+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 Suppose you measure the speed of light between two points A and B, which are at rest to each other and are right outside a bendalloy bubble. Is the speed of light still the conventional value or is it increased by the factor of the bubble?
Quantus he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 Conventional* by specific Doylistic Choice. Otherwise they'd cause unanticipated radiation, OP railgun coinshots, etc. : *They're going with a turbulent energy transfer at the border to explain it, ditto with bullets being deflected and whatnot. Quote Kurkistan Is there- have you come up with a Realmatic explanation for why light isn't affected by time bubbles besides handwavium "please don't burn people with microwaves"? Brandon Sanderson Peter's got one for us. 'Cause we were going to do redshift: like the actual original writing for it had redshifts; Peter's like "Dude, you will microwave everybody" I'm like "Oh man". So the handwavium of that: there is a real- there is an actual explanation, but it... *they move to outside the store* What's the middle of this question? Kurkistan Middle of the question was you were thinking about explaining the Realmatics behind light for time bubbles. Brandon Sanderson Oh right, right right right right. I can't because it spoils future books; like that's spoiler for Mistborn... 10? Kurkistan/Argent *laughter* Brandon Sanderson So... if you count the four Alloys, so really gotta stay away from stuff like that. Kurkistan/Argent That's fair/fine. Firefight Chicago signing (Feb. 20, 2015) Quote Questioner Is there a simple explanation of why bullets and objects that go through the time bubble wall are refracted at such random...? Brandon Sanderson There's two reasons. One is the outside-of-the-books reason, one is the inside-of-the-books reason. Outside the books, it made time bubbles too powerful. Limitations, that whole idea about limitations. In-world, what's happening is, there is a transfer of power that's happening right there. Which is what keeps light from irradiating people when it passes through a bubble. So, there's a transfer of energy, there's actually a thermodynamic process happening when you pass out of the speed bubble. And energy is being lost. And that has to do with cosmere physics. Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016) Quote BeskarKomrk (paraphrased) When someone is inside a time bubble where time is going faster, do they age more quickly than they would outside? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yes. BeskarKomrk (paraphrased) So there's a sort of relativistic effect going on there? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yes, I tried to keep it as close as possible to the actual effects. The only thing I didn't include, I think, is the red-shift of light when it leaves the bubble, because that would irradiate everything around it. Shadows of Self Boston signing (Oct. 14, 2015) Quote Brandon Sanderson Chapter Twelve The group investigates the railroad tracks and canal So, let's talk about the realities of speed bubbles. I did research on this, and got different answers from people on what really should happen if you could slow time like this. One of the issues is that light doesn't change speeds based on this sort of issue, so there was discussion of what things would look like inside looking out or outside looking in. It seems likely that there'd be some sort of red shift, and also that things might grow more dim inside a speed bubble. This is all really very theoretical, however, and so, in the end, I decided that there was enough disagreement among scientists with whom I spoke that it wouldn't be glaringly irregular if I just had the shimmer at the borders and stayed away from dealing with speed of light issues. There's a much larger issue dealing with slowed time that rarely gets addressed by this type of fiction. I considered using it, and it's this: conservation of energy. Inside the speed bubble, Wax and Wayne are moving far more quickly, and therefore have a ton of kinetic energy compared to those outside of it. And so, a coin tossed from inside the bubble going outside would suddenly move with a proportional increase in speed (proportional to how much slower things were outside). In essence, speed bubble = railgun. This is dangerous for narrative reasons. I've often said that the limitations of a power are more interesting than the powers themselves. (It's Sanderson’s Second Law of Magics: Limitations > Powers.) One of the reasons for removing Mistborn and Full Feruchemists from the setting was so that we could focus in on the usefulness of the individual powers in Allomancy and Feruchemy. That falls by the wayside if any of the individual powers become too strong on their own. I didn't want Wayne to be able to slow time, then sit inside his bubble and leisurely pick off enemies one at a time. And so, I had to place strong limitations on the speed bubbles. (Much stronger limitations than on other aspects of Allomancy. Pushing and Pulling, for example, have their limitations based in solid science. With speed bubbles, I eventually decided that solid science made them way too powerful. So I had to change things.) Therefore, the rules became: No shooting/throwing things out of speed bubbles, no moving speed bubbles, and a required couple second cool-down between creating different speed bubbles. The first rule broke required objects to be deflected when leaving the bubble and that we have the bubble absorb excess kinetic energy when something leaves it. Disappointing for the scientists, I know, but it makes for a stronger story. The Alloy of Law Annotations (Nov. 30, 2015) 1
