Infinate Energy, Perpetual Motion, and why Raysium is more important than you think.

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

How does it know how much potential energy to give? It isn't traveling through linear space so how is it calculated?

How does it need to be calculated? You have a startpoint and an endpoint. The amount of energy required to move something through that portal (assuming it is a portal, which we still haven't confirmed) would be the amount of potential energy needed.

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

And why is that? It isn't distorting space any more, so why would it require more energy?

Because doing otherwise would break the laws of thermodynamics which Brandon has said he tries to avoid in his books:

Spoiler

Questioner

Let’s say that the fires of industry keep progressing in Middle Earth, and someone builds a spaceship, they get in it and go up. What do you think happens?

Brandon Sanderson

In Middle Earth? I think it is heavily implied by the time that happens that Middle Earth has changed to a place where there is no magic, so I think it works just fine.

Questioner

[Follow-up on if Middle Earth is in the same universe as the cosmere]

Brandon Sanderson

You’re not talking to a Tolkein scholar here.

[...]

Yes, the cosmere takes place in a place where there is another branch of physics that is investiture, and that is the big change.

Questioner

Do you ever run into problems with that, does it break physics?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah. If you look too deep in a fantasy book we are breaking the laws of thermodynamics and we are breaking causality. Those are the two big ones. And those are very important things to be… very dangerous things to be breaking. And you could probably write a fantasy novel that didn’t break those two things. Maybe? I don’t know. The way I avoid breaking laws of thermodynamics is by saying, we’ve got investiture that things can transfer into as well. We’ve got matter, energy, and investiture, I’ve added something to the tripod and therefore it looks like I’m just bending the laws of thermodynamics.

When you actually get down into the nitty-gritty, it starts to break down. It just has to. Causality is the big one. Once you have people teleporting and things like this, run the train experiment. I mean, you just have to say “It’s magic” at some point in a fantasy book. For most of them. I think you could do it, but in mine, with a  grand scale magic system I want to do, we just have to say, “at that point it’s magic.” And this is how I think a fantasy writer differs from a science fiction writer.

A SF writer takes today and extrapolates forward. I take what is interesting and extrapolate backward. Usually. For instance speed bubbles. “I want to have speed bubbles. This is how they work. Peter, tell me the physics.” And we work it out together. We work out physics and try to hit the big trouble points and build into the magic why certain things happen. But that doesn’t stop us from making speed bubbles where there is time passing differently without using mass or whatnot to create time dilation, and it causes all kinds of weird things to happen.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 19, 2017)

 

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

So if we stop in the SR on the way why does it require more energy to place an object in certain places than others when the spiritual realm is all places in one?

Because potential energy can't come from nothing if the laws of thermodynamics apply, which they do.

[Frustration]

12 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

How does it need to be calculated? You have a startpoint and an endpoint. The amount of energy required to move something through that portal (assuming it is a portal, which we still haven't confirmed) would be the amount of potential energy needed.

Because doing otherwise would break the laws of thermodynamics which Brandon has said he tries to avoid in his books:

  Hide contents

Questioner

Let’s say that the fires of industry keep progressing in Middle Earth, and someone builds a spaceship, they get in it and go up. What do you think happens?

Brandon Sanderson

In Middle Earth? I think it is heavily implied by the time that happens that Middle Earth has changed to a place where there is no magic, so I think it works just fine.

Questioner

[Follow-up on if Middle Earth is in the same universe as the cosmere]

Brandon Sanderson

You’re not talking to a Tolkein scholar here.

[...]

Yes, the cosmere takes place in a place where there is another branch of physics that is investiture, and that is the big change.

Questioner

Do you ever run into problems with that, does it break physics?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah. If you look too deep in a fantasy book we are breaking the laws of thermodynamics and we are breaking causality. Those are the two big ones. And those are very important things to be… very dangerous things to be breaking. And you could probably write a fantasy novel that didn’t break those two things. Maybe? I don’t know. The way I avoid breaking laws of thermodynamics is by saying, we’ve got investiture that things can transfer into as well. We’ve got matter, energy, and investiture, I’ve added something to the tripod and therefore it looks like I’m just bending the laws of thermodynamics.

