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The Chemistry of God Metals


Pagerunner

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Upvotes. Upvotes everywhere. This is genius. Brandon shows us again that he can combine science and magic and get something that makes some crazy amount of sense. I'll need to think about this a bit to see if I come up with anything else. Very good write-up. I understood enough thanks to my program which is close enough to chemical engineering.

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

If there’s a repulsion between electrons, there must also be one for protons and neutrons. This would make Harmonium’s nucleus more unstable. Although Brandon said it is not a nuclear reaction that we’ve seen, it may just require the proper catalyst, so I would not be surprised to see an ettmetal nuclear bomb at some point.

Maybe the bomb the Southerners had?

 

Edited by Spoolofwhool
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2 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Upvotes. Upvotes everywhere. This is genius. Brandon shows us again that he can combine science and magic and get something that makes some crazy amount of sense. I'll need to think about this a bit to see if I come up with anything else. Very good write-up. I understood enough thanks to my program which is close enough to chemical engineering.

Maybe the bomb the Southerners had?

 

Yeah, I considered that, and I don't remember enough of the exact wording from our conversation to officially debunk that, but the sense I remember is that none of ettmetal's properties we'd seen were nuclear in nature.

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Awesome write-up! Everything you've said about the chemical properties of harmonium makes sense to me. I only took general chemistry in college, but I like to think the physics degree is worth something. I'll have to get back to you on the stability of the nucleus question, it's going to require a little more research first. However, I'll say now that even physicists don't understand it very well. The strong nuclear force that holds the nucleus together is probably the least understood of all the fundamental forces, so it's pretty easy to for Brandon to handwave that kind of thing away. It will have to be different from cesium regardless, as it doesn't share any of its physical properties. I don't think it would be a reliable way to make airships fly if there was a good chance of it melting in the process. I'll have to think about this further and see if I can come up with something.

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I'm in high school right now, took chem freshman year. There are some things I'm a bit fuzzy on, but I think that I got most of it. Edit: Wasn't intending to brag about being smart, I just meant that Pagerunner explained it so well that I could understand it, even with very little education on the topic.

On 12/12/2016 at 6:46 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

Upvotes. Upvotes everywhere. This is genius. Brandon shows us again that he can combine science and magic and get something that makes some crazy amount of sense. I'll need to think about this a bit to see if I come up with anything else.

^Pretty much everything else I wanted to say. This whole thing is just so amazing! 

Edited by 8giraffe8
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I never dreamed that AP chemistry would serve me in a place like this. MEGA high five for asking a question like that! And upvotes. 

I think you're spot on with the assumption that Lerasium would be like Cobalt and Atium like Nickel. It fits the physical description, at least for Atium. I can't recall the physical properties of Cobalt at the moment. 

Edited by Ironeyes
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Out of curiosity, could somebody provide a link that Ettmetal is Harmonium?  I feel like I've missed a few bits of information.

I mean, it makes sense, it really does.  I was kind of irritated with Brandon for introducing yet another new metal with Ettmetal, so Harmonium fills that gap quite nicely.

As for the stability of the nucleus---well, I was a physics major.  I know just enough about the subject to know how little I know about the subject. (I'm a tad bit better on the math behind wave chaos).  One thing I do know, though, is that at that level, with the sheer amount of energy crammed into that tiny little nuclear volume, the behavior of protons and neutrons is wildly quantum mechanical.  They apparently have a shell structure, like the electrons, but far more complicated thanks to the strength of the, er, strong force.  There can be unintuitive side effects from this, like we see in chemistry with full shells being favored, but more complicated.

It's still true, though, that extra repulsion makes things less stable.  However, most regular atoms are very stable, so it's still probably not easy.  We can barely pull the stunt of truly breaking the atom with Uranium and Plutonium, and those are at the very edge.  Most natural radioactivity is more like a human dropping a couple of pounds rather than an actual break.

Which is to say that Brandon can do what he wants, but in my opinion, he shouldn't make it too easy.  

