Is Burning Steel/Iron just making you magnetic?

[Myst He/Him]

The this was thought of because of something Kelsier remarked on in the “Three Weeks After Detonation” chapter of The Lost Metal. The exact sequence goes like this:

“Outlining not only sources of metal, but all things. The very axi that made up reality had their own polarity, influenceable with Steelpushing under the right circumstances.”

So first off, I’m going to assume that if steel can affect axi, so can iron. The reason I think that both steelpushing and iron pulling are just make yourself into a magnet of opposite polarity, is because of this sequence. There’s a mention of polarity, and that being the reason the axi could be affected by steelpushing. The only reason I can think of of that being important is if that polarity is what allows them to affect it. And magnesium would be the only way for that to work.

So, what do you think of my thought? Is it plausible? Do we have anything on it? Has anyone asked Sanderson himself about it?

- A Windrunner with a Lightweaver’s complexity 

 

There is one hole in this line of reasoning, and that’s aluminum. It’s not affected by allowance, yet it’s affected by magnets. My thought regarding this is that the aluminum blocks the creation of the magnetic field that would be affecting it, if that makes sense. Any thoughts?

Edited October 20, 2025 by IHadAThought

[Treamayne]

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3 hours ago, IHadAThought said:

So first off, I’m going to assume that if steel can affect axi, so can iron. The reason I think that both steelpushing and iron pulling are just make yourself into a magnet of opposite polarity, is because of this sequence. There’s a mention of polarity, and that being the reason the axi could be affected by steelpushing. The only reason I can think of of that being important is if that polarity is what allows them to affect it. And magnesium would be the only way for that to work.

So, what do you think of my thought? Is it plausible? Do we have anything on it? Has anyone asked Sanderson himself about it?

Yes. Kelsier's comments there were Brandon putting the first hints in-story for an old WoB:

Spoiler

Argent

Mechanically speaking, how does steelsight work? The scientific definition of "metal" gets a little murky in the middle of the periodic table-

Brandon Sanderson

It does.

Argent

-and we see that powerful enough Allomancers can see more than just metals.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Argent

Are Connection and perception significantly involved here?

Brandon Sanderson

To an extent, but the science of it also is. I feel like the stronger steelsight is getting, the more it is detecting things like electromagnetic bonds and even, you know, the strong and weak force and some of these sorts of things that is just in everything, right? And I do think that in strongest applications, Allomancy is going to be moving beyond metals and moving toward things like fundamental forces. So there you go.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

Hope that helps.

Edited October 20, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Myst He/Him]

Thanks for the tip, I just went and updated that post.

it sounds like it affects magnetic fields, but may not be magnetic itself, which allows it to ignore other magnetic sources and other consequences of being a magnet. So it sounds like my theory is wrong-based on the knowledge we have.

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

Like @Treamayne pointed out, it's almost certainly tied to fundamental forces and/or electromagnetic bonds. But I don't think it's necessarily magnetism/magnetic fields.

I wouldn't quite call it magnetic, since you can seemingly affect any metal (even godmetals) except for aluminum, when magnets can only attract ferrous metals (and only attract, not repel). I wouldn't even go as far to say it involves magnetic fields in the traditional sense, because of how precise it is. The magnetic field required just to pull a nail to you from across the room would be immense, and affect any metal in the vicinity as well. But investiture that manipulates the laws of physics also generally is targeted/localized, so maybe it could work so that only your intended target feels the force.

This could be explained by electromagnetic fields, bit I think there is another possible explanation. 

What if instead, you're manipulating gravity?

1. Not only is it another fundamental force, but we've already seen an example of this in the Cosmere, with the surge of Gravitation. A full lashing can make an object fall in any direction, and ignore normal gravity at the same time. A reverse lashing can make a lashed object pull other objects towards itself instead of the ground.
2. It's also specifically noted that allomantic pushes and pulls are always in a straight line relative to the center of mass of both the allomancer and the metal. It also doesn't matter where the object is relative to you, it will always move in the same fashion.
   1. This is not consistent with manipulating materials with a magnetic field. As far as I understand, electromagnetic fields cannot be evenly consistent throughout, there is always a north and south pole, and how an object is affected by one depends on (among other things) where it is positioned relative to its center.
   2. Gravity on the other hand, is a consistent force moving from all points in the shortest path possible (a straight line) towards an object's center of mass.
3. The means of how force transfers is also consistent with gravity. Both objects are equally affected in a push/pull, but the less massive of the two moves further. I also think speed is consistent, though someone correct me if I am wrong. When you are pushing against a small object, then it hits something immobile, you are thrown back at an equal speed that the object had been going. 

