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Weight has nothing to do with allomantic Push/pull strength.


Khmauv

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There is a scene in TFE where Vin learns to Steelpush. She pushes with a constant amount of effort, yet the force of recoil increases drastically as the coin hits the wall. Hence, IMO, effort of pushing is not equivalent to physical force generated.

 

[EDIT] In the light of the above, I'd like to modify my statement about the issue to be such:

The maximum force generated by Coinshot is totally dependent on his/her Allomantic strength (including contribution of nicrobursts, etc). The actual force acting on him/object depends on the variety of factors, including Current Effective Masses (CEM) of both, their momenta, etc. In general, it may lead to increased effectiveness of push with increased CEM of Allomancer, but does not change the upper limit.

Edited by Satsuoni
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There is a scene in TFE where Vin learns to Steelpush. She pushes with a constant amount of effort, yet the force of recoil increases drastically as the coin hits the wall. Hence, IMO, effort of pushing is not equivalent to physical force generated.

 

[EDIT] In the light of the above, I'd like to modify my statement about the issue to be such:

The maximum force generated by Coinshot is totally dependent on his/her Allomantic strength (including contribution of nicrobursts, etc). The actual force acting on him/object depends on the variety of factors, including Current Effective Masses (CEM) of both, their momenta, etc. In general, it may lead to increased effectiveness of push with increased CEM of Allomancer, but does not change the upper limit.

 

When you push something much lighter than yourself, the force you apply rapidly accelerates the object the longer you push, building that object's momentum in the direction of you pushing it. Since a coin is only a few grams in weight (25g - or 0.025kg - at most) compared to your mass which will be thousands of times greater, there is only a small amount of force needed to move the coin. That same force pushing back from the coin is negligible to your mass and doesn't accelerate you. When the coin collides with the wall conservation of momentum has to be retained, and since it cannot continue to go forward it has to push back at you. With the wall that means you're going to get a sizable force to move your body. The more you push, the more it pushes back, hence the more force between the two of you.

 

Imagine trying to push over a wall not anchored down by anything: If you just tickle it that wall ain't going nowhere. But the more you push the more you move it until it eventually falls over. The more effort you expend into pushing that wall is the more force generated between the two. And the more you push on that wall the more you start to move back and need a better foothold. You ever tried pushing something heavy and noticed your feet slipping back? Try pushing the side-wall of an ice rink and see what happens.

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When you push something much lighter than yourself, the force you apply rapidly accelerates the object the longer you push, building that object's momentum in the direction of you pushing it. Since a coin is only a few grams in weight (25g - or 0.025kg - at most) compared to your mass which will be thousands of times greater, there is only a small amount of force needed to move the coin. That same force pushing back from the coin is negligible to your mass and doesn't accelerate you. When the coin collides with the wall conservation of momentum has to be retained, and since it cannot continue to go forward it has to push back at you. With the wall that means you're going to get a sizable force to move your body. The more you push, the more it pushes back, hence the more force between the two of you.

 

Imagine trying to push over a wall not anchored down by anything: If you just tickle it that wall ain't going nowhere. But the more you push the more you move it until it eventually falls over. The more effort you expend into pushing that wall is the more force generated between the two. And the more you push on that wall the more you start to move back and need a better foothold. You ever tried pushing something heavy and noticed your feet slipping back? Try pushing the side-wall of an ice rink and see what happens.

Erm. Yeah, I missed a few details as I suspected. Still. The total momentum of the system you-coin-wall is originally zero, and stays zero. The  momentum would be conserved just as well if the coin were to simply stop. The rapid deceleration, however, means that force is applied to the coin (by the wall), which is then transferred to you.

 

Still, if we assume that a coinshot can apply force above his weight to the coin while it is in range, that means that the force would no longer be negligible. We know that he can apply such force to the coin on the ground. What, exactly, stops him from pushing on the coin in midair to do a double jump? Sure, the coin would fly away rapidly, but it would still take maybe 0.2 sec for it to get out of range. Then drop another coin, etc, and do like a rocket.