+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Author Posted October 6, 2022 2 hours ago, Quantus said: Conventional* by specific Doylistic Choice. Otherwise they'd cause unanticipated radiation, OP railgun coinshots, etc. : I am afraid I do not understand the conclusion drawn from the WOBs. In fact they would lead me to the opposite conclusion. So you do not gain kinetic energy leaving a speed bubble. That is fairly easily explained by a sort of relativity. Measured from inside the bubble your speed is not increased inside the bubble. But for that to be true, they would need to measure the speed of light inside the bubble to be c. Consequenly the speed of light inside the bubble measured from outside the bubble has to be > c.
Quantus he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Oltux72 said: I am afraid I do not understand the conclusion drawn from the WOBs. In fact they would lead me to the opposite conclusion. So you do not gain kinetic energy leaving a speed bubble. That is fairly easily explained by a sort of relativity. Measured from inside the bubble your speed is not increased inside the bubble. But for that to be true, they would need to measure the speed of light inside the bubble to be c. Consequenly the speed of light inside the bubble measured from outside the bubble has to be > c. You are going to have to disconnect your logical chain here, the 'No Doppler Shift' rule for speed bubbles was a "handwavium" solution to avoid narrative issues and is specifically where he chose to deviate from what logic and science would dictate. I think there probably some reasonable realmic Internal/External theories we could spin like we've been doing forever with storing "weight", but in this case I'd be backing into a justification. Edited October 6, 2022 by Quantus
+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Author Posted October 6, 2022 7 minutes ago, Quantus said: You are going to have to disconnect your logical chain here, the 'No Doppler Shift' rule for speed bubbles was a "handwavium" solution to avoid narrative issues and is specifically where he chose to deviate from what logic and science would dictate. Sure, but where is the connection to that? As far as I can see the redshift and the momentum question are independent of each oter.
Quantus he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Oltux72 said: Sure, but where is the connection to that? As far as I can see the redshift and the momentum question are independent of each oter. Ooh, gotcha, sorry. WOB #2 above says for both bullets and Light they're calling it a thermodynamic process at the boundary that bleeds energy out to explain why there's no problematic radiation or object acceleration when things leave the boundary (and I think is why there's a shimmer but no actual Doppler shift). WOB #4 elaborates that the problems were interconnected, were consider from both the inside-out and outside-in perspective, and ultimately handwaved to say the boundary bleeds out any problematic kinetic energy but chaotically enough that Wayne cant just sniper from inside his bubble. EDIT: Also, I think they are mostly discarding the real wave behavior and just calling it the Light-as-a-Particle side to say it behaves the same for visible light and thrown/flying objects. Edited October 6, 2022 by Quantus 1
+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Author Posted October 6, 2022 2 hours ago, Quantus said: Ooh, gotcha, sorry. WOB #2 above says for both bullets and Light they're calling it a thermodynamic process at the boundary that bleeds energy out to explain why there's no problematic radiation or object acceleration when things leave the boundary (and I think is why there's a shimmer but no actual Doppler shift). WOB The redshift also introduces a thermodynamic problem, which the absence of a redshift actually solves. If you have two objects of the same temperature and put one of them into a speed bubble, heat will flow by radiation. 2 hours ago, Quantus said: #4 elaborates that the problems were interconnected, were consider from both the inside-out and outside-in perspective, and ultimately handwaved to say the boundary bleeds out any problematic kinetic energy but chaotically enough that Wayne cant just sniper from inside his bubble. Well, that is kind of the point. The problem goes away if you consider a speed bubble to be a kind of relativistic effect. Kinetic energy and momentum are different to an internal and external observer and the border decides what view applies. 2 hours ago, Quantus said: EDIT: Also, I think they are mostly discarding the real wave behavior and just calling it the Light-as-a-Particle side to say it behaves the same for visible light and thrown/flying objects. How so?
