Scoop1407 he/they Posted October 19, 2024 Posted October 19, 2024 It's already known that the Rosharan year is 110% cosmere standard (and thus SI), and the other units of time can be calculated from that. But how much is the Rosharan foot? Also, how many seconds are there in a Rosharan minute? Regardless, can we assume that the "cosmere standard" units (based on Yolen) are always identical to SI or US Customary units?
alder24 Posted October 19, 2024 Posted October 19, 2024 1 hour ago, Scoop1407 said: It's already known that the Rosharan year is 110% cosmere standard (and thus SI), and the other units of time can be calculated from that. But how much is the Rosharan foot? Also, how many seconds are there in a Rosharan minute? Yes, Rosharan year is 500 day long, but 1 Rosharan day is 20 Rosharan hours, each Rosharan hours is 50 Rosharan minutes (1 Rosharan hour is ~58 minutes). As for how many seconds are in 1 Rosharan minute, I can't find anything - doing some quick calculations, in 1 Rosharan minute there has to be 60 standard seconds. I bet they would say there are 50 Rosharan seconds in 1 Rosharan minute, which would make 1 Rosharan second be 1.2 standard seconds long. Spoiler Questioner Speaking of Rosharan calendar-- So seventeen year old Kaladin, is he the equivalent of a seventeen year old Earthling? Brandon Sanderson It's 1.1, I think is what is it. Right, they're 10% older than their accounting system. So no. Questioner So Adolin is 27, true? Brandon Sanderson Yeah. Questioner So then a year is obviously a lot more than 1.1 but-- Brandon Sanderson Well no. The years are 500 days, but they're 20 hour days. Keep that in mind. So when you run the calculations kinda together, you end up with around 1.1. Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017) Spoiler Peter Ahlstrom The Rosharan year is 1.10 Earth years. The Rosharan hour is a little bit shorter. name_here Let me guess: it's 50 minutes. E: no, just checked on calculator, apparently it's 57.816 minutes. Peter Ahlstrom But it's 50 Rosharan minutes. Miscellaneous 2014 (March 20, 2014) As for Rosharan foot, Kaladin is 6'4" in Rosharan feet, which is around seven standard feet. Spoiler Questioner It's referenced that on Roshar, a foot is longer than is cosmere standard. I can't find anywhere how long it actually is. Brandon Sanderson That's gonna come down to questions for Isaac and Karen. Not that you should go ask them right now. Mainly, what's going on is, we have to have height charts and things like that. Let me talk about the reason for this. I want to be able to say something in world like, "Kaladin's about 6'4." So that people can picture him compared to the people around him. He's probably closer to 7 foot compared to people from Scadrial. But if I say he's 7 foot, you're going to imagine him of the wrong proportions and size compared to the people around him. So I went ahead and said, we will use feet, but scale them different in order-- this is kind of just me fudging for your perception. When you see actual people from Roshar next to people from Scadrial, particularly tall Alethi, they're gonna look like giants. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) 1 hour ago, Scoop1407 said: Regardless, can we assume that the "cosmere standard" units (based on Yolen) are always identical to SI or US Customary units? Yes. A dozen is also equal to 10 on Roshar. Also units of weight are probably a bit different on Roshar as well, that's because Rosharan gravity is only 0.7 that of Earth's gravity, but we don't have specific numbers for example we don't know how much a stone weighs on Roshar compared to standard. Spoiler Questioner How much is a stone-weight on Roshar? Brandon Sanderson Uh... that is actually a question for Peter. I actually, often, will just write in brackets "this much," and he comes up with the weights and measures, because I can never be consistent in my first drafts. So, yeah, you ask Peter, he can get that for you. I do the same thing with spheres, right? I'm like, "This costs roughly 100 bucks in our world," and he'll go "All right, fine" and go look up all the things. I used to keep it all in the first book, but since then I just let him do it. Oathbringer Houston signing (Nov. 18, 2017) 2
Dofurion Posted October 19, 2024 Posted October 19, 2024 1 hour ago, Scoop1407 said: Regardless, can we assume that the "cosmere standard" units (based on Yolen) are always identical to SI or US Customary units? This is something I wanted to comment on, after all in Roshar the number 10 is very important, so it makes more sense that they would use a system more similar to metric.
