stormlight archive Speed of light for a windrunner

[The Pasta King]

On earth it would take 5,588,472 basic lashings of a windrunner to go the speed of light.

On Roshar it would take 3,911,930 basic lashings of a windrunner to go the speed of light.

Can anyone do some investigating on how much stormlight that would take up?

[Quantus]

I dont think that's quite how the math works.  Assuming they have infinite Stormlight and are in space, they get sustained Acceleration from a constant gravitational force.  With no upper limit holding them back they'd eventually get to the Speed of Light with a single Lashing, and more will just get you there faster.  But then as you start approaching the Speed of Light, even the concept of Time starts to change and the calculations will get weird, assuming Relativity is still be in play by normal RL rules and not some Cosmere Objective Timeframe.   But Speed Bubbles get so weird with the rules that this likely would too.  

Edited June 12, 2023 by Quantus

[alder24]

9 hours ago, The Pasta King said:

On earth it would take 5,588,472 basic lashings of a windrunner to go the speed of light.

On Roshar it would take 3,911,930 basic lashings of a windrunner to go the speed of light.

Can anyone do some investigating on how much stormlight that would take up?

That's not how it works. SA spoilers:

Spoiler

Basic Lashing doesn't change velocity but the gravitational acceleration, so no matter the amount of Lashings you would still need some time to reach huge speeds. Moreover the speed of light can't be reached by ANYTHING that has a mass - Windrunner simply can't travel with the speed of light. In space you just need 1g (9.81 m/s^2) to reach speeds close to the speed of light within a year. But you will only get closer and closer to the speed of light, but you can't reach it no matter what. That's because of relativity and the time dilation. The faster you go the slower time passes for you.

To add more, your numbers are even more wrong, Rosharan gravitational acceleration is around 30% (6.86 m/s^2) weaker than Earth's, so you would need more than a year with Rosharan g. I don't know how you got those numbers and what they mean. It's about acceleration, not speed.

You can stack multiple Lashings, like with 10 Earth's g you can reach speeds close to the speed of light in around a month, with 100 g you need just a few days. The more you stack the faster it would be. But again, time dilation messes things up, making it not as simple as dividing c by g.

And for we have no idea how much Stormlight it would take. We don't have numbers on how much Stormlight is needed for Lashings and how long they last. This also depends on which Ideal the Windrunner is. Knights on higher ideals are more efficient with their light, they can do more with less.

 

[JohnnyKaizen]

On 6/12/2023 at 9:59 AM, alder24 said:

And for we have no idea how much Stormlight it would take. We don't have numbers on how much Stormlight is needed for Lashings and how long they last. This also depends on which Ideal the Windrunner is. Knights on higher ideals are more efficient with their light, they can do more with less.

Sigzil probably does, but we don't. 

[Firesong]

 

On 6/12/2023 at 8:59 AM, alder24 said:

That's not how it works. SA spoilers:

  Hide contents

Basic Lashing doesn't change velocity but the gravitational acceleration, so no matter the amount of Lashings you would still need some time to reach huge speeds. Moreover the speed of light can't be reached by ANYTHING that has a mass - Windrunner simply can't travel with the speed of light. In space you just need 1g (9.81 m/s^2) to reach speeds close to the speed of light within a year. But you will only get closer and closer to the speed of light, but you can't reach it no matter what. That's because of relativity and the time dilation. The faster you go the slower time passes for you.

To add more, your numbers are even more wrong, Rosharan gravitational acceleration is around 30% (6.86 m/s^2) weaker than Earth's, so you would need more than a year with Rosharan g. I don't know how you got those numbers and what they mean. It's about acceleration, not speed.

You can stack multiple Lashings, like with 10 Earth's g you can reach speeds close to the speed of light in around a month, with 100 g you need just a few days. The more you stack the faster it would be. But again, time dilation messes things up, making it not as simple as dividing c by g.

And for we have no idea how much Stormlight it would take. We don't have numbers on how much Stormlight is needed for Lashings and how long they last. This also depends on which Ideal the Windrunner is. Knights on higher ideals are more efficient with their light, they can do more with less.

 

Yeah, it doesn't work like that and I am confused by their math. It is them pulling themselves with gravitational acceleration in a direction that isn't the planet (If Khriss is right, this does it by Spiritual Realm shenanigans confusing your body on where it should be pulled).

We see limitations to their velocity due to them facing drag and terminal velocity and such, they can reduce it a bit with their magic, but they still are limited. This isn't due to it just being a velocity increase, it is just due to acceleration in the atmosphere having limits. 

Also, one addition to OP, it is not vector addition to the force of the planet. So 1 full basic lashing upward pulls you upward at 1g<subscript>g</subscript>. Partial basic lashings do not completely cancel it out, and do work by vector addition, in a sense, that is why a half-lashing makes you weightless and a quarter-lashing halves your weight. A half-lashing cancels out half of gravity, for instance, it makes you rise at the same rate you are being pushed down. 

strength of gravity is (1 - (2*l)) where l is how many lashings there are. This makes it so 0.5 is weightlessness and 0.25 is half, like what the book says. This actually makes it so that the accelerations (expressed in g), equal to 1 - 2l. So 1 is 1g, 2 is 3g, 3 is 5g, 4 is 7g, and so forth. (The results are negative, but that is due to it being in the opposite direction of the gravity of the planet)

Edited August 1, 2023 by Firesong