cometaryorbit Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 I don't think those WoBs establish that the speed of light doesn't change (in RL gravitational redshift, the speed of light remains constant), but this one does https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2763 Necarion One other speed bubble question. Is the speed of light the same inside and outside a speed bubble? Brandon Sanderson Um, yes. The speed of light is the same. Good question, you're trying to figure out the FTL. Necarion Also, it would eliminate the redshift if the speed of light… Brandon Sanderson If the speed of light were similar. That's one thing we considered, but it felt too unintuitive, plus it's just not how I imagined things working. So, no it is not, but that's a good question. It is something we considered. Footnote: Necarion’s note: there would be no redshift if the speed of light were directly proportional to the ‘speed of time’. Alas this theory doesn’t seem to be valid Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016) -- I do think it would be simpler if it did work this way...
+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Author Posted October 6, 2022 4 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said: I don't think those WoBs establish that the speed of light doesn't change (in RL gravitational redshift, the speed of light remains constant), but this one does https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2763 Necarion One other speed bubble question. Is the speed of light the same inside and outside a speed bubble? Brandon Sanderson Um, yes. The speed of light is the same. Good question, you're trying to figure out the FTL. The same to whom? That is the culprit of the question. It seems to me that if an external observer measured the same speed whether a speed bubble is in the way or not, an internal observer would measure an altered speed of light. And in that case: what happens to matter that is thereby superluminal?
Quantus he/him Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 2 hours ago, Oltux72 said: Well, that is kind of the point. The problem goes away if you consider a speed bubble to be a kind of relativistic effect. Kinetic energy and momentum are different to an internal and external observer and the border decides what view applies. Right, I think that's what WOB #3 is saying. 25 minutes ago, Oltux72 said: The same to whom? That is the culprit of the question. It seems to me that if an external observer measured the same speed whether a speed bubble is in the way or not, an internal observer would measure an altered speed of light. It's going to come down to Realmic Cognitive Perception Shenanigans, since the observation of Light (the redshift) is the main thing that he's specifically handwaving away from logic 25 minutes ago, Oltux72 said: And in that case: what happens to matter that is thereby superluminal? You lost me, how would matter be accelerated to superluminal speeds?
cometaryorbit Posted October 6, 2022 Posted October 6, 2022 I think the idea is the speed of light is the same regardless of where it's being measured, just like RL time dilation. The whole thing with relativity weirdness is that the speed of light stays the same for all observers, so distance and time have to be relative. A time bubble was originally intended to work like RL gravitational time dilation before the whole redshift issue was worked out... https://wob.coppermind.net/events/199/#e7747 EricLake @BrandSanderson In M:AoL, will bendalloy’s time dilation result in redshifting of light going in/out of the bubble? #weescience Brandon Sanderson I’ve been working on the science of it. Basically, I’ve been treating it as a gravitational time dilation. But only focused inward, and equally, on those inside the bubble. It’s making my brain hurt a bit, but I think I’ve got it working I think this means yes to a gravitational redshift. But . . . it gets wacky. Trying to decide just what it would do is tough. General Twitter 2010 (Nov. 22, 2010)
+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 7, 2022 Author Posted October 7, 2022 5 hours ago, Quantus said: It's going to come down to Realmic Cognitive Perception Shenanigans, since the observation of Light (the redshift) is the main thing that he's specifically handwaving away from logic The problem is that the same measurement can be seen from both sides. Suppose I build a vacuum pipe with some observation ports through a speed bubble. Then I drop an object through it. The time it takes to traverse through the bubble is different to an observer outside or inside the bubble, isn't it? 5 hours ago, Quantus said: You lost me, how would matter be accelerated to superluminal speeds? Now we repeat the experiment with an object not just dropped but accelerated to 50% of the speed of light outside the bubble. Let's say the bubble has a "factor" of 10. What speeds do the observers get for the object? Is one of them superluminal? If the answer to that is negative, it seems to me that the speed of light has been altered.
