B.E.U Chart for the Invested Arts?

[Colors]

Anyone else wish Brandon would release an infographic about BEUs indicating how many BEUs roughly are in common invested items (i.e. how many BEUs of stormlight certain gemstones would likely hold) or how many BEUs of investiture burning a standard vial of specific metals? What about if you store half your weight for X amount of time? How many BEUs is that? How many BEUs in a single spore? How many BEUs in an honor spren, or a dead blade? Would be fascinating if Khriss included something like that in an Ars Arcanum.

It will probably never happen because that would significantly limit his flexibility in writing and would require a lot of math to make work, but I am wondering if we'll hear it a lot more in the future cosmere stories or it was kind of a "one-off" for Sunlit Man and will be in the background in future stories but won't be such a centerpiece of the story an dialogue. 

What do you think?

Edited February 26 by Colors

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Colors said:

Anyone else wish Brandon would release an infographic about BEUs indicating how many BEUs roughly are in common invested items (i.e. how many BEUs of stormlight certain gemstones would likely hold) or how many BEUs of investiture burning a standard vial of specific metals? What about if you store half your weight for X amount of time? How many BEUs is that? How many BEUs in a single spore? How many BEUs in an honor spren, or a dead blade? Would be fascinating if Khriss included something like that in an Ars Arcanum.

It will probably never happen because that would significantly limit his flexibility in writing and would require a lot of math to make work, but I am wondering if we'll hear it a lot more in the future cosmere stories or it was kind of a "one-off" for Sunlit Man and will be in the background in future stories but won't be such a centerpiece of the story an dialogue. 

What do you think?

It will happen! Not now, we have to wait until Era 3 or even post Era 3 for all those things to come up, but we've seen the first of them appearing in TSM. That's just the beginning. Brandon and his team are working on that and eventually we will get those numbers.

Spoiler

Questioner

We've seen in the multiple worlds of the cosmere the different ways they measure Investiture. And with it slowly starting to converge more and more, and also the seemingly imminent tabletop game in the works...

Brandon Sanderson

"Seemingly imminent" meaning "we have decided we are going to do it, but have no idea what we're doing yet."

Questioner

Do you have an internal, universal system of measurement for Investiture? And will we get any of that anytime soon?

Brandon Sanderson

We are working on it right now. I actually called up some physicists I know (and this is about five years ago, now) and said, "All right, we're gonna need some units of measurement so we can take a Breath and determine how much is in it," and things like that. And it just about broke their brains, because they're like, "There's just so much here." But we've been working on it.

My goal will be to deliver this to you eventually. But we don't really need it until space age, which is post-Era-Three-Mistborn. But by then, I hope that we will have it. I hope we'll have it before then, but yes, it is something we are working on. It's not something I worldbuild, saying "how much Investiture's in a Breath versus a sphere." It's something we're gonna have to look at what I've done with all of them and come up with something.

Questioner

And it's not, like, intentionally secret?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not intentionally secret. It is something I've known for a while I would need. But that's why you hire very smart people and make it their problem.

FanX 2022 (Sept. 24, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

How much have you thought about the mathematical relationship between Investiture and energy/matter? Is there a cosmere E=mc^2?

Brandon Sanderson

I've thought about the concepts a lot. The numbers, I actually tried to get some mathematicians... There are some lovely folks, I'm like, can we come up with a standardization? And it kind of broke their brains, not because they aren't smart people, they're very smart people, but they're like, "Brandon, where do we even start? How much energy is being expended?" and this sort of thing. I would like to get a unit of measurement, how much Investiture equals how much energy, but at the same time, the work being done by the various magic systems, it's going to be too constrictive to put too much math on that, I feel like. I would like to. It is a much bigger project than you might imagine it being. How much energy is stored in a sphere? That's kind of where we started. A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. How much is it therefore losing, how much could it do, how much of that can be transferred to doing work with a Lashing... All of this stuff, I have thought about way too much, and we have no answers for you yet because it is a really big project. Maybe we will someday, or maybe we'll just say, this is too big a project to even be able to mathematically quantify. I'm sure if you have suggestions, you can post thoughts on the subreddits, and perhaps that will get to the various arcanists who are helping me with this.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Do you have-- Or have you determined an equivalency between how much Breath it takes to make a certain gem's worth of Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

I have recently assigned Peter to this task, and he is feeling overwhelmed by it. It was actually during the writing of Oathbringer where I finally said, "Yeah we need to standardize this, so start working on it." So it was like, "Oh great". Which means he has to read through all the books for references and start figuring it all out. And we're going to need like an equivalent of a jewel or something like this, right? *gestures to a sphere that a fan made* And we've been putting it off because it sounds like an awful lot of work. 

