or may not have been particularly long-lived for an Alethi (though obviosly he would be older than most of the darkeyes due to his rank), which depends of his personal physical capacity and even a random occurence (like an illness). Anyway, in the second part of SA Dalinar would be around 60 and since he is in a very good shape and can use stormlight to improve his health, so it's pretty safe to say that he has a very strong chance to be still alive then, provided that he won't die in battle earlier on.

 

Ok, so that was my take on logical thinking in order to determine possible Alethi life capacity. I'm not saying I'm good at such things, so there may be mistakes.

 

Now, on a less intelectually demanding note (and more rambling/speculation one, which is what I'm very good at )... I got this idea in my head lately when my brain refused to focus on my studies and strayed to SA   And I think this is the right thread for it.

We know that Lift can touch spren in physical realm, right? If I remember correctly Wyndle moves by sliding on the ground. I can't guess whether it's fast or slow, but it's definitely less practical than Syl just floating around. So I imagined Lift having Wyndle wrap himself (as he is kind of a plant with vines...) around her arm so she can carry him around An easy way to help him moving and a very cool accessory for Lift I guess it is something that Lift would be capable of doing (provided that she stops considering Wyndle a Voidbringer).

[maxal]

Rosharian year is 1.1 Earth years, so when someone is 3 Rosharian years old, he's 3.3 Earth years and so on.

 

Except we are not on Earth... The issue I have with the Rosharian years length is the fact the character's development and maturity level seem to follow their Rosharian age and not the Earth's equivalent... I therefore have decided to ignore this fact

Edited November 4, 2014 by maxal

[maxal]

So it could have been that the grandfather (later called simply Kholin as it's shorter) died when Adolin was, say, 6. Assuming that Alethi males marry at 22 (as I'd put it in the range of 20-25 because men are usually older than their wives in such cultures) it's reasonable that the second child in an important lighteyed family (who propably considers it vital to have an heir so the first is propably born during the first or second year of marriage) may be born around 28. So we have our Kholin being 28 and having baby Dalinar. Now, during the SA Adolin is 23 and Dalinar is 50, so simple maths gives us that Adolin was born when Dalinar was 27, so it's kind of late for the first son. But I don't really think this contadicts my reasoning too much as we know that Dalinar spent 3 years courtning his future wife.So Dalinar was 33 when Adolin was 6 and therefore the eldest Kholin would be 61. Taking into account the length of the year on Roshar we can say he would be around 67 years old on Earth, which isn't too uncommon.

 

 

Actually, Adolin states, during his first date with Shallan, he has not had his 23rd birthday yet, so he's still 22. We are probably going to see him turn 23 in the next book or so.

 

We know Renarin is 19, Kaladin is 20 and Shallan is 17. Adolin is the only one that did not outright say his age. I am assuming the age difference between the Kohlin boys to be around 3 years and a half, such a cute age, right out of the aptly name "tantrum age"

[WeiryWriter]

How on Roshar do they have time for three moons to cross the sky every night, especially since there is a period of time between each moon? If they're traversing so fast, why in the world don't they also cross two or three times during the day? Considering the percentage of the sky each moon takes up, solar eclipses should happen... like twice a day.

 

CURSE YOU, ROSHARAN ASTRONOMY! YOU GIVE ONLY QUESTIONS, NO ANSWERS!

 

Off topic for thread

 

Brandon has said they have all the math worked out, I believe, and I for one would love to see it (or at least a diagram of what is going on). 

 

That said, and keep in mind I am not an astronomer and am working off a fairly basic understanding of the dynamics involved with eclipses (I could be wrong), I don't  solar eclipses would be anywhere near that frequent. The largest of the moons is about the same as ours, and let's say the other two are equivalent to 1.5 that size. If we go off the "they take up more space in the sky so solar eclipses should be more often" and say eclipses would be 2.5 times more likely (or should that be an exponent?)  then since we have eclipses about twice a year (looking at a chart 2012-2017 all have two eclipses a year, though a few others have up to four) that would result in 5 eclipses a year. There's also the fact that most of Roshar is ocean so people wouldn't even see some of them.

 

Edit: Given that, I can't remember any mention of the moons being in the sky during the day and for some reason I want to say the moons rise and set at the same time every night.  So is it possible that the moons are always opposite of the sun, i.e. always on the night side? I'm pretty sure we have confirmation the moons were put in place artificially (at the very least Peter has said they aren't astronomically stable).  Definitely not the simplest of situations (simplest would be Brandon just didn't mention the moons during the day) so I'm not totally on board with that but...

 

If the moons were in geosynchronous orbit, and if their orbital planes sync'd with Roshar's, then I would totally expect the multiple eclipses a day thing.

Edited November 4, 2014 by WeiryWriter

[Arondell]

Actually, Adolin states, during his first date with Shallan, he has not had his 23rd birthday yet, so he's still 22. We are probably going to see him turn 23 in the next book or so.

