Steel pushes

[DoomslugTD]

I was wondering something, I have always found the mecahnics of steel pushing somewhat vauge when I read, so I wanted to ask a couple questions. First, when you are burning steel you can see the blue lines, when you push on these lines does it take more steel? if not, can you just push on a ton of different objects to create a higher total net force out of a small amount of steel? Second, I have heard contradicting things on this, does the weight of the allomancer effect the strength of the push at all? if so does it just make the push stronger for the same amount of steel, or does it allow you to use more steel to push harder? Third, in the books it mentions that larger objects have larger lines pointing to them, and are easier to detect from further away, does this mean you can push harder on these large objects. At a longer range? and if so does this require a greater amount of steel, or does it just become more effeciant? Thank you!

[alder24]

19 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

First, when you are burning steel you can see the blue lines, when you push on these lines does it take more steel?

I don't know tbf. But I know that burning and flaring metals aren't the only options, you can burn a bit more than normal but not flare, and burn less than normal. So I suspect that burning steel/iron a little reveals lines, but burning it normally pushes/pulls on them. I can be very wrong here, and you just burn them with normal strength to both see the lines and push/pull on metals.

Spoiler

Seonid

Is the level of burning a continuous distribution, can I burn 0.1 level of steel all the way up to flaring? Or is it just I burn or I flare?

Brandon Sanderson

The more skilled you are, the more you have the ability to moderate that. For most people it is burn or flare. But you can kind of burn up to a flare, does that make sense? Going below is really hard.

Seonid

Can you push a flare?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Salt Lake City Comic-Con 2014 (Sept. 4, 2014)

 

22 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

Second, I have heard contradicting things on this, does the weight of the allomancer effect the strength of the push at all?

Yes it does, from Coppermind: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Steel

Quote

There are two general rules for Steelpushing, which also apply to Ironpulling, its paired opposite. The first rule is that the strength of your push is roughly proportional to your physical weight. This means that larger Allomancers can generally Steelpush and Ironpull more powerfully than a smaller counterpart.

 

25 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

Third, in the books it mentions that larger objects have larger lines pointing to them, and are easier to detect from further away, does this mean you can push harder on these large objects. At a longer range?

You won't push harder on them, because your weight is more important. I also don't thing that range would change, because it should depend solely on your Allomantic strength (Vin vs Zane fight in WoA, Zane was pushing of the coin that was invisible to Vin via steelsight, because Zane had a hemalurgic spike giving him stronger A-steel, thus his range increased).

 

No idea about the amount of metal being burned to push heavier things. I don't think there is even answer to this, I can't find any. Generally your burn rate determinants how much metal you burn, you can burn normally, or flare it, gaining more power, but losing metal faster. As per WoB, you can burn in between etc. I think that heavier object requires you to push on them for a longer period of time (assuming normal burn rate), so you would lose more metal, but that's only because of time you spent pushing it. 

[DoomslugTD]

Thank you! That clears up a lot of things, would you have any idea if pushing on multiple items once splits the force of you push between them all or just applies the force equally to all (if the second one is the case, does that mean you could get more net force out of pushing multiple objects at a time) 

[Trusk'our]

6 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

Thank you! That clears up a lot of things, would you have any idea if pushing on multiple items once splits the force of you push between them all or just applies the force equally to all (if the second one is the case, does that mean you could get more net force out of pushing multiple objects at a time) 

I think that it depends on what angle you push on them; if you have two pieces of metal on opposite sides of you, you can use them to leverage each other, use their weight to help push off the other one. However, your own weight and Allomantic power will still matter; you can't knock down two skyscrapers by pushing on both while in between them both.

I don't know if you can push with the same strength against multiple pieces of metal at once, but I don't think that you can get energy for free- the Cosmere follows the laws of conservation- so if you push on a dozen coins at once, you're total pushing power is likely going to be divvied up a bit (though the force of your weight won't, I believe).

[alder24]

19 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

Thank you! That clears up a lot of things, would you have any idea if pushing on multiple items once splits the force of you push between them all or just applies the force equally to all (if the second one is the case, does that mean you could get more net force out of pushing multiple objects at a time) 

I don't think there is any division in power, when pushing on multiple objects at once. In Era 1 there were a lot of times when Mistborn or Coinshot were pushing on whole pouches of coins or multiple coins at once, sometimes from greater range, and it was never said that they are weaker, or traveling closer, slower, or less dangerous in any way. Not to mention Vin/Elend using horseshoes or metal tract to Luthadel. Therefore I think it's very much certain that when pushing multiple objects at once, every object is pushed with force, that depends only on the object's mass, Coinshot's mass and distance between them, the number of objects that are being pushed at once doesn't matter.

Which makes sense, because Kelsier was pushing on dozens of different objects at once during his fight with Inquisitor, if that would make his individual push weaker, he wouldn't be able to do what he did.

[DoomslugTD]

So effectivly by pushing on multiple items you can get more bang for your buck (more force per steel used) then pushing on individual objects, though im guessing this is balanced by it taking more skill to push on multiple objects at once 

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

So effectivly by pushing on multiple items you can get more bang for your buck (more force per steel used) then pushing on individual objects, though im guessing this is balanced by it taking more skill to push on multiple objects at once 

Well, here we are, back to what we don't know. Maybe, or maybe each metal you're pushing on makes you burn more steel? No idea.