When you actually get down into the nitty-gritty, it starts to break down. It just has to. Causality is the big one. Once you have people teleporting and things like this, run the train experiment. I mean, you just have to say “It’s magic” at some point in a fantasy book. For most of them. I think you could do it, but in mine, with a  grand scale magic system I want to do, we just have to say, “at that point it’s magic.” And this is how I think a fantasy writer differs from a science fiction writer.

A SF writer takes today and extrapolates forward. I take what is interesting and extrapolate backward. Usually. For instance speed bubbles. “I want to have speed bubbles. This is how they work. Peter, tell me the physics.” And we work it out together. We work out physics and try to hit the big trouble points and build into the magic why certain things happen. But that doesn’t stop us from making speed bubbles where there is time passing differently without using mass or whatnot to create time dilation, and it causes all kinds of weird things to happen.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 19, 2017)

 

Brandon straight up says that at some point it breaks down, and that he breaks both thermodynamics and causality.

12 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

Because potential energy can't come from nothing if the laws of thermodynamics apply, which they do.

So some intelligent force is manually requiring more energy out of certain actions?

Edited August 2, 2023 by Frustration

[NameIess]

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Brandon straight up says that at some point it breaks down, and that he breaks both thermodynamics and causality.

He also says that he explains stuff in a way that doesn't break physics.

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

So some intelligent force is manually requiring more energy out of certain actions?

What intelligent force manually requires more energy to jump 100 meters as compared to 1 in our world?

[Lord Magire]

I think the problem is theorising about portals doesn't really work because we have no idea how they work, or even if they definitely exist.

That said, they need not necessarily have a scaling energy cost, they only need to function like wormholes, in which case as I understand the energy cost would be 'paid' on establishing and keeping open the link, not per transit. That would not break conservation of energy.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Lord Magire

[Frustration]

6 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

He also says that he explains stuff in a way that doesn't break physics.

But he admits it doesn't work

Quote

When you actually get down into the nitty-gritty, it starts to break down. It just has to. Causality is the big one. Once you have people teleporting and things like this, run the train experiment. I mean, you just have to say “It’s magic” at some point in a fantasy book. For most of them. I think you could do it, but in mine, with a grand scale magic system I want to do, we just have to say, “at that point it’s magic.” And this is how I think a fantasy writer differs from a science fiction writer.

 

8 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

What intelligent force manually requires more energy to jump 100 meters as compared to 1 in our world?

The reason is gravity, what's the reason that leaving the spiritual realm to appear in Roshar's Stratosphere is more difficult than appearing on the surface? Just saying the law of conservation of energy means that an external force would have to be require more energy in order to prevent a violation, rather than a law that could be observed and studied.

[NameIess]

25 minutes ago, Frustration said:

But he admits it doesn't work

Which doesn't mean he stops attempting to explain it.

25 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The reason is gravity, what's the reason that leaving the spiritual realm to appear in Roshar's Stratosphere is more difficult than appearing on the surface? Just saying the law of conservation of energy means that an external force would have to be require more energy in order to prevent a violation, rather than a law that could be observed and studied.

It breaks less to say that increasing potential energy requires energy. 

[Frustration]

Just now, Nameless* said:

Which doesn't mean he stops attempting to explain it.

Then pointing out where the holes are so they can be fixed would make the world better than just pretending they don't exist.

3 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

It breaks less to say that increasing potential energy requires energy. 

But where would that energy come from and why?

Why does sending something through a portal at higher elevations require more energy than at lower elevations? And where does the potential energy go when you send something to a lower elevation?

[NameIess]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Then pointing out where the holes are so they can be fixed would make the world better than just pretending they don't exist.

Making holes up where they don't exist isn't a good idea either.

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

But where would that energy come from and why?

Why does sending something through a portal at higher elevations require more energy than at lower elevations? And where does the potential energy go when you send something to a lower elevation?

It would come from the Investiture used to power the portal. I don't understand your first question, and as for the second I imagine it would be turned into Investiture much like excess air or smoke does when Soulcasting stone. 

