Stormlight to Breath Ratio: Official Answer

[Incheoul]

There is a physical reference for how much a kilogram weighs. I'm sure they could make a physical reference for measuring stormlight in the form of a sphere.

[Oudeis]

Algebra class on Roshar has got to have the WEIRDEST word problems ever.

 

"Wanda Windrunner has one emerald broam, charged six days ago. Bobby Bondsmith has five bloodmarks worth of clearchips, fresh charged from a Highstorm. Using only this stormlight, they each make a Full Lashing; his is a circle forty centimeters in radius, hers is a equilateral triangle with sides thirty centimeters in length. Which Lashing will give out first, and how long from that moment until the second one gives out?"

 

 

wouldn't still be on Roshar, since he dislikes it more than Nalthis.

 

I thought the opposite; doesn't Zahel comment that the Purelake reminds him of T'Telir, and he doesn't go there because he hates being reminded of T'Telir?

 

 
If he returned to Nalthis with a hundred thousand "Breaths" converted from Stormlight, he could just hide them like he hides his Divine Breath.

 

Minor point; in Warbreaker, early on, he comments that he wishes he could stay inconspicuous, but that's almost impossible with his aura from all the Breaths he got from that rebel guy. While never flat-out stated, it's very strongly implied that he can only hide his one Divine Breath, and he has no capacity to hide the aura he gets from other Breaths.

[Moogle]

I thought the opposite; doesn't Zahel comment that the Purelake reminds him of T'Telir, and he doesn't go there because he hates being reminded of T'Telir?

 

Uhm, I took that as meaning he missed T'Telir:

“It’s ridiculously shallow,” Zahel said. “Like an endless bay, mere feet deep. Warm water . Calm breezes. Reminds me of home. Not like this cold, damp, godsforsaken place.”

“So why aren’t you there instead of here?”

“Because I can’t stand being reminded of home, idiot.”

I also have the following quotes:

He pulled open his door, revealing the courtyard of the practice grounds at night. The air was wet. Oh, right. One of those storms had come, Invested to the hilt and looking for a place to stick it all. Cursed things.

...

“Good,” Zahel said, settling down on the bed . “And don’t be green from the ground.” The boy paused by the door. “Don’t be . . . Huh?” Stupid language, Zahel thought, climbing into his cot. No proper metaphors at all.

...

The kid grunted, sliding the door shut. Zahel pulled up his blanket —damnation monks only got one— and turned over on his cot.

 

It's clear that Vasher doesn't like living as a monk all that much, that he hates the language, and he hates the local weather. Why would he want to stay? That's the impression I got, anyways, particularly from his discussion with Kaladin where mentions he should do "what lets him sleep at night", which I interpreted as Vasher heading to Roshar and leaving behind everything he knew so he didn't have to eat souls. Maybe I'm insane.

 

Minor point; in Warbreaker, early on, he comments that he wishes he could stay inconspicuous, but that's almost impossible with his aura from all the Breaths he got from that rebel guy. While never flat-out stated, it's very strongly implied that he can only hide his one Divine Breath, and he has no capacity to hide the aura he gets from other Breaths.

 

He could just put his excess Breath in his shirt. I'm not sure why he thought it was hard to be inconspicuous when it's really not. I also recall a WoB on hiding your regular Breath inside yourself somewhere which I cannot find, and unfortunately I'm busy studying at the moment. I'll try editing it in later.

 

There's this one, though, which is vaguely suggestive that it can be done:

Vasher has learned to suppress his Returned Breath. When it's suppressed, it's as if it doesn't exist to him. He's Invested it into a place within himself, much like you can Invest your Breaths into a shirt, and when he gives away the rest of his Breaths, he doesn't give that one away. He could split off others of his Breaths if he wanted to — he's learned to do that, so that he could give a few Breaths and not all. It's just a matter of practicing as long as he has. But even people who aren't as practiced as him do it all the time when they Invest an object with not all of their Breath but just enough to bring it to life.

(source)

Edited December 18, 2014 by Moogle

[Gamma Fiend]

I edited the first post to contain the picture, so giving an update on that, and now... on to speculating!

