Questions about steel and iron

[Merrickz]

So I was wondering I were a Mistborn and there was a long iron girder in front of me when I burn steel would I see a single Allomantic line leading to this beam or would there be lines along its length. Would I be able to push the beam at a single end or would I only be able to push on its centre of mass?

Random question but I just wondered

[EddyJ]

You would be able to push or pull on distinct parts of the beam. Kelsier pulls a trick like this in The Final Empire with a few metal bars in his final fight with the Inquisitor, pushing on one side and pulling in the other, causing the bars to spin rapidly in the air. 

Edited April 3, 2018 by EddyJ

[Calderis]

Depends on perception and skill. In most cases you would see a single line pointing to the objects center of gravity. 

We've seen Wax recognize the individual parts of a bullet though, and Kelsier pushed/pulled on opposite ends of a bar to make it spin. So those things are possible, but not common. 

Edited April 3, 2018 by Calderis

[Scion of the Mists]

We know that in the Cognitive Realm, an object's "soul" is determined by how people perceive it.  I imagine the single object/multiple object phenomena is related to this.  

[King Cole]

18 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

We know that in the Cognitive Realm, an object's "soul" is determined by how people perceive it.  I imagine the single object/multiple object phenomena is related to this.  

In this scenario, it's more based on the person pushing/pulling its view on the object

[+hwiles]

Couldn't find the WoB, but I believe one exists for this question. The above are correct in that skill and perception can allow additional "lines." Having additional Investiture (aka steel spikes like an inquisitor) helps, but is not strictly necessary as I recall.

[marles]

19 hours ago, hwiles said:

Couldn't find the WoB, but I believe one exists for this question. The above are correct in that skill and perception can allow additional "lines." Having additional Investiture (aka steel spikes like an inquisitor) helps, but is not strictly necessary as I recall.

I would definitely think skill plays an absolutely massive part in it. Just consider Inquisitors. They have no eye sight due to their spikes, so they would not be able to tell that a blue line is pointed at a bullet, think to themselves that bullets are made of three components, and then see three separate blue lines to that same bullet. But, if every object only had one line to it, their steel-sight would be absolute crap, which we know it is not. Instead they are incredibly skilled with these abilities, having to use them all the time for vision. They may be skilled enough to essentially see each metallic atom. At one point I believe Marsh even mentions that he is able to tell the color of objects through the metal lines and that it wouldn't be necessarily hard for others to do the same.

As mentioned above, Kelsier spins some metal rods by pushing/pulling on different parts of the same object. I don't think there is any mention of the rods he uses appearing to be multiple parts pieced together so I doubt Kelsier could do that just because he perceiving the rod to be two separate things. It's mentioned that Kelsier was highly skilled with steel and iron, even by Vin who is clearly skilled and a quick learner of allomancy as a whole.

[Scion of the Mists]

2 hours ago, marles said:

I would definitely think skill plays an absolutely massive part in it. Just consider Inquisitors. They have no eye sight due to their spikes, so they would not be able to tell that a blue line is pointed at a bullet, think to themselves that bullets are made of three components, and then see three separate blue lines to that same bullet. But, if every object only had one line to it, their steel-sight would be absolute crap, which we know it is not. Instead they are incredibly skilled with these abilities, having to use them all the time for vision. They may be skilled enough to essentially see each metallic atom. At one point I believe Marsh even mentions that he is able to tell the color of objects through the metal lines and that it wouldn't be necessarily hard for others to do the same.

As mentioned above, Kelsier spins some metal rods by pushing/pulling on different parts of the same object. I don't think there is any mention of the rods he uses appearing to be multiple parts pieced together so I doubt Kelsier could do that just because he perceiving the rod to be two separate things. It's mentioned that Kelsier was highly skilled with steel and iron, even by Vin who is clearly skilled and a quick learner of allomancy as a whole.

It's a cognitive perception, not a visual perception.  I think that, in this case, skill and perception are basically the same thing.  

Here are a bunch of older threads talking about the same thing:

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/55386-mistborns-in-newcago/

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3068-pushing-pulling-and-torque/

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/17519-lengths-of-metal-and-burning-ironsteel/