Old to the books, new to the shard.

[DrPhysics]

I'm new to the online community, but old to the fandom. I first heard about Brandon when a college roommate loaned me their copy of Elantris, selling it to me based on our shared love of Wheel of Time and telling me it was by this cool new author who had another book "mist something" coming out later that year.

I'm a physics professor by profession and love applying real-world physics to the Comsere any chance that I get.

[Duxredux]

6 minutes ago, DrPhysics said:

I'm new to the online community, but old to the fandom. I first heard about Brandon when a college roommate loaned me their copy of Elantris, selling it to me based on our shared love of Wheel of Time and telling me it was by this cool new author who had another book "mist something" coming out later that year.

I'm a physics professor by profession and love applying real-world physics to the Comsere any chance that I get.

Welcome to the Shard! I also started with Elantris, read many of the books as they were released and only joined the Shard a couple of years ago. Just as a heads up, you'll find that there a fair number of people on the Shard who not infrequently ask really detailed physics related questions, so... let us know when we should do the homework ourselves or when you're fine explaining what's going on. Our physics questions have ranged everywhere across all the various books, and I for one will have no problem whatsoever if you explain what we're getting wrong. What books have you read so far?

I'll put this in a spoiler box and have it cover all released books, but off the top of my head we've had the following physics questions while I've been here:

Spoiler

• Approximate durability of Shardplate
• 3D modeling of Lumar's moons back before we knew exactly how they lined up over the planet with some pretty cool designs
• Theories on how Scadrian FTL will work and the current idea that it will be based on an Alcubierre drive using speed bubbles
• Theoretical perpetual motion machines using paired and unpaired conjoined fabrials (Stormlight Archive) I don't remember how this thread ended and what was decided.
• If there was a water Aether spore on Lumar and what that would do to the hydrological cycle
• All sorts of shenanigans with Feruchemical weight storage since that one seems to break physics the most often
• Trying to figure out what in the world is going on with Canticle's sun and core.

 At any rate, if you've come to geek out about physics applied to the Cosmere, you've come to the right place. As a side note, one of my favorite books as a teenager was The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios.

[DrPhysics]

I've read all of the books.  Here's my answers to some of those. Others, sadly, we just don't have enough information/examples to come up with a model.

 

Spoiler

• Approximate durability of Shardplate
  • Not enough information to come up with a consistent model.
• 3D modeling of Lumar's moons back before we knew exactly how they lined up over the planet with some pretty cool designs
  • I made an infographic about that once on reddit, and a brief animation. I'll attach them. And yes, I know that the animation runs backward. Oops.
• Theories on how Scadrian FTL will work and the current idea that it will be based on an Alcubierre drive using speed bubbles
  • Speed bubbles break physics a lot, which makes a lot of the guesswork hard. There isn't quite enough info in the books, but I do plan on doing a deep dive one day into WOB and see if I can piece anything together.
  • There's the really boring answer: A ship in a speed bubble could go much faster than the speed of light as long as it doesn't go faster than the speed of light in the bubble. Since the bubble would travel with the ship, big speed bubble+fast ship = much faster than the speed of light.
• Theoretical perpetual motion machines using paired and unpaired conjoined fabrials (Stormlight Archive) I don't remember how this thread ended and what was decided.
  • I'll have to look into the thread. If you find it, can you send it my way?
• If there was a water Aether spore on Lumar and what that would do to the hydrological cycle
  • Not really enough info to tell.
• All sorts of shenanigans with Feruchemical weight storage since that one seems to break physics the most often
  • They actually do a pretty good job not breaking physics on these, it's just that the physics isn't very intuitive. I will say that while momentum is conserved, energy very much is not, but we have infinite energy via investiture, so that works.
• Trying to figure out what in the world is going on with Canticle's sun and core.
  • Magic. It's a big investiture sink that gobles it up and further bends spacetime. The density of the core is actually way below white dwarf, so it's plausible to have something that small have that much gravity. What really bugs me is the atmospheric physics. It thins out way too fast, and "because investiture" isn't the most satisfying explanation. It would make way more sense to me to have a ceiling above which there is no atmosphere rather than have one where the pressure drops too fast, but I guess that's because I'm a plamsa physicist used to working with fluids and their consultant was an astronomer used to working with planets. So the best answer is "it does it because of magic".

 

Also, I'm a big fan of the physics of superheroes. Too many books/blog posts/etc. just say "it can't work because Superman shouldn't be able to fly". I'm a much bigger fan of descriptive (vs proscriptive) physics models in stories. This is what we see, how can you make it work in the context of the world.

Edited October 23, 2023 by DrPhysics

[Robin Sedai]

It's nice to meet you! Welcome to the Shard

[Duxredux]

Probably will need to move any more technical questions outside of the Introduce Yourself board, but "Hey guys, you gotta see this!"

@Trusk'our @Frustration @therunner @Underwater_Worldhopper @Quantus @Nameless* @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, I think all of you have been some of the more major participants in the various physics related questions regarding the Cosmere and may have asked some of these questions that I cited. Apparently DrPhysics is appropriately named.

[Quantus]

Ooh, this will be fun.  Welcome!

 

15 hours ago, DrPhysics said:

I've read all of the books.  Here's my answers to some of those. Others, sadly, we just don't have enough information/examples to come up with a model.