So the answer is no, we don't have it yet. It's something I've known for years we're going to need. And on this book, I just started saying, "All right.  I'm going to have them do all the stuff they need to do. And then you're going to tell me how many spheres they need to start with." Right? Like, I write the book, and then we retrofit how many spheres they needed to have how much Stormlight, so that we could be consistent with that.

But we haven't done across magic systems calculations, yet.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Approximately how much Breath would it take to invest a regular object enough to that a Shardblade couldn't cut it?

Brandon Sanderson

I would have to look at the notes. One of the things we're doing right now is, we're unifying the actual unit of investiture. So, I'm not going to answer that until I have that codified, but it is one of the projects we're working on right now. I'll have some answers for you more...we'll just get a unit of measurement that we can use, probably based on that.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 8, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Emerald101

I was wondering if there is a unit of Investiture, like maybe something Khriss uses.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but I haven't canonized it yet. Good question. I will eventually canonize it, because I think that people will want it, but I probably won't do so 'til [Mistborn] Era 3, because I want the scientific way of talking about the cosmere to mirror how developed the cultures are, but some of the scholars are beyond where everyone else is. It can be measured. There is a unit.

Emerald101

Like, maybe grams of solid Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

It will probably be an in-world unit of measurement. Right now, to talk about it online if you want, the unit is probably gonna be based around Breath, because a Breath is a distinct amount. Whereas in most of the settings, there's not a distinct amount. Like, how much Allomancy, things like that. How much can a gem hold. It really depends on how the gem is cut, and how long the gem has been out. So... the Breath is a really easy one, so it's become the unit. But there will probably be a fantasy term for it. I might just call it Breath. That's why I'm not canonized yet. But if you guys wanna talk about it in Breath terms, that's probably the easiest.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

When Kaladin and Shallan and the others are in Shadesmar, it talks about broams of Stormlight. How do they measure that? Because you could have partially depleted spheres.

Brandon Sanderson

A broam's worth of Stormlight is just a full sphere. Newly infused. Behind the scenes, there are actual units of measurement for Investiture that a broam would correlate with, but you would need to be measuring that using instruments that measure Investiture that they don't quite have on Roshar yet. They could make them, but they don't quite have them yet. They're close.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

I will stop now before I throw even more WoBs on this topic.

But yes, Brandon is keeping track of this, Brandon wants to standardize units, make sure everyone is using the correct amount of investiture and stuff like that. Even when Brandon is writing a fighting scene for Kaladin, there is Peter who makes sure that Kaladin has the correct number of spheres and Stormlight (there was WoB on that too) - those numbers are important for Brandon and they will be eventually known to us, in one way or another. 

[Colors]

9 hours ago, alder24 said:

It will happen! Not now, we have to wait until Era 3 or even post Era 3 for all those things to come up, but we've seen the first of them appearing in TSM. That's just the beginning. Brandon and his team are working on that and eventually we will get those numbers.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

We've seen in the multiple worlds of the cosmere the different ways they measure Investiture. And with it slowly starting to converge more and more, and also the seemingly imminent tabletop game in the works...

Brandon Sanderson

"Seemingly imminent" meaning "we have decided we are going to do it, but have no idea what we're doing yet."

Questioner

Do you have an internal, universal system of measurement for Investiture? And will we get any of that anytime soon?

Brandon Sanderson

We are working on it right now. I actually called up some physicists I know (and this is about five years ago, now) and said, "All right, we're gonna need some units of measurement so we can take a Breath and determine how much is in it," and things like that. And it just about broke their brains, because they're like, "There's just so much here." But we've been working on it.

My goal will be to deliver this to you eventually. But we don't really need it until space age, which is post-Era-Three-Mistborn. But by then, I hope that we will have it. I hope we'll have it before then, but yes, it is something we are working on. It's not something I worldbuild, saying "how much Investiture's in a Breath versus a sphere." It's something we're gonna have to look at what I've done with all of them and come up with something.

Questioner

And it's not, like, intentionally secret?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not intentionally secret. It is something I've known for a while I would need. But that's why you hire very smart people and make it their problem.

