Breath-petual Motion Machines

[Kurkistan]

Just a quick tidbit that I found in the interview database:

DYLAN HUEBNER ()
Would it be effective/efficient to make Awakened machines? That is to say, could one make a crossbow or catapult that fires itself, or a wooden cog that perpetually turns?

BRANDON SANDERSON ()
There is a country that does that.


It was filed under the Alcatraz section, which may be why it has (to my knowledge) been missed so far.

I would guess that this is going to be a plot point in the planned Warbreaker sequel, probably involved in whatever war needs to be broken next (pun! ).

I also found a Mistborn factoid on the same trawl. Edited April 16, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Satsuoni]

Yes! One more step towards the Breathinator robots! (Made of the best steel Commanded to kill )

It is interesting to think what would happen if such machines were used as electrical generators on the large scale, though Just tell turbine (made of wood, or something) to "rotate", and free energy is yours! (Probably in such case pumped straight from the shard, in a way). Would there be ecological consequences? Fun!

Edited February 9, 2013 by Satsuoni

[Windrunner]

The tagging error is fixed now.

[king of nowhere]

the concept should be viable, but far more expensive than more conventional means. human or animal labor should be cheaper. I'm trying to make some rough estimation here. A regular human can produce 100 watt on average. assume a breath can power a device for a similar amount, 24/7. that's around 10 Mjoule per day. around the energy contained in 1 L of gasoline.

Today's world energy consumption is roughly 10 billion barrels equivalent per year (a bit dated, but enough for our purposes), a barrel is 160 L, so we need approx the energy released by 5 billion L of petrol per day. That's what will be generated by 5 billion breaths. It would require an entire generation to give up the breath to empower teechnology.

Which could be feasible, as a multigenerational plan. However, I think those breaths will be spent with time. they will deteriorate. a lifeless will eventually wear down, and I suppose the same will happen to any machine empowered by breath. For that reason, breath would probably not be a viable energy source for an advanced civilization.

And in a midle age civilization slave or paesant labor is cheaper. I mean, ancient egyptians already knew the steam engine, but they never used it for anything useful because laborers were cheaper (also, they were very rough and inefficient as engines; watt did not invent the steam engine, but he invented the thing that increased its efficiency tenfold; before him it was just too expensive to be practical).

So, according to my calculation, getting energy from breath would be possible, but economically inconvenient.

[Kurkistan]

The problem is twofold:

First of all, there is the question of the time and space over which energy is delivered. If I can spend 200 Breath to re-winch 20 ballistae in 0.5s as opposed to 40 men to do it in 10, then Breaths have far greater utility--despite their relative inefficiency--because of how quickly they can deliver the energy where I need it.

The same holds for space. Those 20 ballistae can be packed far tighter if I don't need to make room for guys to winch them, and so they can have a greater punch.

Second, there is the fact that using Breath can only ever be a help to you; it is ever and must be an advantage. In Warbreaker, someone noted that the one-Breath command could double the size of your army: half humans, half animated corpses powered by Breath from the other half of the army. Those Breaths don't do any real good to the bodies of their original owners, so far as the war effort is concerned, but certainly do good animating Lifeless.

The same holds true for more industrial endeavors. Say you want 20 guys to turn a wheel. Those 20 guys could give their 20 Breaths to an Awakener who Commands the wheel to "turn" and, even if that doesn't turn the wheel by itself, the workers can turn it a lot more easily, or they can go and turn another wheel at the same time, doubling the work produced. They can even get their souls back at the end of the workday.

So, to reiterate, unlike with Canadian dollars, you do add them together

I don't think Breaths by themselves decay, though there's no direct textual evidence (that I know of) either way. The God King's reserve seems appropriately large though, especially if it should have started to level off awhile back as "generations" of Breath started "dying."

As far as the mechanisms themselves decaying, you could either recover the Breath from them and reinvest it or you could pull Vasher's trick and encase them in stainless steel or somesuch, to reduce wear.

As for the Egyptians, as just a historical note, my understanding is that they had steam toys/mechanisms, but no leap to the concept of "wait a second, this can be employed on a large scale to do useful work." This may have been due to the lack of any reason to need that extra work, but, so far as I'm concerned, more energy is always better.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Phantom Monstrosity]

the concept should be viable, but far more expensive than more conventional means. human or animal labor should be cheaper. I'm trying to make some rough estimation here. A regular human can produce 100 watt on average. assume a breath can power a device for a similar amount, 24/7. that's around 10 Mjoule per day. around the energy contained in 1 L of gasoline.