Why that is limited to metals I can't say for sure, but Sanderson has stated and we have observed that there is something special about metals and how they interact with investiture, something that's different from regular matter. Maybe it's just an effect of the magic system, that allomantic iron/steel can only alter the gravity of metals because allomantic power is based in metals.

[StanLemon]

It wouldn't be magnetic in the physical sense, as has been pointed out there are too many inconsistencies for it to be that to be the case. For any kind of magnetism analog, it would be a spiritual magnetism associated with Connection. 

Spoiler

I'm not sure if you've read up to book 4 of SA or TotES, but fabrials using iron can attract substances based on the spren trapped and iron and steel can influence the direction Aethers grow

 

[Myst He/Him]

1 hour ago, DracoAdamantus said:

Like @Treamayne pointed out, it's almost certainly tied to fundamental forces and/or electromagnetic bonds. But I don't think it's necessarily magnetism/magnetic fields.

I wouldn't quite call it magnetic, since you can seemingly affect any metal (even godmetals) except for aluminum, when magnets can only attract ferrous metals (and only attract, not repel). I wouldn't even go as far to say it involves magnetic fields in the traditional sense, because of how precise it is. The magnetic field required just to pull a nail to you from across the room would be immense, and affect any metal in the vicinity as well. But investiture that manipulates the laws of physics also generally is targeted/localized, so maybe it could work so that only your intended target feels the force.

This could be explained by electromagnetic fields, bit I think there is another possible explanation. 

What if instead, you're manipulating gravity?

1. Not only is it another fundamental force, but we've already seen an example of this in the Cosmere, with the surge of Gravitation. A full lashing can make an object fall in any direction, and ignore normal gravity at the same time. A reverse lashing can make a lashed object pull other objects towards itself instead of the ground.
2. It's also specifically noted that allomantic pushes and pulls are always in a straight line relative to the center of mass of both the allomancer and the metal. It also doesn't matter where the object is relative to you, it will always move in the same fashion.
   1. This is not consistent with manipulating materials with a magnetic field. As far as I understand, electromagnetic fields cannot be evenly consistent throughout, there is always a north and south pole, and how an object is affected by one depends on (among other things) where it is positioned relative to its center.
   2. Gravity on the other hand, is a consistent force moving from all points in the shortest path possible (a straight line) towards an object's center of mass.
3. The means of how force transfers is also consistent with gravity. Both objects are equally affected in a push/pull, but the less massive of the two moves further. I also think speed is consistent, though someone correct me if I am wrong. When you are pushing against a small object, then it hits something immobile, you are thrown back at an equal speed that the object had been going. 

Why that is limited to metals I can't say for sure, but Sanderson has stated and we have observed that there is something special about metals and how they interact with investiture, something that's different from regular matter. Maybe it's just an effect of the magic system, that allomantic iron/steel can only alter the gravity of metals because allomantic power is based in metals.

Gravity is an interesting explanation, but I don’t think it would work under the same principles as Lashings. Most of the time(I think) the object being pushed/pulled on still remains under the influence of normal gravity. Also, I’m not sure how gravity would explain how if the object you’re pushing on weighs more than you, you go in the opposite direction. 

I actually have thought that the instability, how they vary in strength at certain points explained “flaring” your metals, as you could make that extra strong area towards the thing you’re pushing on. And it therefore takes more metal as it needs constant attention to make sure the strong side is always there.

As for the fact that it works in all metals, It might be that they usually affect those electro magnetic fields, but that with non-metals they normally can’t sense them, but the way metals interact with investiture makes affecting metal possible.

I honestly didn’t know that magnets could only attract metals, not push them away. Maybe it just slipped my mind. I don’t really have any thoughts for this other than that maybe, since there is something that attracts metal, there’s something that pushes it away, it would fit with the opposites theme of scadrial. I don’t really know though.

Any thoughts? 

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

14 minutes ago, IHadAThought said:

Gravity is an interesting explanation, but I don’t think it would work under the same principles as Lashings. Most of the time(I think) the object being pushed/pulled on still remains under the influence of normal gravity.

I'll need to double check, but I thought that pushed/pulled objects were always observed to move in a straight line until the push/pull ended? (Or affected by another push/pull)

48 minutes ago, IHadAThought said:

Also, I’m not sure how gravity would explain how if the object you’re pushing on weighs more than you, you go in the opposite direction.