I would like to reiterate a few things: One, we don't know that portals as you're describing them exist. You're purely speculating on that fact based off of very sketchy evidence. Second, Brandon has said that his books are intended to follow the laws of thermodynamics, so I don't see a reason not to give those laws existing the benefit of the doubt. Yes, there are some applications that clearly break our laws of physics (Terris wheel being an example. Once Scadrial figures out fabrials, that process will likely be very easy to mechanize.) but they are the exception, not the rule.

[Frustration]

19 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

It would come from the Investiture used to power the portal. I don't understand your first question, and as for the second I imagine it would be turned into Investiture much like excess air or smoke does when Soulcasting stone. 

The energy that causes you to fall is different than the energy that brings you up. The portal is bending space allowing you to skip distance as you travel. Where you are going doesn't matter. We can see this in the Oathgates, there are a lot of things that determine how much Stormlight is used, the oath level of the radiant using it, the number of people being transferred. However the location does not have an impact, despite the vast differences in distance and elevation.

31 minutes ago, Nameless* said:

(Terris wheel being an example. Once Scadrial figures out fabrials, that process will likely be very easy to mechanize.) but they are the exception, not the rule.

Actually mechanical ones would follow conservation as mechanical uses of Feruchemy consume Harmonium, biological ones on the other hand do produce energy from nothing.

[NameIess]

15 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The energy that causes you to fall is different than the energy that brings you up. The portal is bending space allowing you to skip distance as you travel. Where you are going doesn't matter. We can see this in the Oathgates, there are a lot of things that determine how much Stormlight is used, the oath level of the radiant using it, the number of people being transferred. However the location does not have an impact, despite the vast differences in distance and elevation.

Good point. It's possible that the Oathgates take different amounts of energy to function, but still, it's possible that they don't conserve energy.  However, we still haven't seen Portals-style portals, and don't have any confirmation that it's possible outside of Bondsmiths, so I don't think you could make a PMM out of it.

[therunner]

47 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The energy that causes you to fall is different than the energy that brings you up. The portal is bending space allowing you to skip distance as you travel. Where you are going doesn't matter. We can see this in the Oathgates, there are a lot of things that determine how much Stormlight is used, the oath level of the radiant using it, the number of people being transferred. However the location does not have an impact, despite the vast differences in distance and elevation.

Distance would in theory have no cost impact (what with translational symmetry).

However, moving to different elevations would have cost impact, to account for change in potential energy. Though considering how little stormlight it takes to Lash someone, such energy would be rounding error.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

However, moving to different elevations would have cost impact, to account for change in potential energy.

Wouldn't that be retroactive though? Shouldn't the reason for the increased investiture use come into effect before anything went through the portal?

[drunkenbotanist]

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

 

If a machine takes in hydrogen, fuses the hydrogen into larger elements, and then fissions those larger elements back into Hydrogen, and then that hydrogen was immediately sent back to be fused, and that gave it enough power to not only continue running but also power an entire country, that would be a PMM.

 

Both fusion and fission are turning mass into energy and as such can't form PPM 

 

 

But y'all are being a little pedantic by trying to assume that portal style portals aren't possible, which would be able to create a PPM

 

And I think there's a difference between using the infinite investiture of a shard to power something and an actual PPM

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by drunkenbotanist

[therunner]

5 hours ago, Frustration said:

Wouldn't that be retroactive though? Shouldn't the reason for the increased investiture use come into effect before anything went through the portal?

I am talking about Oathgates.

I am not talking about portal, since we don't really know if those exist or are just in-world artistic license. Additionally, why would portal have fixed cost no matter how many people it transforms, but Oathgates don't?
 

[Frustration]

4 hours ago, drunkenbotanist said:

Both fusion and fission are turning mass into energy and as such can't form PPM

That's why I specifically said fission it back into Hydrogen, IRL we would have considerable loss, but if we didn't, and ended with the same amount of Hydrogen as we began you could continue the process ad infinitum.

2 hours ago, therunner said:

I am talking about Oathgates.

I am not talking about portal, since we don't really know if those exist or are just in-world artistic license. Additionally, why would portal have fixed cost no matter how many people it transforms, but Oathgates don't?