Treamayne Posted October 19, 2024 Posted October 19, 2024 3 hours ago, Dofurion said: This is something I wanted to comment on, after all in Roshar the number 10 is very important, so it makes more sense that they would use a system more similar to metric. Being base-10, the Rosharan (or at least Vorin) system is very similar to Metric - but Brandon does not use the word Meter because, IRL historically, national measuring systems were usually based on the human body; so "foot," as a term, is more likely to be similar to the word used by these cultures. Spoiler Quote sheesania Shallan's comment in Words of Radiance that she's "five foot six inches" jerks me out of the story every time, particularly because I'm used to the metric system. I understand in my head how Sanderson is translating for the readers whatever Rosharan measures she actually used...but it's still jarring whenever I actually come across it while reading. Peter Ahlstrom Measuring by foot was extremely common in our world. Many European countries had their own standard foot. It just makes sense that humans would measure by feet. The Vorin foot probably has 10 inches. General Reddit 2016 (Oct. 7, 2016) Quote Overlord Jebus Why does Vorinism use imperial instead of metric base ten? Peter Ahlstrom They don't really use imperial. The words don't mean quite the same thing. A foot or mile won't correspond to the exact same measurement. Oversleep But still, why don't they use a metric system? They're all about number 10. Peter Ahlstrom Who said they don't? The foot has ten inches. General Twitter 2017 (June 1, 2017)
Dofurion Posted October 19, 2024 Posted October 19, 2024 54 minutes ago, Treamayne said: Being base-10, the Rosharan (or at least Vorin) system is very similar to Metric - but Brandon does not use the word Meter because, IRL historically, national measuring systems were usually based on the human body; so "foot," as a term, is more likely to be similar to the word used by these cultures. Reveal hidden contents Ah ok, it's good to know those WoB's. So I'm going to assume that while the standard Vorin unit of measurement would be the equivalent of 10 inches (a hypothetical Jez), from there on any equivalent to an Ishi (100 inches) would be used. As a curious note, in the metric system there is also a way to measure with the body, and it is basically to extend both arms and measure from the tip of the index finger to the elbow of the next arm. 1
Scoop1407 he/they Posted October 20, 2024 Author Posted October 20, 2024 (edited) On 10/19/2024 at 8:57 PM, alder24 said: Yes, Rosharan year is 500 day long, but 1 Rosharan day is 20 Rosharan hours, each Rosharan hours is 50 Rosharan minutes (1 Rosharan hour is ~58 minutes). As for how many seconds are in 1 Rosharan minute, I can't find anything - doing some quick calculations, in 1 Rosharan minute there has to be 60 standard seconds. I bet they would say there are 50 Rosharan seconds in 1 Rosharan minute, which would make 1 Rosharan second be 1.2 standard seconds long. Reveal hidden contents Questioner Speaking of Rosharan calendar-- So seventeen year old Kaladin, is he the equivalent of a seventeen year old Earthling? Brandon Sanderson It's 1.1, I think is what is it. Right, they're 10% older than their accounting system. So no. Questioner So Adolin is 27, true? Brandon Sanderson Yeah. Questioner So then a year is obviously a lot more than 1.1 but-- Brandon Sanderson Well no. The years are 500 days, but they're 20 hour days. Keep that in mind. So when you run the calculations kinda together, you end up with around 1.1. Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017) Reveal hidden contents Peter Ahlstrom The Rosharan year is 1.10 Earth years. The Rosharan hour is a little bit shorter. name_here Let me guess: it's 50 minutes. E: no, just checked on calculator, apparently it's 57.816 minutes. Peter Ahlstrom But it's 50 Rosharan minutes. Miscellaneous 2014 (March 20, 2014) As for Rosharan foot, Kaladin is 6'4" in Rosharan feet, which is around seven standard feet. Reveal hidden contents Questioner It's referenced that on Roshar, a foot is longer than is cosmere standard. I can't find anywhere how long it actually is. Brandon Sanderson That's gonna come down to questions for Isaac and Karen. Not that you should go ask them right now. Mainly, what's going on is, we have to have height charts and things like that. Let me talk about the reason for this. I want to be able to say something in world like, "Kaladin's about 6'4." So that people can picture him compared to the people around him. He's probably closer to 7 foot compared to people from Scadrial. But if I say he's 7 foot, you're going to imagine him of the wrong proportions and size compared to the people around him. So I went ahead and said, we will use feet, but scale them different in order-- this is kind of just me fudging for your perception. When you see actual people from Roshar next to people from Scadrial, particularly tall Alethi, they're gonna look like giants. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) Yes. A dozen is also equal to 10 on Roshar. Also units of weight are probably a bit different on Roshar as well, that's because Rosharan gravity is only 0.7 that of Earth's gravity, but we don't have specific numbers for example we don't know how much a stone weighs on Roshar compared to standard. Reveal hidden contents Questioner How much is a stone-weight on Roshar? Brandon Sanderson Uh... that is actually a question for Peter. I actually, often, will just write in brackets "this much," and he comes up with the weights and measures, because I can never be consistent in my first drafts. So, yeah, you ask Peter, he can get that for you. I do the same thing with spheres, right? I'm like, "This costs roughly 100 bucks in our world," and he'll go "All right, fine" and go look up all the things. I used to keep it all in the first book, but since then I just let him do it. Oathbringer Houston signing (Nov. 18, 2017) Doing the calculations, if 6'4 (Rosharan, but remember that this is the same as 6.4) is around 7' (US Customary), a Rosharan foot is around 109.4% US foot, which is around 33.338 centimetres. Since there are 10 inches in the foot, a Rosharan inch is around 131.3% US inch (for the metric, just divide the foot by 10). Upon second glance, though, the WoB references 6'4 as communication to the readers, which would expect 12 inches in a foot. If this is intended, the Rosharan foot is 110.5% US foot (33.688 cm) and the inch is 132.6% US inch. Edited October 20, 2024 by Scoop1407
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