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4 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Yeah, I considered that, and I don't remember enough of the exact wording from our conversation to officially debunk that, but the sense I remember is that none of ettmetal's properties we'd seen were nuclear in nature.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1181/#44

Sorry, but it's late and I'm too tired to copy the actual text now. I'll do it in the morning.

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If someone doesn't beat me to the punch, I'll try to explore this topic more when I see Brandon in February. I'd like to confirm this theory about Ettmetal containing slightly more ruin than preservation, and ask about the repulsion between protons and neutrons. He'd probably RAFO this but it's even worth asking if the metal has nuclear weapon potential. 

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5 hours ago, happyman said:

Out of curiosity, could somebody provide a link that Ettmetal is Harmonium?  I feel like I've missed a few bits of information.

Yeah, I'm the original source for that. I was asking about ettmetal's symbol at the recent signing (I was convinced it wasn't harmonium), and it sort of spiraled from there. I posted it over in the thread for the Hoboken signing.

5 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1181/#44

Sorry, but it's late and I'm too tired to copy the actual text now. I'll do it in the morning.

See, that's not the transcript, that's my retelling of how Brandon slipped up and confirmed E=H. It's not word-for-word, and it's not the entirety of the conversation. It probably shouldn't be on Theoryland; one of the Theoryland admins has the recording and is in the process of the actual transcription right now, so once he gets it done we'll have exactly what Brandon said. I just wanted to get this theory out there sooner, rather than later.

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8 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

See, that's not the transcript, that's my retelling of how Brandon slipped up and confirmed E=H. It's not word-for-word, and it's not the entirety of the conversation. It probably shouldn't be on Theoryland; one of the Theoryland admins has the recording and is in the process of the actual transcription right now, so once he gets it done we'll have exactly what Brandon said. I just wanted to get this theory out there sooner, rather than later.

I'm aware. I was just providing the link to the general point where Brandon confirms E is H.

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I like your exposition @Pagerunner...the only thing that bother me is about your idea of Harmonium umbalance toward Ruin.

I understand Harmony has more Ruin than Preservation but I feel that it's quite possible that Harmony already spawned again some Atium to balance his powers and the Harmonium is just a further Investiment to help/sustain the Southern.

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22 hours ago, aeromancer said:

@Pagerunner Quick question while I'm processing this stuff.

How sure are you that ettmetal follows the structure of Cesium, and not any other alkali metal? Most likely it's not Francium, but suppose it is actually a stable version of element 119? (Which means that the metals are Pr / Nd?)

You know, it might be a possibility. I'd discounted 119 because it hasn't been synthesized IRL, it has an estimated half-life of less than a second (and the Shardic interaction should make it less stable), and Brandon has referred to it as super-cesium more than once IIRC (which indicates to me that it's a super-reactive cesium). But there are some good points to praseodymium and neodymium, considering both aren't found in their pure form in earth's crust and the former makes a green oxide when exposed to air (my big hang-up with cobalt, since I can't find an oxide that matches lerasium's greenish coating). So, without a good mechanism to rationalize a stable isotope of 119, I'll stick with cesium. (The same logic applies to francium twice, since it's not stable and it would cause lerasium to be technetium, which also isn't stable 'cause it's just screwy.) But it's a good question.

EDIT: @Yata, all alkali metals have an odd number of electrons, so if those individual electrons are all quantized pieces of Ruin or Preservation, then there must be an imbalance in the atom. So, my logic wasn't trying to figure out how Harmony could balance out his extra piece of Ruin, it was trying to explain why there is extra Ruin in the harmonium atom. The titular 'Lost Metal' of the next book could easily be atium (actually, I don't see any other good candidates), and Harmony could have balanced himself out using a combination both methods (atium and harmonium).

EDIT2: Also, @aeromancer, I did a little more research into both praseodymium and neodymium, and apparently their oxides don't form coatings, they flake off, so a bead will completely oxidize in less than a year. So, their chemical behavior is different than lerasium and atium, both of which can last for a long time (the lerasium bead was at the well for over 1000 years, and Marsh has had a bag of atium he's used to compound youth for 300).