Oh it would, likely based on the mass transfered, or perhaps the amount of investiture transfered, as non-living matter doesn't seem to have the same cost.

But let's say a transfer is made that increases the potential energy of the payload. If the investiture powering the device is what is providing the excess potential energy, why does it do that?

If the only reason is to balance the equation that doesn't work, reality doesn't bend to conform to laws, the laws are made because reality already obeys them and we just observe that. So something must be requiring that additional energy in some way.

 

Additionally how is that energy being provided? When I lift something up here the energy is being physically transferred between my arm and whatever I am holding, in this instance how is that transfer coming to pass?

[therunner]

48 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That's why I specifically said fission it back into Hydrogen, IRL we would have considerable loss, but if we didn't, and ended with the same amount of Hydrogen as we began you could continue the process ad infinitum.

Couple of points:

• You cannot fission down to hydrogen. Iron is where fission terminates. To get hydrogen back, you would have to put in more energy, so there would be net loss of energy in the process.
• If you magically got around first point, at best the process would continue, but you would not get any usable energy. (this however, neglects that machine requires some energy to function).
• The only way it could continue ad infinitum is if you ignore second law of thermodynamics.

So, such a thing is impossible due to multiple different things, however all come down to first and second law of thermodynamics.

48 minutes ago, Frustration said:

But let's say a transfer is made that increases the potential energy of the payload. If the investiture powering the device is what is providing the excess potential energy, why does it do that?

If the only reason is to balance the equation that doesn't work, reality doesn't bend to conform to laws, the laws are made because reality already obeys them and we just observe that. So something must be requiring that additional energy in some way.

It does that because it has to.
Investiture would convert to potential energy exactly because of the laws, it would have no choice but to provide that energy through some pathway, otherwise it would be impossible.

The thing that requires the additional energy is the conservation of energy. In reality you can never get something out of nothing, and we call that law of conservation of energy. So yes, reality does conform to that, because the law is just description of reality.

So the teleportation has to conform to physical laws of conservation of energy, which are supposed to hold in Cosmere if you include Investiture.

So once you consider mass, energy and Investiture, teleportation has to convert one of these into potential energy.

48 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Additionally how is that energy being provided? When I lift something up here the energy is being physically transferred between my arm and whatever I am holding, in this instance how is that transfer coming to pass?

How would I know? Teleportation is not physically possible.

If the oathgates function by converting you into Investiture and then reforming you elsewhere, then it would provide additional energy when reconstituting you (or shunt energy elsewhere when you should lose potential energy).

And we already have example of Investiture being converted to physical attributes, Feruchemy, so this is definitely possible.

If a physical portal is opened, then it could be that when passing through it would feel like pushing through some resistance, owing to the potential difference, so the person moving through would provide the energy necessary.

Edited August 3, 2023 by therunner

[Frustration]

23 minutes ago, therunner said:

Couple of points:

• You cannot fission down to hydrogen. Iron is where fission terminates. To get hydrogen back, you would have to put in more energy, so there would be net loss of energy in the process.
• If you magically got around first point, at best the process would continue, but you would not get any usable energy. (this however, neglects that machine requires some energy to function).
• The only way it could continue ad infinitum is if you ignore second law of thermodynamics.

So, such a thing is impossible due to multiple different things, however all come down to first and second law of thermodynamics.

I'm well aware, all of which were addressed when I originally made that post, things have just gotten lost as the discussion moved on and this got brought back up.

23 minutes ago, therunner said:

It does that because it has to.

Investiture would convert to potential energy exactly because of the laws, it would have no choice but to provide that energy through some pathway, otherwise it would be impossible.

I'm apparently not very good at asking the question I'm thinking.

This is what I'm seeing: we have an equation that describes the process used to transfer matter via Oathgates, portals, Aon Tia, whatever. This equation is balanced such that the energy needed to transfer matter is equivalent to what is put in. You are then looking at the starting and ending states of that matter, and seeing that it ends with more potential energy, which you then are ascribing to the transfer process in order to balance the equation, and I don't understand why.