 

  Hide contents

• Approximate durability of Shardplate
  • Not enough information to come up with a consistent model.
    • Especially since we've mostly only seen dead plate at work.  Living plate will likely scale in power/Stormlight efficiency along with the Ideals, just like everything else with Radiants.
• Theories on how Scadrian FTL will work and the current idea that it will be based on an Alcubierre drive using speed bubbles
  • Speed bubbles break physics a lot, which makes a lot of the guesswork hard. There isn't quite enough info in the books, but I do plan on doing a deep dive one day into WOB and see if I can piece anything together.
    • Oh my yes, though I do appreciate that they mostly only break it as an acknowledgement that it would get messy with Doppler shift, but it sure makes it hard to anticipate where in the equation the magic will get plugged in.  
  • There's the really boring answer: A ship in a speed bubble could go much faster than the speed of light as long as it doesn't go faster than the speed of light in the bubble. Since the bubble would travel with the ship, big speed bubble+fast ship = much faster than the speed of light.
    • So far we know "It involves where the lost energy from thermodynamic issues goes in certain Allomantic interactions" and we know that happens mostly with Speed bubbles so that's been the main focus, and one WOB does say the Alcurbierre drive is theorizing in the right direction.  Also "There's an issue with conservation of momentum with speed bubbles."  We also know navigation will NOT be Dune-style with atium or similar precognitive guidance.   
    • WOB FTL Collection
      
• Theoretical perpetual motion machines using paired and unpaired conjoined fabrials (Stormlight Archive) I don't remember how this thread ended and what was decided.
  • I'll have to look into the thread. If you find it, can you send it my way?
    • Cant find a link but from what I recall (or maybe this was just my stance at the end?) Realmics still do business with Physics and mostly mirror it, so true Perpetual Motion should not work because even Investiture mechanisms have losses, like Feruchemy for example cant really do it alone since there's a metalmind transition loss of investiture.  But if it can be plugged into the Spiritual Realm, it should be possible to make devices with that infinite source of Fuel.  That makes it closer to Solar Power in that it's arguably infinite from a practical level but not a literal one.  Fabrials will have an easier time since the Light from Infused Gems is Spiritual Realm Leakage and not converted Investiture (that's why Perfect Gems can glow forever). 
• All sorts of shenanigans with Feruchemical weight storage since that one seems to break physics the most often
  • They actually do a pretty good job not breaking physics on these, it's just that the physics isn't very intuitive. I will say that while momentum is conserved, energy very much is not, but we have infinite energy via investiture, so that works.
    • The Mind-breaking parts tend to come when people try to reconcile the increased Weight not crushing them while still not increasing their physical durability in other ways.  It's akin to the old speedster question of how he can run at the speed of sound without being "Bug Bullet-proof".  The fundamental "Internal Vs External" theme of the Metallic arts makes it easier for me, I just think of it as a skin-level Field effect like they used to do for Superman's durability.

 

 

[justice magician]

Welcome to the Shard! It's good to have lots of smart people in the fandom to work out all the cool stuff because I am not! hehe

Who's your favorite character?

[DrPhysics]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

I do appreciate that they mostly only break it as an acknowledgement that it would get messy with Doppler shift

They break it much more than that. At faster times, gravity should be weaker. There's a thermodynamic exchange at the border that keeps speed bubbles from superheated the room and slow bubbles from freezing it. 

There's an unknown process besides momentum exchange that causes objects to deflect at random directions instead of just reflecting like you'd expect.

 

There's whatever was happening with Wayne's vision at the end of the lost metal that doesn't make any sense based on other bubble behaviors.

And, There's the fact that you can't explain them using general relativity, because any spacetime bending that sharp would rip a hole in the universe that would destroy everything on the border, and create a series of microblackhole that would then evaporate and irradiate everything inside and outside the bubble. So, we're limited to "fancy magic speeds up/slows down time"

 

 

2 hours ago, Justice_Magician said:

Welcome to the Shard! It's good to have lots of smart people in the fandom to work out all the cool stuff because I am not! hehe

Who's your favorite character?

Wax is my favorite character. Best representation of inattentive type adhd that I've ever seen. 

[Quantus]

43 minutes ago, DrPhysics said:

They break it much more than that. At faster times, gravity should be weaker. There's a thermodynamic exchange at the border that keeps speed bubbles from superheated the room and slow bubbles from freezing it. 

There's an unknown process besides momentum exchange that causes objects to deflect at random directions instead of just reflecting like you'd expect.

 

There's whatever was happening with Wayne's vision at the end of the lost metal that doesn't make any sense based on other bubble behaviors.

And, There's the fact that you can't explain them using general relativity, because any spacetime bending that sharp would rip a hole in the universe that would destroy everything on the border, and create a series of microblackhole that would then evaporate and irradiate everything inside and outside the bubble. So, we're limited to "fancy magic speeds up/slows down time"

 

For what it's worth, WOB says the eventual Scadrian FTL lives somewhere in those unexplained thermodynamic effects at the boundaries, which has me very excited.  In most cases wherever the math would straight-up break reality, the answer boils down to the idea that it really just breaks the boundary to the Spiritual Realm, and Investiture makes up the difference.  Or else there's some other side of the equation dealing with the Investiture Relativity side of the E=MC^2=I(+?) and it might make sense later once he reveals the 3rd and 4th (unknown) Laws of Investiture.  

[Scars of Hathsin]

Welcome to the Shard