Edited by Satsuoni
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There is a scene in TFE where Vin learns to Steelpush. She pushes with a constant amount of effort, yet the force of recoil increases drastically as the coin hits the wall. Hence, IMO, effort of pushing is not equivalent to physical force generated.

 

[EDIT] In the light of the above, I'd like to modify my statement about the issue to be such:

The maximum force generated by Coinshot is totally dependent on his/her Allomantic strength (including contribution of nicrobursts, etc). The actual force acting on him/object depends on the variety of factors, including Current Effective Masses (CEM) of both, their momenta, etc. In general, it may lead to increased effectiveness of push with increased CEM of Allomancer, but does not change the upper limit.

THIS, YES! Well Stated.

 

edit:

Satsuoni--"What, exactly, stops him from pushing on the coin in midair to do a double jump? Sure, the coin would fly away rapidly, but it would still take maybe 0.2 sec for it to get out of range. Then drop another coin, etc, and do like a rocket."

I think Lyrebon already answered this.

Lyrebon--"Since a coin is only a few grams in weight (25g - or 0.025kg - at most) compared to your mass which will be thousands of times greater, there is only a small amount of force needed to move the coin. That same force pushing back from the coin is negligible to your mass and doesn't accelerate you."

Force is a function of mass and acceleration. the force between you and the coin is equal but your masses are not. If you have more mass you have less acceleration. So when lyrebon says it "doesn't accelerate you" that is not strictly true but the acceleration in negligible because the coins mass is so small compared to yours.

 

So double jumping won't accelerate you very much until the coin snaps against the ground, effectively changing the mass of what you are pushing on. If the force of your push doesn't change your acceleration will. I think this is what we saw with Vin and the wall. The mass of what she was pushing on changed and since her mass couldn't change to balance the force, her acceleration as a result must. 

Edited by Khmauv
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THIS, YES! Well Stated.

 

edit:

I think Lyrebon already answered this.

Force is a function of mass and acceleration. the force between you and the coin is equal but your masses are not. If you have more mass you have less acceleration. So when lyrebon says it "doesn't accelerate you" that is not strictly true but the acceleration in negligible because the coins mass is so small compared to yours.

 

So double jumping won't accelerate you very much until the coin snaps against the ground, effectively changing the mass of what you are pushing on. If the force of your push doesn't change your acceleration will. I think this is what we saw with Vin and the wall. The mass of what she was pushing on changed and since her mass couldn't change to balance the force, her acceleration as a result must. 

Um what? The point is, if you were able to Push on the coin with the same physical force you do on the ground (about double your weight, depending on Allomantic strength), then you'd be accelerated upwards. In this case, the mass of the coin only defines how long you can keep pushing till it is out of range. That is the principle on which rockets work. In (theoretical) ion thrusters, for example, you'd accelerate an ion (mass negligible compared to rocket) till it has impulse enough that releasing it (removing from the system) would provide thrust. Since in practice, coinshots cannot do that, I posit that you can not, in fact, apply the same force at the coin when it is in the air or on the ground. I may have missed something else, though.

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While pushing on the coin in the air with the same force as a coin on the ground  produces the same force, it does not produce the same acceleration on your body. The difference is the mass of what you are pushing on. When you are pushing on a coin in the air you are pushing on the mass of the coin alone. When pushing on a coin on the ground you are effectively pushing against the mass of the entire planet.  

 

Ion thrusters have a few things going for them. First, the ion has a very high acceleration. (remembering that mass AND acceleration are the factors to determine force). second, ion thrusters eject ions continually and in large quantities. the sum of small forces adding to a large force. third, they are currently only feasible in space where the gravitational forces are not counteracting all of their work.

 

Rockets work in much the same way, heating and accelerating gasses at high enough volumes to produce a large enough force to propel a shuttle into space. The hard part about getting rockets of the ground is that you have to carry all of your fuel with you. This adds weight and therefore more thrust is required to lift the rocket. Its a careful balancing act.