Quantus he/him Posted October 7, 2022 Posted October 7, 2022 9 hours ago, Oltux72 said: The problem is that the same measurement can be seen from both sides. Suppose I build a vacuum pipe with some observation ports through a speed bubble. Then I drop an object through it. The time it takes to traverse through the bubble is different to an observer outside or inside the bubble, isn't it? Devil's Advocate question because I cant actually remember, and because we know Light at least is bend to narrative. Has there been an instance of somebody from outside the sphere observing the happenings inside? In most cases it's a flicker change and it's done or else it goes unobserved entirely. Has maybe somebody with superspeed* been able to see into a sphere? (*but for the sake of science not using All Powers subconsciously with the Bands, which broke all kinds of rules) 9 hours ago, Oltux72 said: Now we repeat the experiment with an object not just dropped but accelerated to 50% of the speed of light outside the bubble. Let's say the bubble has a "factor" of 10. What speeds do the observers get for the object? Is one of them superluminal? If the answer to that is negative, it seems to me that the speed of light has been altered. Per THIS WOB, whenever magics (and speed bubbles specifically) break physics, the answer will be that it spills over into Spiritual Realm Wonkiness. By that, using Time Bubbles in conjunction with particle acceleration to Break the Light Barrier will pop the border into the Spiritual Realm and balance the system with the Realm of Infinite Stuff. As for in-world Arcanist theories, I have a couple different ideas, but Ill need your help to figure out which fits the evidence better because it's been a while since I've read through mistborn. Also allowing that this hypothetical is taking about a lot of energy so it might be playing in the Possible But Not Practical stuff he's always lamenting in WOBs. So: Elsecalling Theory: The imbalanced equation Spills into the Spiritual Realm, which sounds a little like a mechanically created perpendicularity. So I suspect it could resemble Realmic Elscalling and allow for some rudimentary Oathgate travel (probably without any built-in navigation method). The Flash does it all the time... Shared Cognitive Theory: Because all sentient beings are Connected at a cognitive level and their Perceptions get blended to make the local Cognitive Realm which is itself a foundation of the Physical Realm, it's literally not possible for the Inside Observer to Perceive any difference in the Speed of Light. At a Reality's "Objective" Perception level it is held constant, and the Bubble boundary Investiture buffers the difference as it crosses. I think instead of getting a compressed analog signal (that would result in red-rust) it's more of a weird cosmic Framerate stat analogous to how Age is an Objective "Connection" to the Spiritual making it independent of Health. Investiture Resistance Theory: Speed Bubble's exclude Light from their effects because Light (and Color) innately carry more Investiture in the Cosmere, through mechanism that are being hinted at but unexplained. Which means it's a practical issue that advanced Realmic Science (and the color-draining ability of Awakening) can probably overcome by the time railguns and FTL's wouldnt be narrative-breaking.
