Soulcasting Paradox

[Aeshdan he/him]

In the scene in WoK where Jasnah soulcasts the boulder into smoke, it is stated that Soulcasting is mass-conservative (100 kg of stone makes 100 kg of smoke).

My problem comes from applying that to fire Soulcasting. By my calculations, Soulcasting a 100kg thief into fire would produce 9 exajoules of fire energy. According to Wikipedia, this is approximately 35 times as powerful as the most powerful nuclear explosion ever created by man.

What in the world is going on here?

[nikomis he/him]

Maybe he becomes the fire equal to 100kg of burning wood or coal?

[Aeshdan he/him]

Maybe he becomes the fire equal to 100kg of burning wood or coal?

That makes a little more sense, but there are still two problems:

1. That's still a storming lot of fire, much more than i think we see.

2. That would leave behind a big pile of ash, and I think Shallan would have noticed that.

[nikomis he/him]

Well, I said the fire from a bunch of burning logs or coal, not specifically WITH the logs/coal. So, that'd get rid of the ash, at least. But, yes, lots of fire.

Who said that's a bad thing?

[SOM1else he/him]

It's been a while since I read WoK so I only vaguely remember the scene in question but are we sure that the thief is entirely soulcasted into fire and not just parts of him? If that didn't make sense what I mean is what if only his bones had been soulcasted into fire. and the rest of him was just burnt up.

[ulyssessword he/him]

My problem comes from applying that to fire Soulcasting. By my calculations, Soulcasting a 100kg thief into fire would produce 9 exajoules of fire energy. According to Wikipedia, this is approximately 35 times as powerful as the most powerful nuclear explosion ever created by man.

I got a slightly different amount of energy from my calculations, and by "slightly", I mean that I got about 1/10 000 000 000 as much energy.

My estimation is that a 80 kg body (about average for a man) would give off about 1.2711 gigajoules of energy if it were transformed into an oxygen/hydrogen mixture in ideal quantities and with complete combustion.

Formulae (warning, I may be a bit rusty):[Chemistry]

Combustion of Hydrogen and Oxygen:

2 H₂ + O₂ → 2 H₂O + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)

The total atomic mass of everything on the left side (also the right...) is ~36 g/mol, and the energy created is a total of 572 kJ (kilojoules) per mole of the constituent parts. By dividing 36 g/mol by 572 kj/mol, you get the specific energy of this reaction, 15.89 kj/g (kilojoules per gram). Multiply this by 80 000 to get 80 kg, and you get 1 271 111 kilojoules, or 1.27 gigajoules.

[/Chemistry]

This is approximately equivalent to the energy put out in burning 25 litres of gasoline in air. This may seem very high, but note that hydrogen/oxygen has a very high specific energy; the same thing done with methane (natural gas) instead would yield about 30% less energy, and nearly 90% less if done with octane (gasoline).

It would be significantly less than the energy contained in 100kg of wood/coal because the oxygen is included in the transformation, and accounts for about 80% of the mass when burning gasoline, or slightly more when burning hydrogen.

Paradox fixed?

EDIT: I see where you got 9 exajoules from. The mass is not being converted into energy using E = mc², it is a chemical change.

Edited February 4, 2012 by ulyssessword

[Satsuoni he/him]

I have reread the soulcasting scenes, and I don't think that soulcasting is mass conservative. It just states that a big boulder became a lot of smoke, not that their masses were equal. In fact, the mass-conservation does not make sense: the statues resulting from transformation are at least 7~10 times as dense (I think), so they should become either small or very hollow/porous. I don't think that is the case. If it is, please correct me (with quotes).

Shallan had read of this, but she was still in awe. Jasnah had transformed the boulder into smoke, and since smoke was far less dense than stone, the change had pushed the smoke away in an explosive outburst.

[Aeshdan he/him]

I got a slightly different amount of energy from my calculations, and by "slightly", I mean that I got about 1/10 000 000 000 as much energy.

My estimation is that a 80 kg body (about average for a man) would give off about 1.2711 gigajoules of energy if it were transformed into an oxygen/hydrogen mixture in ideal quantities and with complete combustion.