 

Theoretically it is possible for an allomancer with enough allomantic strength and a large enough store of coins to use them like a rocket. but I  think the effect would be short, not very effective, and while waiting to use this ability they would be lugging around a large, very heavy, sack of coins.

Edited by Khmauv
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While pushing on the coin in the air with the same force as a coin on the ground  produces the same force, it does not produce the same acceleration on your body. The difference is the mass of what you are pushing on. When you are pushing on a coin in the air you are pushing on the mass of the coin alone. When pushing on a coin on the ground you are effectively pushing against the mass of the entire planet. 

Same force produced on your body results in the same acceleration.

 

OK, I've done math.

 

Asuuming 10g coin, 60kg body, and 20 meters effective range, pushing on one coin downwards in midair with the force of 1000N will result in the body moving upwards, gaining speed of about 0.13 m/s, while the coin would go down at the speed reaching about 2km/s (which is ridiculous. The math abviously does not take into account air resistance, which at that speed would probably melt the coin). The Push would take 0.02 seconds. The next coin would add another 0.13 m/s, etc.

1000 (10 kg) coins would then carry one about 2 km (2.4) upwards.

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While pushing on the coin in the air with the same force as a coin on the ground  produces the same force, it does not produce the same acceleration on your body. The difference is the mass of what you are pushing on. When you are pushing on a coin in the air you are pushing on the mass of the coin alone. When pushing on a coin on the ground you are effectively pushing against the mass of the entire planet. 

 

That is very much a violation of physics, and is a clear example of how the magic works differently from the real world. In our world, the force of a push is equal to the force you put into it. The weight of the object you push isn't relevant (unless gravity is doing something) and your weight is irrelevant, though it can make it easier or harder to push. 

 

It's weird intuitively. If I push a coin against the wall with my hand I don't suddenly fly back when my hand hits the wall. But that's how allomancy works.

 

It seems most of the power of pushes comes from anchoring, from weight given the quotes. If you increase your weight you can draw more power for your push. I wonder if it's related to the cognitive realm. Does a coin see itself as part of a wall if you push the coin against it?

 

So the equation for how allomancy works might be something like force of push= (allomantic strength*amount of steel tapped* your weight)/distance^x force of recoil= (allomantic strength*amount of steel tapped* your weight)/distance^x. You don't have equal and opposite reactions. It's more like a spiritual weight vs weight contest.

 

As such, you couldn't get into space with coin pushes. Pushing a coin isn't enough to make you fly (as Vin found out). The force of your pushes increases when you anchor the coin, and that is enough to make you fly.

 

Edit. Allomancy exercises. Try standing on tip toes on one foot and extending one arm. You should notice you fall away in the direction opposite to the movement of your arm. Try doing this against a wall. If you keep your speed constant, do you fall any faster? Does the weight of what you push against matter?

Edited by Nepene
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Edit. Allomancy exercises. Try standing on tip toes on one foot and extending one arm. You should notice you fall away in the direction opposite to the movement of your arm. Try doing this against a wall. If you keep your speed constant, do you fall any faster? Does the weight of what you push against matter?

 

No, but that may be because of balance self-correction.

 

 

It's weird intuitively. If I push a coin against the wall with my hand I don't suddenly fly back when my hand hits the wall.

 

Is that not because you stop pushing though? If you stand as close to the wall as you can and push to full-arm extension, you WILL move away from the wall.

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative; as stated before I'm not a physicist, and don't have the expertise for this. But these may be just bad examples.

 

 

Ok, to Senor, in your example, if you apply equal force to both sides, you won't move at all, and your wall arm would remain unextended. Then you'll run out of arm on other side and start moving away from the wall.

 

Not going to dispute you for reasons I mentioned above, but is it possible to explain WHY this happens, rather than the intuitive result (which the physicists in the thread have confirmed is wrong)? If it's too complex to explain, that's fair. Just unsatisfying for the rest of us :P

 

Alternatively, I might just have to look up 'a beginner's guide to dynamics' somewhere :P

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No, but that may be because of balance self-correction.