My question is this: Why do you assume the energy comes from the transfer process? What about the translation requires more energy to move something 100 feet up, as opposed to moving something to the same elevation on the other side of the planet?

I hope that makes more sense.

23 minutes ago, therunner said:

The thing that requires the additional energy is the conservation of energy.

If I jump holding a five pound weight I won't be able to get as high as I would if I wasn't holding that weight. Not because of conservation of energy, but because of Gravity and Inertia. Conservation of energy is a consequence of that, not the reason.

What I'm asking for is the reason.

23 minutes ago, therunner said:

How would I know? Teleportation is not physically possible.

Fair enough

23 minutes ago, therunner said:

If the oathgates function by converting you into Investiture and then reforming you elsewhere, then it would provide additional energy when reconstituting you (or shunt energy elsewhere when you should lose potential energy).

I guess that's possible, but that feels more clunky than just swapping places with the other Oathgate.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Frustration

[therunner]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

This is what I'm seeing: we have an equation that describes the process used to transfer matter via Oathgates, portals, Aon Tia, whatever. You are then looking at the starting and ending states of that matter, and seeing that it ends with more potential energy, which you then are ascribing to the transfer process in order to balance the equation, and I don't understand why.

Because the energy has to come from somewhere.
If you could freely teleport stuff wherever you want, with no regard to their potential energy, first law of thermodynamics goes out of the window, along with a lot of other stuff.

This mean that the 'equation'  you mention is only balanced when you also include the fact that potential energy of the matter you are transforming is relevant.

Basically, this sentence

Quote

This equation is balanced such that the energy needed to transfer matter is equivalent to what is put in.

is a wrong assumption that leads you towards invalid conclusion.

Quote

My question is this: Why do you assume the energy comes from the transfer process? What about the translation requires more energy to move something 100 feet up, as opposed to moving something to the same elevation on the other side of the planet?

Because there is no other place the energy can come from, not in Oathgates at least.

Moving something to different location while staying at the same elevation would consume less energy, because the objects being transferred don't have to be raised or lowered.*

Simply put, teleport something 10 feet to the left, will consume less energy than teleporting something 10 feet to the left, and 10 feet up. And 10 feet up will consume more than 10 feet left, because the teleportation has to put in the work to increase potential energy. There is no other way.

*Edit: Technically, to not have to do work to raise or lower you need to stay at the same level of potential, not necessarily the same elevation. But for simplicity let us assume that the gravitational field is perfectly spherical.

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

If I jump holding a five pound weight I won't be able to get as high as I would if I wasn't holding that weight. Not because of conservation of energy, but because of Gravity and Inertia. Conservation of energy is a consequence of that, not the reason.

What I'm asking for is the reason.

Wrong, it is conservation of energy. You can create some output work (to jump), and that work is converted to potential energy (you rise). When you are trying to raise something heavier with the same work, the elevation will be smaller, because potential energy is product of distance and mass. Gravity and inertia are merely the sources of the potential energy, but have no bearing on the situation otherwise.

So yes, it is conservation of energy. Also, conservation of energy is fundamental and hence the reason, arguably more so than gravity. You have it even in non-gravitational systems, because it is simply consequence of symmetry towards time translation (in GR it gets messier, however it is still good locally).

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

I guess that's possible, but that feels more clunky than just swapping places with the other Oathgate.

Even if it is swapping places with the other Oathgate, it would still have to provide the potential energy differential, because you are not swapping the same amount of matter, so you are moving swapping X and Y amount of matter, so the amount of potential energy afterwards would be different, unless Oathgates provides for it.

Basically, atom of Hydrogen 10 meters above ground is quantitatively different from Hydrogen atom 20 meters above ground, they have different energies and technically then also masses. The difference is minuscule and basically negligible, but it is there. So you cannot 'just' swap things around, because there are differences in energy.

Edited August 3, 2023 by therunner

[IlstrawberrySeed]

@Frustration@Nameless*@therunner

I once again fell into the trap of not saving my response even though I was getting it done in one sitting, so this is going to be less refined being my frustrated take 2.