As far as quantifying or measuring stormlight, I could maybe imagine somehow a Fabrial being invented that can maybe contain a set amount of stormlight, or someway of measuring the amount of stormlight that it can somehow absorb. I know that's a lot of somehow's. O.o But the idea is, if they can make it a constant amount, they can make that a measuring point. Take fully infused spheres -- fresh out of a highstorm -- and see how much stormlight they contain. Do this a repeated number of times to see if you can get base results. Then from there you can possibly start measuring leak rates of spheres as they lose stormlight. See if it's a constant amount over time. Does the size of the sphere affect decay rate, or do larger gems simply last longer because they have more stormlight?

As for Cosmere questions, we can maybe expand on, if Stormlight is the same as Breath and Mists, as in they are in the form of air or gases, then the jerryrigging for making Stormlight work for Mists could possibly work the same as well, yes?
Would Vasher have found it easier to live on Scadrial if he lived or went there before the mists were removed?

[Delightful]

Aside from the glowing/leaking issue, won't Zahel breathe out Stormlight as he speaks? Which no one notices, so assumedly that's not an issue for some reason.

[Blaze1616]

Aside from the glowing/leaking issue, won't Zahel breathe out Stormlight as he speaks? Which no one notices, so assumedly that's not an issue for some reason.

 

He shouldn't need a constant source of Stormlight held in his body. Rather, he would need to take in Stormlight at the time in which his body goes to process the investiture to sustain itself. As Lightsong shows us in Warbreaker, Vasher would know when it is time to do so by feeling weak.

[dvoraen]

Plus, based on that excerpt above about Investing his Divine Breath elsewhere within himself, so it doesn't go out the window with the others, I posit that he can do the same with Stormlight before and/or after the conversion process.  In other words, converts it then 'stores' it to the repository stashed away until it's time for consuming it with his Divine Breath.  I'm kind of curious if Vasher can store a lot of Breath should he be out in a highstorm.  He may actually have quite a few tucked away as "life insurance" that we simply don't know about.

[Mistdork]

It could be a sDNA issue... Vasher's sDNA makes it more difficult to adsorb Stormlight, so when the body (or Cognitive/Spiritual aspect?) does so, it uses up Investiture in the process than eats the remaining Investiture. Since Stormlight likes to escape at the same time he does this process (which takes an unspecified amount of time), he loses it in that way too, and supposing he does this in private once a week and if the process is both time consuming and inconvenient, the total cost of transmutating Stormlight into edible Investiture might be just too high to make it convenient...if you follow my drift.

 

If that made sense at all, that is...(and I realized this doesn't really address Awakening with Stormlight, in some ways, that might be easier...maybe).

[Calderis]

Maybe I'm completely off here, but the way I interpret the answer given implies a different question.

It seems to me that rather than the ratio of breath to stormlight used, the answer given is in relation to TOTAL breath:Stormlight. As in the is much much more stormlight than breath, but without being inhaled/stored in spheres, the majority is unusable.

It seems very in line with answering a question perfectly, without divulging any useful information.

Also, this is my first post. Hi everyone.

[RawToast225]

The main problem with this is we have no way to quantify Stormlight or Breath. We can't give an accurate ratio without numbers. If we tried, we would be saying "an arms worth of starlight is worth one breath." It is too imprecise, too abstract.

[Kipper]

Incidentally, Brandon said at a signing that he had an official ratio, by not on him. Then he said he probably wouldn't answer even if he remembered. (Sorry no link)

[vertigo 1]

Algebra class on Roshar has got to have the WEIRDEST word problems ever.

 

"Wanda Windrunner has one emerald broam, charged six days ago. Bobby Bondsmith has five bloodmarks worth of clearchips, fresh charged from a Highstorm. Using only this stormlight, they each make a Full Lashing; his is a circle forty centimeters in radius, hers is a equilateral triangle with sides thirty centimeters in length. Which Lashing will give out first, and how long from that moment until the second one gives out?"

 

 

 

I thought the opposite; doesn't Zahel comment that the Purelake reminds him of T'Telir, and he doesn't go there because he hates being reminded of T'Telir?

 

 

Minor point; in Warbreaker, early on, he comments that he wishes he could stay inconspicuous, but that's almost impossible with his aura from all the Breaths he got from that rebel guy. While never flat-out stated, it's very strongly implied that he can only hide his one Divine Breath, and he has no capacity to hide the aura he gets from other Breaths.

you get an upvote for the algebra question.