 

You can avoid that by putting one hand around your neck, and standing on one foot. See if pushing at a constant muscle speed makes you fall over faster when against a wall or against the air.

Is that not because you stop pushing though? If you stand as close to the wall as you can and push to full-arm extension, you WILL move away from the wall.

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative; as stated before I'm not a physicist, and don't have the expertise for this. But these may be just bad examples.

 

If you push into the air you will also move away as your arm is moving away from your centre of mass. If you push at a similar speed you won't move noticeably faster or slower when you push against the wall or air.

 

Edit. If your arms are accelerating in force, if you slam them against a wall, then when your arms stop all that motion will be transmitted to your body as well.

Edited by Nepene
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That is very much a violation of physics, and is a clear example of how the magic works differently from the real world. In our world, the force of a push is equal to the force you put into it. The weight of the object you push isn't relevant (unless gravity is doing something) and your weight is irrelevant, though it can make it easier or harder to push. 

 

It's weird intuitively. If I push a coin against the wall with my hand I don't suddenly fly back when my hand hits the wall. But that's how allomancy works.

 

Allomancy doesn't work like that at all. If you pushed against a wall it still exerts a force on you equal and opposite to the force you're applying to your push. Now you push hard enough and you start to slide backwards as the force overcomes the frictional force of the ground that's keeping you stationary.

 

For the sake of me being too lazy to do the math, lets say a human is only capable of physically pushing with 800 N of force on a wall, whereas Allomancy could apply >4,000 N of force. There's no way the frictional force of the ground against your feet is going to immobilize you now. Hence, you're pushing against something that's pushing back with the same 4,000 N, causing you to lurch backwards. It's the same as jumping off the ground, or pushing yourself off a ledge - imagine being able to increase the tensile strength of your muscles and bone to apply more force and you'll leap further. Same principle with Allomancy.

 

If you're in the air you can substitute friction for air resistance. Also, in both cases weight is very much relevant, as it draws your body down and especially when you're already on the ground you must factor that in as opposing force to the work done on you from the wall.

 

 

Edit. Allomancy exercises. Try standing on tip toes on one foot and extending one arm. You should notice you fall away in the direction opposite to the movement of your arm. Try doing this against a wall. If you keep your speed constant, do you fall any faster? Does the weight of what you push against matter?

 

Yes. Because a feather doesn't have the same structural integrity as a bricked wall. And I can stand on tiptoes and keep my balance extending either arm.

Edited by Lyrebon
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Allomancy doesn't work like that at all. If you pushed against a wall it still exerts a force on you equal and opposite to the force you're applying to your push. Now you push hard enough and you start to slide backwards as the force overcomes the frictional force of the ground that's keeping you stationary.

 

The various tales of allomancy here make me uncertain if there are equal and opposite reactions in it. They seem to imply that weight can directly increase the force of your push. Friction may not be the only concern. Wax certainly regularly implies that weight is increasing the force of his pushes.

 

For the sake of me being too lazy to do the math, lets say a human is only capable of physically pushing with 800 N of force on a wall, whereas Allomancy could apply >4,000 N of force. There's no way the frictional force of the ground against your feet is going to immobilize you now. Hence, you're pushing against something that's pushing back with the same 4,000 N, causing you to lurch backwards. It's the same as jumping off the ground, or pushing yourself off a ledge - imagine being able to increase the tensile strength of your muscles and bone to apply more force and you'll leap further. Same principle with Allomancy.

 

Edit. Ohh. Yes, if you were able to throw a coin with enough force, it would overcome friction and make you move. But she wasn't moving it at a massive speed. She was moving it a visible speed, enough that she could focus on continuing to push it. Hence the weirdness.

 

http://easycalculation.com/physics/classical-physics/newtons-second-law.php

 

E.g. moving a 10g coin with 4000 N would move it at an acceleration of 400000 m/s. You don't need much force to move it at an absurd speed.

 

I know of the friction immobilizing you. I was wondering more why Vin accelerated when her coin hit the wall- the coin would be pushing back with some degree of force even when it was flying away from her through the air.