Your power estimate is off, I think. Remember that awakened object never tire, so you shouldn't base it off of the amount of food an average person eats in a normal day. If you're going to base off of human stats, at least pick something active. Bicycle racers burn (at least) a thousand kcal per hour, which is over ten times the power you're using.

Although zombies on bicycles is an amusing thought, I seriously doubt that it's the best method of power generation. There are doubtless turbine designs that could dramatically increase the efficiency - even if you don't abandon human form.

[happyman]

Second, there is the fact that using Breath can only ever be a help to you; it is ever and must be an advantage. In Warbreaker, someone noted that the one-Breath command could double the size of your army: half humans, half animated corpses powered by Breath from the other half of the army. Those Breaths don't do any real good to the bodies of their original owners, so far as the war effort is concerned, but certainly do good animating Lifeless.

I generally agree with this sentiment, but I would note that disease is probably the number one killer of armies historically, and being a drab increases your susceptibility noticeably. There is a cost to using lifeless if you then use the resulting drabs as the other half. It may well be worth it. I suspect, though, that it would be even better to keep the drabs at home doing other work where they are less susceptible to and more protected from rampant disease and let the fully souled folks fill out the actual army.

[king of nowhere]

Your power estimate is off, I think. Remember that awakened object never tire, so you shouldn't base it off of the amount of food an average person eats in a normal day. If you're going to base off of human stats, at least pick something active. Bicycle racers burn (at least) a thousand kcal per hour, which is over ten times the power you're using.

Although zombies on bicycles is an amusing thought, I seriously doubt that it's the best method of power generation. There are doubtless turbine designs that could dramatically increase the efficiency - even if you don't abandon human form.

they never tire, but I don't see the lifeless exerting at peak level for prolonged amount of times. there's only so much breath can empower.

Plus, my estimate take into account all the energy a person uses to warm their bodies, digest, think, and do all kind of stuff connected to metabolism. I assumed that not becoming tired and not taking into account metabolic energy would compensate each other.

As for breath consumption, I am thinking about lifeless here. vasher states that lifeless don't last forever. even his stone ones wear down with time, and the breath are lost. true, they lasted hundreds of years with maybe 10% lost, but they stood still all the time. I suppose they would wear down faster if they were used for something.

If breath was simply stuck into machinery it should not wear down, because breath can be recovered. But I don't believe breath could just empower something forever. Note that even awakener don't use their breath most of the time. most of the time their breath is safe into them.

Also, of course you can get improved work if you get your workers/soldiers/whatever give their breath, but unless you are a strong dictator, you have to pay them. Which is again my point, that getting animals or other workers to do the work will be cheaper than buying all those breaths.

breath is still very useful for the army, because lifeless don't require food and don't get ill. the biggest problems of armies were food and disease, so a lifeless army is great.

I was thinking that a nation could establish breath conscription. Instead of calling everyone to be soldiers for a year or two (conscription in the real world) they call everyone to give their breath for a year or two. the breath is used to make a lifeless. after 1 year you get your breath back (you get the breath from someone who just started his year, actually). that way it would be possible to get a constant number of breaths into the army without bothering too much the general population.

[Satsuoni]

The Breath does not decay (or at least there is no indication to such effect), the Lifeless bodies do. Since they don't heal naturally, they simply wear down over time, and the Breath remains, but cannot animate broken husk as well. Since you cannot recover Breath from lifeless, it is effectively lost. Turbine, on the other hand can be awakened at will, and Breaths recovered as it wears down (unless it is a steel turbine, in which case you have another set of problems, namely sentient, soul-sucking power plant). Same with skeletons, actually -Breaths can be recovered easily enough, so Phantoms are reusable (and it takes about 50 Breaths per Phantom). And Breaths can be accumulated over generations - as the person is on the edge of death, bestow Breath on his son/daughter, etc. Which, BTW, lead to an interesting side effect: 5th heightening gives age immunity... Ahem, but that is neither here nor there.

[dj26792]

This does mean that any society of awakeners will inevitably gradually increase the ratio of breaths to people, which means all the problems with awakened inefficiencies will probably become less significant as the society has more breaths, which are an infinite resource as far as we know, this probably means that they could keep up with their power needs since as society develops and needs more power they would have more and more breaths to provide it.

[king of nowhere]

This does mean that any society of awakeners will inevitably gradually increase the ratio of breaths to people

I don't think so; there are also ways to lose breath. people who dies too suddenly to pass their breaths, people who don't want to give their accumulated breaths over for any number of reasons, breath stuck into lifeless, awakened stuff when the original awakener died so the breath cannot be recovered anymore...

I think an equilibrium would be reached. maybe 5 breaths per person, maybe 50. still not bad as a prospect. but it won't go to infinity.