FanX 2022 (Sept. 24, 2022)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

How much have you thought about the mathematical relationship between Investiture and energy/matter? Is there a cosmere E=mc^2?

Brandon Sanderson

I've thought about the concepts a lot. The numbers, I actually tried to get some mathematicians... There are some lovely folks, I'm like, can we come up with a standardization? And it kind of broke their brains, not because they aren't smart people, they're very smart people, but they're like, "Brandon, where do we even start? How much energy is being expended?" and this sort of thing. I would like to get a unit of measurement, how much Investiture equals how much energy, but at the same time, the work being done by the various magic systems, it's going to be too constrictive to put too much math on that, I feel like. I would like to. It is a much bigger project than you might imagine it being. How much energy is stored in a sphere? That's kind of where we started. A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. How much is it therefore losing, how much could it do, how much of that can be transferred to doing work with a Lashing... All of this stuff, I have thought about way too much, and we have no answers for you yet because it is a really big project. Maybe we will someday, or maybe we'll just say, this is too big a project to even be able to mathematically quantify. I'm sure if you have suggestions, you can post thoughts on the subreddits, and perhaps that will get to the various arcanists who are helping me with this.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

Do you have-- Or have you determined an equivalency between how much Breath it takes to make a certain gem's worth of Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

I have recently assigned Peter to this task, and he is feeling overwhelmed by it. It was actually during the writing of Oathbringer where I finally said, "Yeah we need to standardize this, so start working on it." So it was like, "Oh great". Which means he has to read through all the books for references and start figuring it all out. And we're going to need like an equivalent of a jewel or something like this, right? *gestures to a sphere that a fan made* And we've been putting it off because it sounds like an awful lot of work. 

So the answer is no, we don't have it yet. It's something I've known for years we're going to need. And on this book, I just started saying, "All right.  I'm going to have them do all the stuff they need to do. And then you're going to tell me how many spheres they need to start with." Right? Like, I write the book, and then we retrofit how many spheres they needed to have how much Stormlight, so that we could be consistent with that.

But we haven't done across magic systems calculations, yet.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

Approximately how much Breath would it take to invest a regular object enough to that a Shardblade couldn't cut it?

Brandon Sanderson

I would have to look at the notes. One of the things we're doing right now is, we're unifying the actual unit of investiture. So, I'm not going to answer that until I have that codified, but it is one of the projects we're working on right now. I'll have some answers for you more...we'll just get a unit of measurement that we can use, probably based on that.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 8, 2018)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Emerald101

I was wondering if there is a unit of Investiture, like maybe something Khriss uses.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but I haven't canonized it yet. Good question. I will eventually canonize it, because I think that people will want it, but I probably won't do so 'til [Mistborn] Era 3, because I want the scientific way of talking about the cosmere to mirror how developed the cultures are, but some of the scholars are beyond where everyone else is. It can be measured. There is a unit.

Emerald101

Like, maybe grams of solid Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

It will probably be an in-world unit of measurement. Right now, to talk about it online if you want, the unit is probably gonna be based around Breath, because a Breath is a distinct amount. Whereas in most of the settings, there's not a distinct amount. Like, how much Allomancy, things like that. How much can a gem hold. It really depends on how the gem is cut, and how long the gem has been out. So... the Breath is a really easy one, so it's become the unit. But there will probably be a fantasy term for it. I might just call it Breath. That's why I'm not canonized yet. But if you guys wanna talk about it in Breath terms, that's probably the easiest.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

When Kaladin and Shallan and the others are in Shadesmar, it talks about broams of Stormlight. How do they measure that? Because you could have partially depleted spheres.

Brandon Sanderson

A broam's worth of Stormlight is just a full sphere. Newly infused. Behind the scenes, there are actual units of measurement for Investiture that a broam would correlate with, but you would need to be measuring that using instruments that measure Investiture that they don't quite have on Roshar yet. They could make them, but they don't quite have them yet. They're close.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

I will stop now before I throw even more WoBs on this topic.

But yes, Brandon is keeping track of this, Brandon wants to standardize units, make sure everyone is using the correct amount of investiture and stuff like that. Even when Brandon is writing a fighting scene for Kaladin, there is Peter who makes sure that Kaladin has the correct number of spheres and Stormlight (there was WoB on that too) - those numbers are important for Brandon and they will be eventually known to us, in one way or another. 

Awesome, I'm here for it! Give me the maths!

Now I'll just have to cry even more about how hard it is to get investiture on Nalthis.