A Question of Reality

[SkipMage]

So, Long time reader, but I'm really just here to ask
In Shadows of self Wax encounters Hemalurgic creatures that "have thickened skulls". Wax shoots these creatures point blank and fails to penetrate.
Wat.
For a series the deals so heavily with guns we get remarkably little info on them, so I don't know what calibre wax shoots (and their by the "Universal" pistol calibre). But this is a moot point as Wax then shoots a shotgun slug into these things and has to push on it to get it to go through.

So, How thick is the skull?
Does Sanderson have any understanding of the physics he is abusing here?

[Chaos]

Hey there. I am moving this to Cosmere Q&A as the Introductions board is spoiler-free. 

Welcome!

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, SkipMage said:

Does Sanderson have any understanding of the physics he is abusing here?

I believe the important fact that you're overlooking here is that these are hemalurgic constructs. Steel Inquisitors could heal (with appropriate spikes), koloss are hard to put down and kandra are impervious to most forms of harm. Why do the chimaeras being superhumanly durable break your suspension of disbelief when shapeshifers, berserker giants and human pincushions don't?

[Quantus]

3 hours ago, Weltall said:

I believe the important fact that you're overlooking here is that these are hemalurgic constructs. Steel Inquisitors could heal (with appropriate spikes), koloss are hard to put down and kandra are impervious to most forms of harm. Why do the chimaeras being superhumanly durable break your suspension of disbelief when shapeshifers, berserker giants and human pincushions don't?

^This.  It's a magic race created through spiritual manipulation if the Code of reality, manifesting physical changes; it's not anything really based in Physics.

That being said, there is some headcannon that might help you:  Human skulls are, by a wide margin, the thinnest and weakest (relatively speaking) of any Primate on account of our overdeveloped brains.  So the Koloss could easily have significantly thicker skulls, which also might explain their reduced intelligence.  Since they get four additional Iron Spikes, I might arbitrarily guess that a Koloss has a skull that is 5x thicker and/or more durable than the average human. 

[+Oltux72]

Scadrial at that time is still using literal black powder. 1870ies technology. And he is using a small pistol.

[Aspiring Writer]

On 6/29/2021 at 9:15 AM, SkipMage said:

So, How thick is the skull?

So, this is an altered person with the intent of being immune to headshots. All they need to do is make their skulls really thick. 

[+hwiles]

Material thickness really isn't the best physical property to increase for the purpose of stopping or deflecting a bullet anyway...some quick Googling turns up a handful of back-of-the-envelope calculations (mostly scientists analyzing superhero movies) showing that a skull made of typical bone can't not suffer permanent deformation (cracking, shattering, chipping, ect.) from a point-blank shot from even a relatively low caliber bullet.

I would posit then that the constructs' bones are specifically optimized by whoever designed them for stopping bullets, with material properties (think: elastic modulus) closer to kevlar than bone. Regular bone can't stop a shotgun slug at close range. Kevlar can (albeit usually with a lot of severe blunt-force trauma anyway...)

Why then does the narrative say "thickened" You might ask? Well...Wax's perceptions, intuitions, off-the-cuff-guesses, and internal monologue about the underlying physics of monsters he just met should probably be read with an understanding that he's not always 100% accurate.