Allomancy, E=mc^2, and the Law of Conservation of Energy.

[Oversleep]

I always thought that in the process of burning (which gives access to Preservation) Allomancers also metabolize metals in magical way which doesn't poison them and remainders of metals safely travel through their digestive system to the very end, finally returning to earth.

As for the thermodynamics, I assume things in cosmere obey them, it's just that Investiture has some way to hack the entrophy to convert the end-product (which is probably heat) back to Investiture, thus making Investiture level constant.

[Thermophile he/him]

As I said in the original post, I originally thought the metal was turned into an inert state, but in the scene with all the atium towards the end of the third book pretty much makes that impossible.

 

As for entropy, that would break the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is probably the second most often broken law of physics in fiction. Although I personally believe that the First Law is being broken in this instance, there isn't any evidence either way.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Thermophile

[natc]

Well, without a closed system there's not much to be said for the First Law. It will have to be adapted to account for investiture as the apparent stuff of existence.

Investiture has it's own laws of dynamics, apparently. I would guess that in the cosmere, everything can be in some way derived from investiture, and the laws of thermodynamics will then be the standard behavior of "investiture" when in the form of energy and nothing else. When some other manifestation such as stormlight or mist acts on the system, the Laws of Thermodynamics may appear to be broken, but like how it is possible to pretty much ignore the original "conservation of mass" law by conversion to energy (and back, hypothetically) factoring investiture can probably explain much of the rampant physics-breaking here. Perhaps in the loss of observable entropy the entropy of investiture has increased, or something similar? Shards are somewhat of an oddity then, but to be fair we have this big ball of glowing gas gathered together in the sky shining on us all the time.

And then realmatics will melt our brains.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

How about this?

The metal consumed by allomantic burning is converted into investiture that gets added to Scadrial's "background investiture".

If a Shard is not opposed or prevented to do so by its intent, it can periodically turn that investiture back into a physical form as metals somewhere in a mine (or as a heap of discarded paperclips on a landfill).

 

This is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics (I think) as the investiture in the system remains constant, as well as the WoB that states that Scadrial will eventually run out of metals (if you don't take shardic intervention into account, and let's be honest, if we did, what would be

 the point of scientific-ish inquiry?).

 

 

Shards are somewhat of an oddity then, but to be fair we have this big ball of glowing gas gathered together in the sky shining on us all the time.

I thought that was an exploding TARDIS. 

[natc]

Someone was farting in that TARDIS.

[Jondesu he/him]

As I said in the original post, I originally thought the metal was turned into an inert state, but in the scene with all the atium towards the end of the third book pretty much makes that impossible.

 

As for entropy, that would break the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is probably the second most often broken law of physics in fiction. Although I personally believe that the First Law is being broken in this instance, there isn't any evidence either way.

I don't know that Atium is a viable proof here, actually. It differs from the other metals in many ways, including how it's formed (by apparently. Ago all means, since it grows in crystals). I suspect it truly is destroyed completely, to regrow in a few hundred years, even if other metals are not.

jW

[Thermophile he/him]

The only difference between atium and other metals is that atium is completely composed of Ruin rather than half Preservation. I see no reason it would dissapear differentely from other metals. Besides, if other metals turned inert, wouldn't that affect pewter dragging?

[Jondesu he/him]

Atium is actually a "god metal", and apparently composes part of the physical body of Ruin. It's speculated to be just a physical form of pure Ruin investiture, so it makes sense it would work differently than other metals (along with Lerasium, the equivalent from Preservation). I agree, though, pewter-dragging would get...messy, if nothing else, if metals don't disappear when burned.

jW

[natc]

There's the part where atium allomancy apparently uses the atium for power directly, as well. Normal metal doesn't do that.

[Thermophile he/him]

Atium is actually a "god metal", and apparently composes part of the physical body of Ruin.

Sazed says that the real difference between atium and other metals is that atium is composed of entirely Ruin, rather than half Preservation and half Ruin. Although it would make sense that the source of power differs slightly, the fact that toxic metals do not harm you after being burned (Kelsiers words) leads me to believe that other metals vacate the stomach as well.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Thermophile