 

Adolin's phrasing is a little unclear I guess.  I figured he meant he had reached his twenty-third birthday.

 

“Sure, it’s all right for Jasnah to run about into her middle years without a spouse, but if I reach my twenty-third birthday without a bride, it’s like I’m some kind of menace.

Sanderson, Brandon (2014-03-04). Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The) (p. 568). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.

[maxal]

Adolin's phrasing is a little unclear I guess.  I figured he meant he had reached his twenty-third birthday.

 

I figured he meant he has not reached it yet and it would be a scandal if he does without a bride.... I guess this is up to interpretation.

[Oudeis]

Off topic for thread

Brandon has said they have all the math worked out, I believe, and I for one would love to see it (or at least a diagram of what is going on). 
 
That said, and keep in mind I am not an astronomer and am working off a fairly basic understanding of the dynamics involved with eclipses (I could be wrong), I don't  solar eclipses would be anywhere near that frequent. The largest of the moons is about the same as ours, and let's say the other two are equivalent to 1.5 that size. If we go off the "they take up more space in the sky so solar eclipses should be more often" and say eclipses would be 2.5 times more likely (or should that be an exponent?)  then since we have eclipses about twice a year (looking at a chart 2012-2017 all have two eclipses a year, though a few others have up to four) that would result in 5 eclipses a year. There's also the fact that most of Roshar is ocean so people wouldn't even see some of them.
 
Edit: Given that, I can't remember any mention of the moons being in the sky during the day and for some reason I want to say the moons rise and set at the same time every night.  So is it possible that the moons are always opposite of the sun, i.e. always on the night side? I'm pretty sure we have confirmation the moons were put in place artificially (at the very least Peter has said they aren't astronomically stable).  Definitely not the simplest of situations (simplest would be Brandon just didn't mention the moons during the day) so I'm not totally on board with that but...
 
If the moons were in geosynchronous orbit, and if their orbital planes sync'd with Roshar's, then I would totally expect the multiple eclipses a day thing.

You're missing the point of what I was saying; the moons should be BOOKING IT.

For one, I was under the impression that the moons were significantly bigger than the Earth moon, do you have a source for yours? I'll look up one for mine.

Second, the moons should absolutely be showing up during the day. In fact, at the rate we see them move, they should go past, each of them, multiple times a day. The sheer frequency with which they circle the globe is why I think there should be more eclipses. If we get an eclipse once out of every n rotations of the moon around the earth, then by the fact that there's three moons and they go so fast, there should be many, many rotations per earth-moon rotation, so eclipses should be more frequent.

As to your theory that maybe each moon is stationary and Roshar spins under them... that doesn't hold water. For that to be the case, at best, each moon could be 90 degrees off of each other, with the sun at the fourth point. Apart from the fact that this would make the day less than five hours and the night more than fifteen, since there's darkness between each moon, that would have to mean that people on Roshar can for some reason only see something like 20% of the sky at once; in reality you can see something closer to 50%. I might draw diagrams, but unless i can animate them I'm afraid they wouldn't be clear.

Let's say the night and day are equally spaced. In fact, let's give an extra hour to the night. So a ten and a half hour night, a nine and a half hour day. 630 minutes of night. Divide by three, that gives us 210 minutes per moon, or about three and a half hours. This is the time it takes the moon to cross the 45% of the sky a Rosharan can see at any one time, and even that's pretty tight given that one moon has fully set before the next arises. At that speed, whether it's moving around Roshar or Roshar is moving under it, unless one of those two speeds changes while the moon is on the far side of Roshar, that gives us something like 7.8 hours for a full circuit of the entire planet. That would make each moon cross the sky three times every day. Why doesn't that happen?

[WeiryWriter]

Off topic:

 

Okay, yeah I was misremembering this quote:

 

 

A:  I think the biggest is the most massive. All three moons are much closer than our moon is.
Q:  And so is that Nomon?
A:  Yes
Q:  How big is Nomon on the night sky, like compared to our moon?
A:  Larger than our moon, but not dominating of the sky. […] I do believe Nomon is bigger, but I had to have Peter run those calculations, so he may come back and say no Brandon, that's not possible, but I do believe it's bigger than our moon in the sky. You're supposed to be able to see moderately well by Nomon.

 (source)

 

But while looking for that I found this:

 

 

Q:  There's no eclipses as far as I can tell, so the plane of the orbit must be strongly inclined, 'cause there'd be an eclipse every day if there were eclipses-
A:  We had to fudge that because as you said, if there were any it'd be all the time.

 

So it looks like you should be right but there's some handwavium in the mix

[Oudeis]

@Weiry. Ah, thank you! Heh heh, interesting quote.

[Kurkistan]

@Weiry/Outis

 

More on moons that might interest you.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Kurkistan