 

If you are expelling a mass which is connected to you away at acceleration x does it matter whether this mass collides with a solid surface? There will be some increase in acceleration when it collides with the surface, since it stops, but does pushing a coin away against a solid accelerate you more than pushing it away against air? If so, how much more force? That is the physics thing I am trying to understand.

 

If you're in the air you can substitute friction for air resistance. Also, in both cases weight is very much relevant, as it draws your body down and especially when you're already on the ground you must factor that in as opposing force to the work done on you from the wall.

 

I agree.

 

 

Yes. Because a feather doesn't have the same structural integrity as a bricked wall. And I can stand on tiptoes and keep my balance extending either arm.

 

I can also stand on tiptoes and keep my balance. Or I can lose my balance. It depends on how fast I throw my arm out, how good my feet position is.

Edited by Nepene
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Part of the reason I didn't want to get into this too deeply is because I think that at some point, we have to just say "magic" and leave it at that.  Brandon may not have meant the dynamics to be magical, but it is very hard for us humans to get dynamics correct. Those of us who can get it correct rarely bother in everyday life because it takes far, far too long to think through.  I don't know if Brandon thought through it carefully enough, but I doubt it.  It is a hard problem without significant training, and not one I would want him to stop to do every time he wrote a scene in a book.

 

For the current discussion, the relevant fact is that, in rawest form, pushing off a coin with a fixed force would, in the real world, produce the same acceleration, regardless of whether it is fixed (and passing on the push to something else, hopefully the whole planet) or accelerating.  Thus a lot of what we see with Allomancy wouldn't make any sense.

If we have to make it make sense, though, we could note that our normal instincts are deeply subconscious and relatively well-adjusted to the world we live in.  We often hold back, in the real world, due to safety and control concerns that our conscious mind never bothers with.  This may explain why Allomancers experience things in a way that makes them relatively safe and which makes sense to them, regardless of the multitude of minutia they would have to get right to describe it "physically."

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Well, my point is that, while the same force would indeed give the same acceleration, have anyone considered that we can't, normally, produce the same force on different objects?

Let us consider a relatively radical example, for clarity - pushing our hands against the floor or air. When pushing against floor, most people can produce force at least equal to their weights. However, when pushing against air, one must remember that action equals reaction , and reaction of air is defined by air resistance, which, in turn, depends on speed. For the air to produce the same force on your hands as floorboard, you'd need to move your hands faster than a car - imagine trying to punch air fast enough so it would punch back. Obviously, while the force is the same, the effort necessary is not. The lighter the object, the less resistance it offers, the more effort is necessary to produce the same force, or at least to maintain it. Seems quite logical to me, now that I've thought about it some.

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Same force produced on your body results in the same acceleration.

 

OK, I've done math.

 

Asuuming 10g coin, 60kg body, and 20 meters effective range, pushing on one coin downwards in midair with the force of 1000N will result in the body moving upwards, gaining speed of about 0.13 m/s, while the coin would go down at the speed reaching about 2km/s (which is ridiculous. The math abviously does not take into account air resistance, which at that speed would probably melt the coin). The Push would take 0.02 seconds. The next coin would add another 0.13 m/s, etc.

1000 (10 kg) coins would then carry one about 2 km (2.4) upwards.

This is absolutely...True. You have made me rethink this, I believe I have found the flaw in my analysis. I failed to account for the coins change in acceleration as well as the change in mass as the coin hit the wall. in other words...

 

F=ma -> m1*a1=m2*a2 -> a1 = (m2/m1)*a2. I looked at this equation and noticed that increasing m2 would increase a1 but failed to realize that as the coin hit the wall not only did the mass increase but the acceleration decreased. 

 

Well now I am baffled, I thought I understood the mechanics of what is going on here...I'll have to think through this. I am still not convinced that increased mass means more allomantic pushing strength. however...I think I am a little more open minded.