Formulae (warning, I may be a bit rusty):[Chemistry]

Combustion of Hydrogen and Oxygen:

2 H₂ + O₂ → 2 H₂O + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)

The total atomic mass of everything on the left side (also the right...) is ~36 g/mol, and the energy created is a total of 572 kJ (kilojoules) per mole of the constituent parts. By dividing 36 g/mol by 572 kj/mol, you get the specific energy of this reaction, 15.89 kj/g (kilojoules per gram). Multiply this by 80 000 to get 80 kg, and you get 1 271 111 kilojoules, or 1.27 gigajoules.

[/Chemistry]

This is approximately equivalent to the energy put out in burning 25 litres of gasoline in air. This may seem very high, but note that hydrogen/oxygen has a very high specific energy; the same thing done with methane (natural gas) instead would yield about 30% less energy, and nearly 90% less if done with octane (gasoline).

It would be significantly less than the energy contained in 100kg of wood/coal because the oxygen is included in the transformation, and accounts for about 80% of the mass when burning gasoline, or slightly more when burning hydrogen.

Paradox fixed?

EDIT: I see where you got 9 exajoules from. The mass is not being converted into energy using E = mc², it is a chemical change.

If i understand correctly, you are suggesting that Jasnah Soulcasted the thief into flammable gas, not pure thermal energy?

[Windrunner he/him]

I think uylssessword is right on this. As I understand it the Soulcasters are just altering matter and atoms, but I don't think they would be able to convert it to pure energy. That would be pretty scary.

[Aeshdan he/him]

That does answer my question. Thanks!

[Gela]

Imagine if they could convert it into pure energy. Person of Mass Destruction, much?

[Aradel he/him]

I kind of guessed that the guy was changed into burning particles, but going from solid to gas would make him mimic the stone-to-smoke and diffuse outwards. If I remember correctly he appeared as flame for a moment, then vanished.

Does soulcasting a living person change the way soulcasting conserves mass?l

Was the man soulcast into something we haven't thought of yet?

[dj26792 he/him]

If he was transformed to a burning particle he could have easily burnt before he had a chance to diffuse, I dont think it causes any difficulties that diffusion wasnt noticed in that particular case.

[Bremen]

If he was transformed to a burning particle he could have easily burnt before he had a chance to diffuse, I dont think it causes any difficulties that diffusion wasnt noticed in that particular case.

The byproducts of combustion would still need to diffuse.

[dj26792 he/him]

the bi-products like a small little bit of steam that would have been diffused by the force of the fire as it burnt almost invisibly? We're talking about an 02 H2 mix, we're going to get water, in the form of steam and it is very easy to imagine it diffusing invisibly after combustion.

[Aradel he/him]

But there's still the problem of density and mass, the Man had a higher mass and density than a normal cloud of burning gas his size and shape, Shallan should at least have noticed a sudden gust of wind as the cloud dispersed outward.

I'm begining to think that it was an error, or there's something different in how Jasnah soulcasted.

[Aiken Frost he/him]

Or maybe... You know. It just doesn't matter?

[Bremen]

the bi-products like a small little bit of steam that would have been diffused by the force of the fire as it burnt almost invisibly? We're talking about an 02 H2 mix, we're going to get water, in the form of steam and it is very easy to imagine it diffusing invisibly after combustion.

For the amount of matter we're talking about Shallan should have felt a shock wave (I know others have done calculations, but offhand, converting a full human into a perfect mixture of Oxygen/Hydrogen should cause a quite large explosion)

I think either Brandon didn't consider exactly what soulcasting someone into "fire" would cause, or there is something going on we're not aware of.

[Commander Spoonface he/him]

The question we really ought to be asking is this:

What, in a soulcasting sense, is fire?

Fire as we generally perceive it (the flickering, glowing blue/orange/red/green stuff) is just superheated air and unburned particulates. For example, a gas fire glows blue because basically all of the gas is burned, and the air itself (Pretty sure it's nitrogen or oxygen, don't know which) fluoresces blue when heated. Same idea as rock, wen heated it glows red, or in the filament of a lightbulb. The reason that wood or coal fire is red or orange is that unburned particles of wood/carbon/what-have-you glow red or orange or whatever color is appropriate (green for copper, etc.).

Now, I don't have a copy of WoK on hand, but I'm pretty sure that the fellow turned into red and orange flames, not blue. I would have posited that soulcasting fire just turns the object into superheated air (in keeping with smoke and zephyr), except for the color being wrong. So, I propose one of these two ideas:

1) Soulcasting for fire transforms the object into a red-burning fuel-air mixture with a low ignition temperature but high burn temperature.

