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Tone of shards? An actual frecuency? Or just the intent?


wiritospren

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Okay, so what actually are the tones of shards? We know that the book treat it like an actual note, but then in other parts it feels more like the intent to make the tone that matters, but then also no. Thaylen artifabrians were using the tone of honor, even though they didnt know it is the tone of honor, so they couldnt have intent right? But then when navanni made the anti-odium tone, she was using a note close to the tone of odium, but not the same, and it worked fine, so it was the intent that matter? 

And when navanni and rabonial made the tone of war, they where shifting the tones of odium and honor till they armonize, but what does shifting, and armonizing means in this context? Can you move up and up a note and while you still have the intent of being the tone of honor it is still the tone if honor? 

Another thing is, can you move up a tone an octave above an still make the same tone? (if you double the frecuence the original freceunce is still there) 

And what about the anti-tones? In real World, the note that cancels another is the same note played a little bit latter(depending on the frecuency of the note) and so it sounds the same(this is in the book) and so, the intent makes the tone sound a little bit latter so it cancels? And if it is so, why does it sounds diferent? Is it just that people akin to one of the gods, just feel it antinatural even though it sounds the same? 

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Their is a little more depth here. There are the pure tones, which are as you described, a single note. I doubt using these requires any intent, unless perhaps if you are making them yourself, by humming it or singing.

There are also rythyms though repetitions of that single note to a particular cadence, like Morse code. This is where the intent comes into play. All shards likely have a tone and a rythym. If you know the rythym and can reproduce it actively, then humming or singing it with the intent of a destructive resonance will likely create the Anti-rythym.

To expand on this, we saw the Raysium knife transfer Anti-voidlight. But the knife is made of Odiums Investiture. My guess as to why it didn't immediately explode, instead only reacting with the ordinary voidlight in the pommel, is because the metal is too solidly in the physical realm to be affected by the rythyms, or simply that the rythym wasn't strong enough to force the metal to resonate.

Edited by signspace13
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I think the reason it didnt explode with just the knife was, the difference in density and state. Like, how everything in our world has a frecuency that if matched it makes it vibrate (like when bridges fall and cristals breaks) so the anti-voidlight by vibrating in the anti-odium tone for voidlight, can just destroy odium investiture made voidlight, but its investiture in solid form can vibrate in a different tone, like odium tone for metal

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Electrical engineer here, which means I've got a bit of education on signal analysis (particularly in sounds and light) which is directly relevant to what you are talking about here, but I might struggle to communicate some principals involved with what is happening in these scenes that I find awesome.  

This post will just be about real life fundamentals.  Later I might try to extrapolate this to what's going on in the book.  

Sounds, particularly a constant sound like a note from an instrument can be analyzed according to their frequency content.  A "pure tone" will have only one frequency associated with it that is a perfect "sin wave" however, in real life, things generally aren't "pure" and actually, less "pure" tones are usually more desirable.  Here's a picture of a sin wave pulled off the internet.

464050253150911c-creating-a-sine-wave-un

Because of the nature of how a bow draws across a violin string (or a plate as in the scene in The Stormlight Archives) the wave generated from them is more like a "saw tooth wave" like this:

Sawtooth-Wave_1000.jpg

Now what really matters, is that mathematically it has been shown that for non "pure" repeating waveforms like the saw tooth above, there are multiple contributing frequencies that add up to make them, and the primary one or "fundamental frequency" is the pure tone with the same frequency as the repeating waveform.  The next important characteristic is that all other frequency "components" are multiples of the "fundamental frequency."  So the note A at the middle of the piano has a frequency of 440Hz, and that note is comprised of other frequency content at frequencies of n*440Hz or 880 (2x440), 1320 (3x440), 1760 (4x440), etc.  

This higher frequency content in a note is sometimes called the "harmonic frequencies" and whether two notes harmonize is dependent on if this higher harmonic content meshes together mathematically, or it can be dissonant and the higher harmonics can "beat" against each other (more on that beat later).

What makes an "octave" an "octave" is that it is the next note up or down on the scale that matches this pattern, so the "A" one octave up on the piano has the fundamental frequency of 880Hz, and contains all the higher frequencies as the note that corresponds to 440Hz.  This is the underlying principal for why properly tuned octaves are in perfect harmony with each other.  

The notes on a scale are placed such that choosing ones that harmonize will have other parts of their higher frequency content mesh up perfectly with each other.  

Back to beats

The concept of "beats" relies on constructive and destructive interference.  Here's a 12 minute youtube video that explains it pretty well, but if you aren't interested in watching that and getting the fundamentals behind it, they come down to this:  When two pure tones are almost but not quite exactly the same frequency,  adding them together will have moments when they cancel out, and when they make each other louder at a regular, rhythmic interval like a "beat."  How fast depends on how close together the two frequencies are, with closer making for slower beats, and the beat speeds up as the frequencies get farther apart.  Here is a 1.5 min video with the actual sound of two changing frequencies beating against each other that demonstrates this in a way you can experience with your ears.  

So when you play two dissonant notes on a piano, on a superficial level, you just hear the two fundamental frequencies with no louder and softer pulses, but beneath that the higher frequency content of the notes are of frequencies that are slightly off from each other and they "beat" against each other.  You can't necessarily hear this on a conscious level, but on a subconscious level you do, and it generates tension on this subconscious level.  This is why "chopsticks" is grating on your ears, and it is also abused in horror movies to generate tension with the music alone.  

Edited by Serack
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