 

@ Satsuoni - Can you give me a more detailed analysis. I follow your numbers to the coin reaching 2km/s coin speeds but from there I can't understand where your numbers go.

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Well, I have calculated the time first, assuming cutoff at 20 meters. Then, knowing force from definition, and taking g into account, you can get resulting speed difference for coin and body. Coin always starts off from rest relative to body. Then you know your body acceleration upwards, as long as the coins are pushed, and can use that formula (a*t^2/2) to get distance. It is quite rough.

Also, what the coin experiences on impact is a very high deceleration, enough to cancel all speed in a fraction of a second.

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Part of the reason I didn't want to get into this too deeply is because I think that at some point, we have to just say "magic" and leave it at that.  Brandon may not have meant the dynamics to be magical, but it is very hard for us humans to get dynamics correct. Those of us who can get it correct rarely bother in everyday life because it takes far, far too long to think through.  I don't know if Brandon thought through it carefully enough, but I doubt it.  It is a hard problem without significant training, and not one I would want him to stop to do every time he wrote a scene in a book.

 

For the current discussion, the relevant fact is that, in rawest form, pushing off a coin with a fixed force would, in the real world, produce the same acceleration, regardless of whether it is fixed (and passing on the push to something else, hopefully the whole planet) or accelerating.  Thus a lot of what we see with Allomancy wouldn't make any sense.

If we have to make it make sense, though, we could note that our normal instincts are deeply subconscious and relatively well-adjusted to the world we live in.  We often hold back, in the real world, due to safety and control concerns that our conscious mind never bothers with.  This may explain why Allomancers experience things in a way that makes them relatively safe and which makes sense to them, regardless of the multitude of minutia they would have to get right to describe it "physically."

 

 

Well, my point is that, while the same force would indeed give the same acceleration, have anyone considered that we can't, normally, produce the same force on different objects?

Let us consider a relatively radical example, for clarity - pushing our hands against the floor or air. When pushing against floor, most people can produce force at least equal to their weights. However, when pushing against air, one must remember that action equals reaction , and reaction of air is defined by air resistance, which, in turn, depends on speed. For the air to produce the same force on your hands as floorboard, you'd need to move your hands faster than a car - imagine trying to punch air fast enough so it would punch back. Obviously, while the force is the same, the effort necessary is not. The lighter the object, the less resistance it offers, the more effort is necessary to produce the same force, or at least to maintain it. Seems quite logical to me, now that I've thought about it some.

I realize that Brandon isn't infallible. But I don't want to just chalk it up to "magic". There is something in me that says his description of how things work is correct and intuitive.

 

I have been thinking, Like Satsuoni, that we may be making the mistake of assuming that Force is the constant factor here. I keep imagining trying to jump upward on a falling platform to reduce your speed before you hit the ground. I just cannot think that you could generate the same force and therefore the same thrust as jumping up from the ground. But, I reiterate that I have been wrong before.  

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  • 2 months later...

I haven't read all of this thread yet, but what I have read seem to be a back and forth between whether weight makes you allomantically stronger so I thought I'd weigh in.  :P

 

Weight doesn't make you allomantically stronger, you're allomantic strength is fixed regardless of weight.

 

The strengh of a push doesn't change, just the weight applied to that push.

 

Let me give some examples;

 

Imagine two allomancers of equal allomantic strength, one weighs 100 pounds and the other 200 pounds. Now if they both dropped a coin on the ground and pushed of vertically as hard as they could at the exact same time then the one who only weighs 100 pounds would travel up faster. This happens because they are both pushing on an object heavier then themselves (the earth) and the lighter one has less weight to lift of the ground.

 

Now imagine that same two allomancers got into a pushing match, they both push on a coin between them and they both get thrown back because they're both of similar weights, but the lighter one gets thrown with greater force because the heavier one is able to apply 100 pounds of extra weight behind his allomantic push.

 

Now imagine they both hit an immovable object feet first and use that to brace themselves and continue the push, the lighter ones legs would buckle and they would be crushed against the object they were braced against. Because their allomancy is equal the deciding factor is the weight they can each put behind their push, in this example one has 100 pounds of extra force they're able to apply.