2) Brandon Sanderson didn't do a great deal of research on the chemical nature of fire and treated it as a Classical Elementalist would.

Fire never really gets an accurate, scientific, approach in fantasy, so I have learned to deal with it.

[Windrunner he/him]

1) Soulcasting for fire transforms the object into a red-burning fuel-air mixture with a low ignition temperature but high burn temperature.

2) Brandon Sanderson didn't do a great deal of research on the chemical nature of fire and treated it as a Classical Elementalist would.

Fire never really gets an accurate, scientific, approach in fantasy, so I have learned to deal with it.

I can't speak for you're first idea, not really being into any chemistry/physics stuff but I do have input for the second one. In Brandon's previous magic systems they have all been as close to actual laws of physics as magic can be. I'm of the opinion we just don't understand how it works yet.

[nikomis he/him]

I can't speak for you're first idea, not really being into any chemistry/physics stuff but I do have input for the second one. In Brandon's previous magic systems they have all been as close to actual laws of physics as magic can be. I'm of the opinion we just don't understand how it works yet.

...Except that Brandon himself has been quoted that he breaks the laws of thermodynamics in his writing.

[Zas678 he/him]

Only occasionally.. When he can't help it.

My guess is that he isn't converting mass into energy, or making a perfect O2 H2 mix.

Do you guys know what Entropy is? Well a basic description is that in the Statistical sense, things tend to go toward a more disordered state, as there are more possibilities in disordered states than a clean state. It's like a dirty room. There's about a bajillion different possibilities that will define your room as "dirty", so it is simply more likely that it will be dirty than clean.

Under this definition of Entropy, it is theoretically possible that for a mixed gas of N2 and O2 in a container, all of the N2 will be on one side, and all of the O2 is on the other side. It's possible, but it's only one possibility out of a bajillion, so it's not ever going to really happen.

All sorts of things are possible but improbable. It is possible that the glass plate next to you suddenly has all of the molecules vibrate exactly right and it randomly changes form. Or it suddenly turns into gas. Or a liquid.

What I believe Soulcasting is, (at least Shallan's) is to "convince" the spren of an object to vibrate just a little bit differently. So it isn't so much that the Flaming Man is actually turned into Fire. It's that Jasnah has convinced the spren to vibrate just a little faster (okay, a LOT faster) so that he burns. So yes, there should be ash (or at least Smoke).

And the reason why there are Ten Essences, is because there are certain vibrational "hot spots". Do you remember Kabsal's demonstration with the cities? How the sand will end up looking JUST like a city if you have the right parameters? This is like the Ten Essences. They are vibrational "Hot Spots" that are easier to find and stay at for the spren.

"Now what about the change in elements? How do you account for the lost protons and electrons?" I don't really know. Perhaps they are changed into the Power of Creation, where they are kept there, until there is a mass increase transformation, and then the Power of Creation is turned into mass. Or maybe it's the Stormlight. Maybe it turns into extra Stormlight and diffusses, or the energy in Stormlight is turned into mass.

I think that Brandon doesn't really Break the Laws of Thermodynamics in his books, as they're just a little bit... different. See the Iron mass/momentum thread, or the Redshift thread, where he tweaks the laws just a titch so that we can have sweet powers- so he can tell dynamic stories.

[tipbruley]

Imagine if they could convert it into pure energy. Person of Mass Destruction, much?

Bad pun alert!

Would that make the theif an "Adam" Bomb

[Commander Spoonface he/him]

And the reason why there are Ten Essences, is because there are certain vibrational "hot spots". Do you remember Kabsal's demonstration with the cities? How the sand will end up looking JUST like a city if you have the right parameters? This is like the Ten Essences. They are vibrational "Hot Spots" that are easier to find and stay at for the spren.

"Now what about the change in elements? How do you account for the lost protons and electrons?" I don't really know. Perhaps they are changed into the Power of Creation, where they are kept there, until there is a mass increase transformation, and then the Power of Creation is turned into mass. Or maybe it's the Stormlight. Maybe it turns into extra Stormlight and diffusses, or the energy in Stormlight is turned into mass.

I really like this idea- that soulcasting causes the spren to interact with the substance in such a way that it is changed.

[Gela]

Bad pun alert!

Would that make the theif an "Adam" Bomb

Hah! That was actually pretty funny.