What counts as "Heat?"

[Lopens Tenth Cousin he/him]

I had an absolutely insane idea that probably won't work but I want to say it anyways. 

Feruchemical Brass stores "heat," but what exactly is heat? If we're defining it like real life heat, it is a form of electromagnetic radiation, like how we get heat from the sun. 

What can you actually store inside a Brassmind? Would you be able to store any form of electromagnetic radiation? (I'm not suggesting storing different types of radiation such as Alpha or Beta particles. I don't expect you to be able to walk into a nuclear reactor and walk out fine.)

I dunno I probably sniffed a sharpie too much or something.

[Argenti he/him]

6 minutes ago, Lopens Tenth Cousin said:

I had an absolutely insane idea that probably won't work but I want to say it anyways. 

Feruchemical Brass stores "heat," but what exactly is heat? If we're defining it like real life heat, it is a form of electromagnetic radiation, like how we get heat from the sun. 

What can you actually store inside a Brassmind? Would you be able to store any form of electromagnetic radiation? (I'm not suggesting storing different types of radiation such as Alpha or Beta particles. I don't expect you to be able to walk into a nuclear reactor and walk out fine.)

I dunno I probably sniffed a sharpie too much or something.

For a second, I thought you were talking about the Sunlit man's "Heat," which could be relevant. I think for allomancy it might just be thermal energy that's interacting with your body. It's possible it's all electromagnetic radiation, and they just don't know any better (Could be useful for life support). It is from their point of view, so they probably don't know much about non-visible radiation.

[Quantus he/him]

You are storing/tapping your Body's warm-blooded ability to generate Heat internally.   But it's that Internal heat generating capability, not raw Thermal energy storage. So for example, to survive a hot environment you cant resist it by raising your body temperature to match it (per the WOB but I might argue the thermodynamics there), but you could lower your body temp to counter the environmental effects.  

 

 

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Thoughtful Spurts

If tapping heat means your own body gets hotter, does it also mean you become immune to hot temperatures so long as you're tapping it, or should you fill heat and grow colder for that to happen?

Brandon Sanderson

As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

 

[Duxredux he/him]

So... by my understanding, heat is the amount of kinetic energy stored within a system in the form of the vibration of the molecules within the system. What is perceived as "warmer" or "colder" is simply the transfer of that energy between systems with higher and lower energy. This makes more sense when you look at the Kelvin scale and the theoretical absolute zero, which is in theory where there is no molecular movement whatsoever. Thermal expansion for example is due to an increase in this molecular vibration.

The ways that heat moves through the system is conduction, convection, and radiation (though I'll add in that energy can also be released or absorbed through chemical and physical state changes). When we think of heat sensors or IR vision, what is happening is that as matter heats up (or vibrates faster) it begins to emit photons, generally in the infrared side of the spectrum. When something is incandescent, such as old lightbulbs, the sun, or fire, the radiation emitted extends into the visible spectrum. This raditation strikes other objects and transfers its "kinetic" energy into the vibration of the object. This radiation to me is more about the transfer of heat and a byproduct of how infrared radiation is generated by molecular movement, rather than the kinetic energy stored within the molecular structure.

This is why many physics problems with inelastic collisions generally assume that losses are absorbed by heat. This also explains why someone on YouTube tried to cook a turkey by slapping it... because Youtube. The kinetic energy is absorbed as heat.

Let's talk about striking a match. When someone drags a match across a strike strip, the rapid kinetic strikes at the microscopic level due to the unevenness of the surfaces converts your large scale kinetic movement into heat, or the kinetic energy of the molecules vibrating in the match. The molecules in the coating on the match head vibrate faster and faster, expanding further and further until the molecular bonds can break down, which is the point known as activation energy, and the chemical reaction of the match head begins and extends to the wood of the match. Hydrocarbons in the match are vibrating fast enough that when they collide with oxygen molecules, the original bonds break down and energy is released in the form of light and heat, the process known as combustion, and the atoms reconfigure into the lower energy molecular states of water and carbon dioxide.

What I'm not sure about is if Feruchemy is storing the body's ability to generate heat, or if it's storing the kinetic energy of the body's molecules. I can get where @Quantus is coming from for the first, but unless I'm really missing something, that doesn't necessarily have to be how it works for weight storage since the body isn't really generating weight... right?

Unless I'm mistaken, the distinction is relevant in two major ways. If it stores the body's ability to generate heat, this may severely reduce the ability of a Firesoul Ferring to withstand high temperatures if their body would burn even if the cells stopped producing any heat whatsoever, say if the Ferring stepped into lava or a fire. The other case is that it may severely limit the way that Feruchemical brass works for mechanical devices. A spaceship is not a warm blooded mammal, so would F-Brass only work when personally worn by the crew and the spaceship itself is limited to conventional methods for heating and cooling?

 

[ChillPenguin]

I think Feruchemy storing kinetic energy of the molecules would be ok for a spaceship. Ultimately conventional heating devices increase the kinetic energy of the molecules to make a room, or a device, warmer. In fact it might be the most efficient way to cool devices in space. There are many cases where it’s really hard to cool some electronics in space (e.g. use liquid helium until it runs out in a scientific satellite).

The metalmind/medallion will run out eventually but you could swap them around to provide heating/cooling where it’s needed.