cometaryorbit Posted October 7, 2022 Posted October 7, 2022 (edited) If bubbles work like RL time dilation, no one will observe FTL, exactly. In RL, at least with special relativity, this can happen because distance also changes. (If you were traveling at 99.9% of light speed you'd get to a star 100 light years away from Earth in much less than 100 years your-time, but you'll observe the distance to your destination shrinking.) But there is some way to get FTL involving bubbles. So I think we can't 100% apply RL time dilation rules, and we can't confidently say much beyond the WoBs. (And details might even have changed since the earlier WoBs - the BoM carriage bubble scene and discussion shows different rules than the older AoL-era bubble WoBs, re: bubbles on trains). (Although it is possible that bubble FTL works like an Alcubierre drive, and thus doesn't violate relativity. But we don't see anyone talking about bubbles changing distances or being larger/smaller on the inside). Edited October 7, 2022 by cometaryorbit
+Oltux72 he/him Posted October 7, 2022 Author Posted October 7, 2022 4 hours ago, Quantus said: Devil's Advocate question because I cant actually remember, and because we know Light at least is bend to narrative. Has there been an instance of somebody from outside the sphere observing the happenings inside? In most cases it's a flicker change and it's done or else it goes unobserved entirely. Has maybe somebody with superspeed* been able to see into a sphere? I don't need to see into it. That's why we have a pipe. I use synchronized watches at the point I drop/propel downward the object and at the impact point. 4 hours ago, Quantus said: As for in-world Arcanist theories, I have a couple different ideas, but Ill need your help to figure out which fits the evidence better because it's been a while since I've read through mistborn. Also allowing that this hypothetical is taking about a lot of energy so it might be playing in the Possible But Not Practical stuff he's always lamenting in WOBs. I have no idea how to verify these theories. 2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said: If bubbles work like RL time dilation, no one will observe FTL, exactly. In RL, at least with special relativity, this can happen because distance also changes. (If you were traveling at 99.9% of light speed you'd get to a star 100 light years away from Earth in much less than 100 years your-time, but you'll observe the distance to your destination shrinking.) Well, I am afraid that depends on speed being a vector. If the bubble internally shrank consistently in all directions, how would you measures distances as opposed to time? At most you could measure the energy it takes to get up to a defined speed. But that does not work with constant speeds. 2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said: But there is some way to get FTL involving bubbles. So I think we can't 100% apply RL time dilation rules, and we can't confidently say much beyond the WoBs. (And details might even have changed since the earlier WoBs - the BoM carriage bubble scene and discussion shows different rules than the older AoL-era bubble WoBs, re: bubbles on trains). (Although it is possible that bubble FTL works like an Alcubierre drive, and thus doesn't violate relativity. But we don't see anyone talking about bubbles changing distances or being larger/smaller on the inside). That is in fact what I would propose in that the stationary bendalloy bubble sort of shortens the distance, acting as the warp bubble and the moving cadmium bubble works like the unbent space inside the warp bubble.
Quantus he/him Posted October 10, 2022 Posted October 10, 2022 (edited) On 10/7/2022 at 3:27 PM, Oltux72 said: I don't need to see into it. That's why we have a pipe. I use synchronized watches at the point I drop/propel downward the object and at the impact point. I have no idea how to verify these theories. Well, I am afraid that depends on speed being a vector. If the bubble internally shrank consistently in all directions, how would you measures distances as opposed to time? At most you could measure the energy it takes to get up to a defined speed. But that does not work with constant speeds. That is in fact what I would propose in that the stationary bendalloy bubble sort of shortens the distance, acting as the warp bubble and the moving cadmium bubble works like the unbent space inside the warp bubble. Found this (really old) WOB that implies it will affect people and object inside the bubble only, and in qualitatively different ways that how physics and logic would treat such a boundary where the side does not matter. But it's also before he just handwaved away the redshift issue, so it's preliminary in that sense. Quote EricLake @BrandSanderson In M:AoL, will bendalloy’s time dilation result in redshifting of light going in/out of the bubble? #weescience Brandon Sanderson I’ve been working on the science of it. Basically, I’ve been treating it as a gravitational time dilation. But only focused inward, and equally, on those inside the bubble. It’s making my brain hurt a bit, but I think I’ve got it working I think this means yes to a gravitational redshift. But . . . it gets wacky. Trying to decide just what it would do is tough. General Twitter 2010 (Nov. 22, 2010) Edited October 10, 2022 by Quantus
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