Equal and opposite reaction. Gravity is a force of equal and opposite attraction (or, if reversed, repulsion). Your mass pulls on the Earth with the same amount of force that the Earth pulls on you, but the difference in mass is so great that the amount the Earth is pulled towards you is infinitesimally small compared to the amount that you pull the Earth towards yourself. But if you had two objects existing in a vacuum, with no other sources of gravity, and then fixed the smaller of the two objects in place, the larger object would move towards the smaller. Relative perspective also comes into play. From an outside perspective, we see the larger object move towards the smaller. But from the point of view of the larger object, the smaller object still moved towards it.

I figure it's the same premise here. When you push on a coin, it's the less massive object, so it moves away from you while you experience an infinitesimal amount of movement. Then the coin hits a building, and suddenly the object you are pushing becomes much more massive, so now you (the lighter object) are thrown back while the building experiences an infinitesimal amount of movement. However, if you observe just the allomancer and the coin, nothing actually changed. When pushing on the coin, there was a given amount of force applied that caused the distance between the two to increase. When it hit a building, that same amount of force continued to cause the distance between them to increase, at what I believe is the same rate. (Can someone validate if you're thrown back in this way, that you move at the same speed the object had been moving?)

With no point of reference, the two are moving apart at a constant speed and from a constant force.

(*Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, so this understanding of gravitational forces may not be 100% correct)

14 minutes ago, IHadAThought said:

I honestly didn’t know that magnets could only attract metals, not push them away. Maybe it just slipped my mind. I don’t really have any thoughts for this other than that maybe, since there is something that attracts metal, there’s something that pushes it away, it would fit with the opposites theme of scadrial. I don’t really know though.

Well, technically they can, what I was getting at was you can't push away a normal piece of ferrous metal with a stationary magnet, but manipulating magnetic fields can do something, but it gets complicated.

Basically, if you had a giant stationary magnet, and pointed it at a stationary piece of ferrous metal (iron, cobalt, or nickel-based), you'd only be able to attract it. However, magnets will affect nonferrous metals, like copper and aluminum, when the magnetic field is in motion. This can be either a magnet moving past an object, or vice verse. In either case, the movement of the metal through the magnetic field induces something called eddy currents, which is basically a circular loop of electric current formed by the changing magnetic field. This spinning current creates its own electromagnetic field, in the same direction as the moving field, which pushes back (in a similar effect to trying to push the north pole of two magnets together).

Here's a video explaining it in more detail: 

 

This is why dropping a strong magnet through a copper pipe causes the magnet to fall slowly, even though the copper itself isn't magnetic. However, the big thing here is that it doesn't create its own force, it only resists existing force. Eddy currents are induced when conductive material moves perpendicular to a magnetic field, and the field created produces drag in the direction of motion. It will only push against the direction the object is already moving, not accelerate it in a new direction.

Now there is such a thing as magnetic levitation and magnetic repulsion, but the issue is that it is rather complicated to achieve, much more complicated than putting a piece of metal in an electromagnetic field. Plus, it generally requires the object to be levitated to be a magnet.

[Myst He/Him]

15 minutes ago, DracoAdamantus said:

I'll need to double check, but I thought that pushed/pulled objects were always observed to move in a straight line until the push/pull ended? (Or affected by another push/pull)

Equal and opposite reaction. Gravity is a force of equal and opposite attraction (or, if reversed, repulsion). Your mass pulls on the Earth with the same amount of force that the Earth pulls on you, but the difference in mass is so great that the amount the Earth is pulled towards you is infinitesimally small compared to the amount that you pull the Earth towards yourself. But if you had two objects existing in a vacuum, with no other sources of gravity, and then fixed the smaller of the two objects in place, the larger object would move towards the smaller. Relative perspective also comes into play. From an outside perspective, we see the larger object move towards the smaller. But from the point of view of the larger object, the smaller object still moved towards it.

I figure it's the same premise here. When you push on a coin, it's the less massive object, so it moves away from you while you experience an infinitesimal amount of movement. Then the coin hits a building, and suddenly the object you are pushing becomes much more massive, so now you (the lighter object) are thrown back while the building experiences an infinitesimal amount of movement. However, if you observe just the allomancer and the coin, nothing actually changed. When pushing on the coin, there was a given amount of force applied that caused the distance between the two to increase. When it hit a building, that same amount of force continued to cause the distance between them to increase, at what I believe is the same rate. (Can someone validate if you're thrown back in this way, that you move at the same speed the object had been moving?)

With no point of reference, the two are moving apart at a constant speed and from a constant force.

(*Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, so this understanding of gravitational forces may not be 100% correct)

Well, technically they can, what I was getting at was you can't push away a normal piece of ferrous metal with a stationary magnet, but manipulating magnetic fields can do something, but it gets complicated.