There are 3 conversations going on, and I will adress all of them in their own Headings.

Conjoined Fabrial Mechanics

I'm not the first to think this, but it was quickly dismised before. The main difference between this and other views is that the ratio that matters is the Gem:Total ratio, so if the Gem to Gem ratio was 1:5, the movement would be 1/6 or 5/6 of the expected movement, and the smaller gem gives more torque (if rotating) to the larger Gem, meaning disproportionate Gems (in flight) would be used most effectively to make Chulls pull harder for less for the same distance flown, allowing more consistent movement, while smaller gems can be used for elevation to minimize weights.

PMM

I don't think the Terris Wheel is PMM. 1: It requires negligible energy in the form of brain waves, but also you need food and water, bendalloy, Dor, or Etc. to keep it running.

I do think that the FM would have ran forever given that the Hion/Hijo dispersed & reformed faster than they were produced/consumed, because they would reform due to being entities that are not killed. Even Nightblood's kills return back to the SR. That is only if you consider the spirits as part of the system or you don't limit it to isolated systems, which most everyone but Frus seem to not.

l think Frus's latest design has promise but isn't quite there. For one, you can get rid of the Fabrial clocks by using well placed pieces of ralkalest, but you still need stormlight for the conjoiners and the output. That doesn't mean it isn't incredibly useful, turning stormlight into energy more efficiently than anything else other than a perfect gem.

    On Perfect Gems, they emit light, which should be able to be harnessed, but loose no light, according to Brandon. Therefore, unless it's like the whole Feruchemistry thing, they would be a PMM on it's own, provided you can use the energy produced to protect it from damage.

I don't think that Rithmatic style Awakening produces a PMM either, since the material wears. Even if you replace it, it is doubtful that realistic Mass and Breaths can create enough energy to convert some energy into investiture to heal the Mass. I say realistic, because if you take up a shard and make a planet sized thing and awakened it, and had a suitably large generator it operated, it would likely be enough, especially since damage becomes less important due to the square-cube law.

I think the most likely one involves Perpendicularities and the Height difference from CR to PR.

Teleportation

Skyward was going to be in the cosmere, except he wrote it too early, so it would have too many spoilers, so I extrapolate from minor spoilers about its magic.

Spoiler

 I've always seen teleportation as transitioning into the SR and Back, but in a different place since space is nonexistent. (I've refrenced this would allow it to have a non-variable amount of time before.) This would mean that there is no energy required beyond that to transition. Perhaps you use your potential energy, to lower the cost, or perhaps the threshold is simply larger than any differential. After all, if your accessing the SR, you could pull power from there to transition you, meaning you just need to have the power to access and command the investiture, giving a reasonable explanation for the lack of differing TP costs, while not making TP a highly invested art.

If TP doesn't use the SR, then there is no logical reason for Conservation of Energy other than Thresholds, and those only because of Sanity, there is no reason that the threshold for teleportation by Aon Dia or Oathgates would be more than any possible differential with the minimal cost.

TLDR, or no spoilers, I think the way I think teleportation works in the cosmere (^) supports that the investiture required to teleport is above the threshold of any energy differential caused by teleportation.

[therunner]

7 hours ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

I do think that the FM would have ran forever given that the Hion/Hijo dispersed & reformed faster than they were produced/consumed, because they would reform due to being entities that are not killed. Even Nightblood's kills return back to the SR. That is only if you consider the spirits as part of the system or you don't limit it to isolated systems, which most everyone but Frus seem to not.

The fact that FM requires spirits to keep running prevents it from being PMM. As we see at the end of Yumi, without access to spirits the machine broke down basically immediately.
And spirits form from Investiture of the shattered Shard and reform after being destroyed.

Quote

    On Perfect Gems, they emit light, which should be able to be harnessed, but loose no light, according to Brandon. Therefore, unless it's like the whole Feruchemistry thing, they would be a PMM on it's own, provided you can use the energy produced to protect it from damage.

Perfect games are also not PMM, the light is coming from SR, i.e. they are hooked up to a power source.

In both of the above cases it is energy from SR that creates illusion of PMM. But cut off access to SR, and both of them will stop.