[Quantus]

17 hours ago, DoomslugTD said:

So effectivly by pushing on multiple items you can get more bang for your buck (more force per steel used) then pushing on individual objects, though im guessing this is balanced by it taking more skill to push on multiple objects at once 

Looking at the most basic example of Floating over an Anchor, it's known that you can get more force (or rather reach equilibrium at a higher altitude) with a more Massive anchor, so pushing on multiple objects (all the coins in the purse, etc) will have that much increase due to more Mass rather than any gains from separate Pushes.  Separate pushes would qualitatively be a different things since it would allow two different vectors of Force (different direction or different target point, etc).  But we have so little information on the relative Burn Rates that we cant say how the actual Investiture Balance will fall out.  Maybe we'll know once it gets more mechanized and thus standardized, rather than being so varied by the individual.

Edited April 19 by Quantus

[StanLemon]

Brandon has made a comment that Steel/Iron burn quickly but Allomancers generally  don't notice because they aren't Pushing all the time. This implies to me that burning it for the blue lines is slow but burns faster when actually Pushing/Pulling. This would be in line with his comment about burn rate being tied to how much work the Investiture is doing. 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

The longest lasting of the Allomantic metals is actually copper, which is used by Smokers to hide Allomancy. Tin is second, however. Steel and Iron are actually rather quick, but since they're generally used in bursts, it's hard to notice. Both brass and zinc are medium, as is bronze. Pewter burns the fastest of the basic eight, though atium and gold both burn faster than it does.

In my mind, it's related to how much 'work' the metal has to do. That's why pewter, steel, and iron burn so quickly. A lot of weight and power is getting thrown around, while copper only has to do something simple. However, I never really set any of these things hard-fast.

And, only atium is really all that rare. Because of the value of the metals, the noble houses expended a lot of resources finding and exploiting mines to produce the metals. This resulted in a slightly higher value for most of them as opposed to our world, but not really noticeably so, because Allomancers really don't need that much metal. Even fast burning metals, like pewter, are generally only swallowed in very small amounts. (i.e. A small bit goes a long way.)

TWG Posts (July 31, 2006)

As to your second question. Weight matters, but it isn't the determining factor for strength of Pushes/Pulls exactly. Think of the blue line as a force acting equally on both the Allomancer and the metal. When a Coinshot Pushes, the force is Pushing against the Allomancer and metal identically. Per Newton's 3rd law, any action has an equal and opposite reaction. This leads to a greater amount of net force being applied to the lighter object which then moves away from the heavier object.

As far as your third question goes, I personally think that it doesn't require burning any more Steel or Iron. The greater mass of the metal seems to naturally translate to thicker blue lines that can be seen at greater distances. In effect a Coinshot would be Pushing harder off of it, but that's more of a consequence of the greater net force acting on the Coinshot 

[Treamayne]

18 hours ago, DoomslugTD said:

I was wondering something, I have always found the mecahnics of steel pushing somewhat vauge when I read, so I wanted to ask a couple questions. First, when you are burning steel you can see the blue lines, when you push on these lines does it take more steel? if not, can you just push on a ton of different objects to create a higher total net force out of a small amount of steel? Second, I have heard contradicting things on this, does the weight of the allomancer effect the strength of the push at all? if so does it just make the push stronger for the same amount of steel, or does it allow you to use more steel to push harder? Third, in the books it mentions that larger objects have larger lines pointing to them, and are easier to detect from further away, does this mean you can push harder on these large objects. At a longer range? and if so does this require a greater amount of steel, or does it just become more effeciant? Thank you!

17 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't know tbf. But I know that burning and flaring metals aren't the only options, you can burn a bit more than normal but not flare, and burn less than normal. So I suspect that burning steel/iron a little reveals lines, but burning it normally pushes/pulls on them. I can be very wrong here, and you just burn them with normal strength to both see the lines and push/pull on metals.

Yes it does, from Coppermind: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Steel

Quote

The first rule is that the strength of your push is roughly proportional to your physical weight.

 

I'm pretty sure this is a case where the Coppermind is wrong. You'll notice that "analysis" doesn't have any attribution. It is also directly contradicted by the story:

Spoiler

HoA Ch 3:

Quote

Elend flipped a coin into the air. A single, sparkling bit of copper spun through the flakes of ash. The Inquisitor saw this, and smiled again, obviously anticipating Elend’s Push. It assumed that its weight would transfer through the coin, then hit Elend’s weight, since Elend would be Pushing as well. Two Allomancers of near-similar weight, shoving against each other. They would both be thrown back—the Inquisitor to attack Vin, Elend into a pile of koloss.

Except, the Inquisitor didn’t anticipate Elend’s Allomantic strength. How could it? Elend did stumble, but the Inquisitor was thrown away with a sudden, violent Push.

He’s so powerful! Vin thought, watching the surprised Inquisitor fall.

 

14 hours ago, StanLemon said:

As to your second question. Weight matters, but it isn't the determining factor for strength of Pushes/Pulls exactly. Think of the blue line as a force acting equally on both the Allomancer and the metal. When a Coinshot Pushes, the force is Pushing against the Allomancer and metal identically. Per Newton's 3rd law, any action has an equal and opposite reaction. This leads to a greater amount of net force being applied to the lighter object which then moves away from the heavier object.

^This^
Allomantic Strength is a combination of lineage (closeness to "Lerasium" level power), multiplicative factors (Allomancy enhanced with matching Hemalurgy like Vin's Bronze - or - multiple Hemalurgy sources such as all Inquisitors having at least doubles A-Steel from the paired eye spikes [and possibly more if they were a Misting/Mistborn with A-Steel before being spiked]) and distance (steel/iron lines are thicker for larger sources and because the rule of force/distance you can push or pull on them from farther away but at the "zenith" the force is balanced and you neither move nor fall - as seen in TFE when Vin is learning to push at Luthadel's wall).

So, when you push your "Allomantic strength" is the amount of force generated and the laws of physics (weight) determine what moves, how much and how quickly.