Basically, if you had a giant stationary magnet, and pointed it at a stationary piece of ferrous metal (iron, cobalt, or nickel-based), you'd only be able to attract it. However, magnets will affect nonferrous metals, like copper and aluminum, when the magnetic field is in motion. This can be either a magnet moving past an object, or vice verse. In either case, the movement of the metal through the magnetic field induces something called eddy currents, which is basically a circular loop of electric current formed by the changing magnetic field. This spinning current creates its own electromagnetic field, in the same direction as the moving field, which pushes back (in a similar effect to trying to push the north pole of two magnets together).

Here's a video explaining it in more detail: 

 

This is why dropping a strong magnet through a copper pipe causes the magnet to fall slowly, even though the copper itself isn't magnetic. However, the big thing here is that it doesn't create its own force, it only resists existing force. Eddy currents are induced when conductive material moves perpendicular to a magnetic field, and the field created produces drag in the direction of motion. It will only push against the direction the object is already moving, not accelerate it in a new direction.

Now there is such a thing as magnetic levitation and magnetic repulsion, but the issue is that it is rather complicated to achieve, much more complicated than putting a piece of metal in an electromagnetic field. Plus, it generally requires the object to be levitated to be a magnet.

Thank you for the explanation, you most likely got most of it right, though I’m not a physics person either.

There might be a problem with that for the objects moving towards each other, they have to ignore all other sources of gravity, or at least have the same pull during the entire time. They would have to ignore the planets gravitational pull for that to work, which would launch them out of the planet and into space. The only way for that to work there would be if they both objects retained their gravitational pull to the planet, and if that pull was the same, which it’s not. The magnetic field has different strengths at different areas, and we’re all different distances from it.

honestly, your theory has less holes than mine does, though there are some bits where I’m still confused 

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

In either case, the fact that it's magic has to account for some of the scientific inconsistencies, whether it's creating magnetic fields that only affect single objects, or selectively manipulating gravity.

[NeverTrustAesSedai He/Him]

One thing that wouldn't make sense if Iron and Steel were magnet-based would be that Pushes and Pulls can affect any metal (except aluminum), including metal objects that would not normally respond to magnetic fields.

[Nitpicking]

Iron and steel allomancy are not electromagnetism any more than tineyes could possibly hear sounds that are too weak to really be vibrating air. At some point it's the Rule of Cool, as Brandon himself has said.

[Aekiel2]

My pet theory is that iron and steel work by imbuing force directly on the object through a spiritual Connection.

[DrPhysics he/him]

Since many of the others in this thread have stated that they aren't physics people, I thought I'd start by saying I am one. I'm a Professor with a PhD that has been teaching physics for over a decade.

On 10/20/2025 at 2:16 PM, IHadAThought said:

There might be a problem with that for the objects moving towards each other, they have to ignore all other sources of gravity, or at least have the same pull during the entire time. They would have to ignore the planets gravitational pull for that to work, which would launch them out of the planet and into space. The only way for that to work there would be if they both objects retained their gravitational pull to the planet, and if that pull was the same, which it’s not. The magnetic field has different strengths at different areas, and we’re all different distances from it.

 

The biggest problem is that gravity can only pull.  Gravitational lashings work (sort of, with some problems) by changing the direction of the connection to the planet. You're always still attracted; direction just gets funny. And here's the important part of that: it breaks Newton's third law. The planet would still be attracted to the person, even as the person was falling away from it. If pushing worked by doing gravity but backwards, we'd still have that weird force flipping element, and having a chunk of metal slam into something wouldn't throw you backwards; it would pull you towards it.

 

Eddy currents don't work, either. Creating eddy currents large enough to make metal attracted/repelled as described in the books would make it very hot (some of Wax's heavy pushes would have started fires) and would make the metal that was being pushed/pulled an electromagnet strong enough that we should have seen it attracting other ferromagnetic materials.

 

I did a post a while ago summarizing everything we know about steelpushes (link), though I didn't do much to address how they work. The way they describe being able to see atoms (as was mentioned previously) and how it affects metals more than other materials suggests that it is electromagnetic in nature (the gravitational signature from individual atoms would blur too much to see them), but there are no electromagnetic processes in our universe that could make metal behave that way without some very obvious side effects (like eddy current superheating metals that are pushed hard, or magnetized metals acting like magnets), so the only explanation we have is "Cosmere magic via a mechanism that we don't understand yet", which isn't very satisfying. Sorry. 

[Born of Mist He/Him]

I don't think so, because if that was true, than you would push/pull on all metal around you just from burning the metal instead of having to push/pull voluntarily.