[Frustration]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

The fact that FM requires spirits to keep running prevents it from being PMM. As we see at the end of Yumi, without access to spirits the machine broke down basically immediately.
And spirits form from Investiture of the shattered Shard and reform after being destroyed.

Perfect games are also not PMM, the light is coming from SR, i.e. they are hooked up to a power source.

In both of the above cases it is energy from SR that creates illusion of PMM. But cut off access to SR, and both of them will stop.

That's like saying that if we made a battery that contained infinite energy, and plugged it into something it wouldn't be a PMM because once you took the battery out it wouldn't function, despite the fact that without interference it would run forever.

[therunner]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

That's like saying that if we made a battery that contained infinite energy, and plugged it into something it wouldn't be a PMM because once you took the battery out it wouldn't function, despite the fact that without interference it would run forever.

Yeah, no.

To make such battery you need infinite energy in the first place, so you cannot make it.

The fact that spheres are plugged in to some external source of energy means they are not PMM. They don't function with 100% efficiency, nor do they create give out more energy than goes in. Investiture goes into the sphere, and some of the Investiture in SR is converted into light in PR. Nothing breaks thermodynamics here, and no PMM is present.

The only reason that it works 'forever' is that per Brandon Shards are infinite, which however does not make actual sense. I.e. how can you stuff Infinite amount of Investiture into finite space in Sel CR? Either it would have to be infinitely dense (which it clearly isn't, since it is traversable albeit dangerous) or it has to take up infinite space (which it does not). Additionally, infinite amount of Investiture present in CR should by all rights lead to infinite distortion, yet it clearly does not.

Edit: Hmm, new WoB from 2022 implies that the glow of spheres is not because it is coming from SR, but because the Investiture is 'decaying'

Quote

Questioner

How much have you thought about the mathematical relationship between Investiture and energy/matter? Is there a cosmere E=mc^2?

Brandon Sanderson

I've thought about the concepts a lot. The numbers, I actually tried to get some mathematicians... There are some lovely folks, I'm like, can we come up with a standardization? And it kind of broke their brains, not because they aren't smart people, they're very smart people, but they're like, "Brandon, where do we even start? How much energy is being expended?" and this sort of thing. I would like to get a unit of measurement, how much Investiture equals how much energy, but at the same time, the work being done by the various magic systems, it's going to be too constrictive to put too much math on that, I feel like. I would like to. It is a much bigger project than you might imagine it being. How much energy is stored in a sphere? That's kind of where we started. A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. How much is it therefore losing, how much could it do, how much of that can be transferred to doing work with a Lashing... All of this stuff, I have thought about way too much, and we have no answers for you yet because it is a really big project. Maybe we will someday, or maybe we'll just say, this is too big a project to even be able to mathematically quantify. I'm sure if you have suggestions, you can post thoughts on the subreddits, and perhaps that will get to the various arcanists who are helping me with this.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

Which means that even a perfect gem will eventually run out of Investiture, it will just take a gigantic amount of time. Compare older WoB from 2015 (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6389).
So yeah, sphere are not a source of PMM either, since now the explanation for the light they give off is decay of Investiture.


Frankly all of that is simply because people don't realize what infinity actually is, and that it is effectively more of a sign that something is breaking down in your description than physical reality. Once you have infinite quantity somewhere in your description, you are going to end up with huge issues somewhere else. Similar issue arises with the fact that he made CR flat plane, which means that every single planet will have some arbitrary jump in its projection, because you simply cannot map a sphere to a flat plane without discontinuity.

TLDR: Thermodynamics holds per Brandon, so that is not the way to PMM.
Brandon also won't give one planet infinite energy by accident (limitations are the things that interest him), so spheres won't be usable that way, so that won't be way to PMM either. He will have to come up with some ad-hoc explanation of why not though (end per edit he already did).

Edited October 17, 2023 by therunner

[Frustration]

25 minutes ago, therunner said:

They don't function with 100% efficiency, nor do they create give out more energy than goes in.

Sure they do.

All expended investiture returns to the SR, which is how Shards can be essentially infinite despite there only being a finite amount of Investiture.