 

So basically weight doesn't give you greater allomantic strength but rather lets you use your allomantic strength on things that are lighter than you.

 

Conversely if you greatly increase your weight and push on an object that is still heavier than you, then you won't be thrown back with the same force as you would of if you hadn't greatly increased your weight.

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Now imagine they both hit an immovable object feet first and use that to brace themselves and continue the push, the lighter ones legs would buckle and they would be crushed against the object they were braced against. Because their allomancy is equal the deciding factor is the weight they can each put behind their push, in this example one has 100 pounds of extra force they're able to apply.

I think you're contradicting yourself here.  You're saying that Big Beefy Kelsier has 100 pounds of extra force compared to Teeny Tiny Vin, right?

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No contradiction at all. Being 100 pounds heavier doesn't give a stronger allomantic push, what it does is put an extra 100 pounds behind that push.  

 

My example wasn't Kelsier and Vin, just two generic people.

 

Let me try again to make myself clear.

 

Say the allomancers have an allomantic max power of (10), one is 100 pounds and the other 200.

 

Being heavier doesn't let you push with lets say an allomantic power of (15) it just adds an extra 100 pounds of weight behind a push. This gives both advantages and disadvantages in certain situations.

 

Let me use cars as an example of what I'm trying to convey. If you have two cars with the same horse power, ones made of heavy materials the other with lightweight materials.

In a drag race the lighter one will get of the line first with much faster acceleration and will generally be more maneuverable, but chain them together back to back and have them pull against each other the heavier one will pull the lighter one.

 

So in summary:

 

  • Your allomantic power isn't affected by your weight.
  • The heavier you are the more weight you can put behind a push or pull.
  • Being lighter will give you faster acceleration of a push or pull. 
Edited by Duskshard
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What do you mean by 'weight behind the push'?

 

 

Let's say we have Big Beefy Kelsier and Teeny Tiny Vin.  Both of them are falling, and push down on a nail so they're slowed down.  Is Kelsier going to drive the nail further into the wood than Teeny Tiny Vin?

 

Or, let's say Big Beefy Kelsier and Teeny Tiny Vin both push off a coin, and go as high as they can, hovering in midair.  Will they end up at the same maximum height?

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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By weight behind a push I simple mean their weight, or more accurately the difference in weight between the one doing the pushing and the object being pushed upon.  

 

In you scenario Kelsier would embed the nail farther, but to take that scenario farther, if they were both applying the same allomantic force to their push then Vin would slow to a stop first, and if they continued to push with the same force she would accelerate back up faster than him. 

Edited by Duskshard
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So how high can they hover at maximum over an ingot?

 

I believe by your model Teeny Tiny Vin should be significantly higher than Big Beefy Kelsier, since she's stronger than him allomantically, and weighs less.

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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Yes in the case of Vin and Kelsier, Vin would be able to hover higher because of her stronger allomancy. If both Vin and Kelsier had the same allomantic strength then Vin would still be higher but the height difference would be negligible.

 

The advantage of weight difference only apply's when the object being pushed upon the lighter than the one doing the pushing. When the the object being pushed upon is greater in weight to you (say for example the object weights a ton) then the weight applied to the push isn't your own anymore but that of the object, and the lighter you are the faster you accelerate away.   

 

EDIT:

 

Imagine you're Wax and in front of you is a huge boulder with a metal fasting embedded in it. You increase your weight to a good bit more than the boulder and start to push upon the boulder with an allomantic strength of 10. Now the huge boulder is grinding across the ground away from you, if you increased your weight more the boulder would speed up as you brought more weight to bare upon it. 

But if you were to go the other way and gradually decrease your weight the boulder would stop moving and you would start to stumble back as your weight approached that of the boulder. Once your weight fell under that of the boulder you would start to be pushed back faster and faster as your weight decreased until you reached the limit of your allomantic ability.

 

All the while keeping the same allomantic force (10) against the boulder. 

Edited by Duskshard
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