Edited by Pagerunner
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Someone needs to ask about the planet being of Ruin while people of Preservation.

Wouldn't people get Ruin particles too via enrichment of the food chain? As harmonium converts to water Ruin and Preservation particles eventuallyend up in the animals.

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13 minutes ago, Rob Lucci said:

Someone needs to ask about the planet being of Ruin while people of Preservation.

Wouldn't people get Ruin particles too via enrichment of the food chain? As harmonium converts to water Ruin and Preservation particles eventuallyend up in the animals.

The harmonium isn't turning into water, it's reacting with water to form harmonium hydroxide, and that reaction goes quickly and produces a lot of energy. One of the hydrogen atoms is 'replaced' on the water molecule with the extra Ruin electron, and those loose hydrogen atoms will combine to form an elemental hydrogen molecule H2. It would be possible to form a harmonium salt solution by adding an acid to a harmonium hydroxide solution, and that would result in water with a single Ruin electron in the mix. But it would require recovery of harmonium hydroxide, which looks to be a little difficult since it releases enough energy to vaporize itself.

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32 minutes ago, Rob Lucci said:

Someone needs to ask about the planet being of Ruin while people of Preservation.

Well, then this could happen. Planets of particles are bad. Also, Ruin needs to be in people for him to affect them.

Wait. That's a weird thought. So, that supposing that all humans contain trace elements of godmetal electrons and/or protons (but probably not protons). Do you suppose that has to do with Spiritwebs?

In other words, would drinking a stable harmomium-salt solution give you the ability to use Scandrial powers? Someone needs to ask this.

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Yes. An alloy is two separate molecules bonded together, i.e. Iron(Fe) + Carbon(C) for steel. Ettmetal is a different metal entirely, so in this analogy, it might be Lead(Pb).

In reality, Pagerunner thinks it's Cesium, and I speculate it's a stable version of Element 119. Pagerunner's probably right.

EDIT: The atium/lerasium alloy turns you into a Seer if you burn it, by the way.

Edited by aeromancer
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1 hour ago, shadowwisp said:

Hmmm, does this mean that an alloy of Atium and Lersium would have distinct different magical properties from Ettmetal? Or would they just cancel each other out, becoming inert? 

We don't know, for sure, but I'd like to think so. I think what @aeromancer said is likely, since it resolves how harmonium can have its own behavior while maintaining the alloying effects we've seen for lerasium (something that was hard to reconcile when we imagined harmonium to be the atium/lerasium alloy). It's possible that atium and lerasium will annihilate each other if they're exposed, the way that Vin destroyed both herself and Ruin. Alloys have a 'metallic bond,' where they share electrons easily among atoms, which wouldn't seem likely to me if the electrons were all polarized. It might be a mixture, but not a true alloy.

Edited by Pagerunner
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This is really cool! I hope the chemistry of the cosmere gets a larger focus in the sci-fi Mistborn series.

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out already, but there is some evidence that supports the theory that atium is analogous to nickel. Malatium, according to the Coppermind, is an alloy of atium and gold and is described as silvery white. In real life, an alloy of 90% gold and 10% nickel yields white gold. These seem pretty similar. It's a shame, if Kelsier had spectroscopic techniques at hand, he never would have thought malatium was a new metal. 

I also looked up nickel-cobalt alloys and found Kovar (also includes iron and trace elements), and it apparently has similar properties to borosilicate glass (low thermal expansion). If this is enhanced in god metal alloys, I'd imagine that atium-lerasium alloy similar to this could be used in something where you need extreme heat resistance. 

EDIT: Another topic of interest would be distinguishing particles made of various shards. How would I tell the difference between an electron made of Preservation versus one of Ruin? The four quantum numbers would no longer completely describe the identity of the electron.  

 

Edited by NavySealsGuy
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