[therunner]

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Sure they do.

All expended investiture returns to the SR, which is how Shards can be essentially infinite despite there only being a finite amount of Investiture.

Read the new WoB, they don't.
Spheres don't glow because of SR, but because Investiture in them decays.

Quote

 

Brandon Sanderson

.... A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. ...

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

So again, they don't function with 100% efficiency, nor do they give out more energy than goes in, so they are not PMM in either sense.

Edited October 17, 2023 by therunner

[IlstrawberrySeed]

8 hours ago, therunner said:

The fact that FM requires spirits to keep running prevents it from being PMM. As we see at the end of Yumi, without access to spirits the machine broke down basically immediately.
And spirits form from Investiture of the shattered Shard and reform after being destroyed.

Perfect games are also not PMM, the light is coming from SR, i.e. they are hooked up to a power source.

In both of the above cases it is energy from SR that creates illusion of PMM. But cut off access to SR, and both of them will stop.

Right. That's what I said. It is PMM if you consider the Spirits as part of the system or you don't limit it to closed systems, since it required something to turn it off, not wearing down on it's own.

I don't believe that's the only explanation. Remember that Mater and Energy can be converted to investiture, the heat/light/etc. created by the spirits could convert back into the investiture of said spirit. Keyword could. I personally don't have a solid opinion.

As your later WoB edit confirms, I thought it was more likely "perfect" in the same way "feurochemistry" is 1:1. As in negligibly not.

2 hours ago, therunner said:

Yeah, no.

To make such battery you need infinite energy in the first place, so you cannot make it.

The fact that spheres are plugged in to some external source of energy means they are not PMM. They don't function with 100% efficiency, nor do they create give out more energy than goes in. Investiture goes into the sphere, and some of the Investiture in SR is converted into light in PR. Nothing breaks thermodynamics here, and no PMM is present.

The only reason that it works 'forever' is that per Brandon Shards are infinite, which however does not make actual sense. I.e. how can you stuff Infinite amount of Investiture into finite space in Sel CR? Either it would have to be infinitely dense (which it clearly isn't, since it is traversable albeit dangerous) or it has to take up infinite space (which it does not). Additionally, infinite amount of Investiture present in CR should by all rights lead to infinite distortion, yet it clearly does not.

Edit: Hmm, new WoB from 2022 implies that the glow of spheres is not because it is coming from SR, but because the Investiture is 'decaying'

Which means that even a perfect gem will eventually run out of Investiture, it will just take a gigantic amount of time. Compare older WoB from 2015 (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6389).
So yeah, sphere are not a source of PMM either, since now the explanation for the light they give off is decay of Investiture.


Frankly all of that is simply because people don't realize what infinity actually is, and that it is effectively more of a sign that something is breaking down in your description than physical reality. Once you have infinite quantity somewhere in your description, you are going to end up with huge issues somewhere else. Similar issue arises with the fact that he made CR flat plane, which means that every single planet will have some arbitrary jump in its projection, because you simply cannot map a sphere to a flat plane without discontinuity.

TLDR: Thermodynamics holds per Brandon, so that is not the way to PMM.
Brandon also won't give one planet infinite energy by accident (limitations are the things that interest him), so spheres won't be usable that way, so that won't be way to PMM either. He will have to come up with some ad-hoc explanation of why not though (end per edit he already did).

This argument will go nowhere if you don't respond to the analogies given the analogies. Sure, the analogy is impossible, but so are all models we use.

I specifically referenced the probability of gems not being truly perfect.

That is partially correct. There is a difference between having infinity and proving that the limit as time approaches infinity the machine is concurrent to the machine at t=0. If you have infinity as part of an equation, something's wrong, but infinity in limits is OK.

Brandon Says he wants Thermodynamics to hold, but has said it is difficult to make them work. For example, to have a spirit split to make energy, it must be in a lower energy state. However, it reforms naturally, meaning the natural state must be in a lower energy state. Alternatively, it reforms enough to gather energy, but then the argument would be if the ambient energy is required or if all investiture and energy was converted to matter but one hijo, would it reform after being split into hion.