New information about Iron Feruchemy

[Seonid he/him]

Don't worry, no Bands Spoilers here.

 

I asked Brandon about Iron Feruchemy at the release party, though. I have had a pet theory about Feruchemical iron for a while - that it messes with the person's connection to the Higgs field. Brandon confirmed it in the signing line. Exact words will, I'm sure, be on the transcript, but I asked specifically if it involved Higgs field stuff, and he said yes.

 

For those who don't know - the Higgs field is a quantum field that interacts with various particles and gives them their mass. The force carrier of the field is the Higgs boson, recently discovered by the LHC.

 

So, by decreasing your interaction with the Higgs field, you could decrease your mass without messing with the amount of matter in you. How it interacts with density would be more subtle, but I think that it works out most of the kinks with Feruchemical iron and density.

 

Sorry for not posting this on the earlier discussion threads, but I couldn't find them fast enough. So you get a new thread for all you people more hardcore about theorizing than I am. I'll just go back to trying to graduate.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Oh wow, this was actually my head canon for what was going on, so it's nice to get this confirmed. Thanks for asking about it!

[Chaos he/him]

You guys really like to know the mechanics of things that, I feel like, are really just "okay let's make some stuff up about physics to make this work"

[The Invested Beard]

Because PHYSICS!

[Quiver he/him]

Ya know, with all the "hard science" explanations fantasy has nowadays, I'd kinda love to see a short story of a stereotypical wizard, drunk in a bar, reminiscing about the good ole days when magic meant "I ain't gotta explain it".

[Chaos he/him]

Ya know, with all the "hard science" explanations fantasy has nowadays, I'd kinda love to see a short story of a stereotypical wizard, drunk in a bar, reminiscing about the good ole days when magic meant "I ain't gotta explain it".

That sounds like a story Will (Shivertongue) should write. He almost assuredly would write it and it would be hilarious.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Ya know, with all the "hard science" explanations fantasy has nowadays, I'd kinda love to see a short story of a stereotypical wizard, drunk in a bar, reminiscing about the good ole days when magic meant "I ain't gotta explain it".

 

Lol yes.

That actually is a pretty good explanation for how iron feruchemy works though.

[DreamEternal]

Lol yes.

That actually is a pretty good explanation for how iron feruchemy quantum mechanics work though.

Fixed.

Edited January 27, 2016 by DreamEternal

[Gagylpus he/him]

Actually, most of the mass of the matter in the universe is not from the Higgs field. The Higgs field gives mass to electrons and quarks, which are all tiny. Electrons have about 1/2000 times the mass of a proton,  and quarks have about 1/250 (iirc). Most (99%) of the mass of proton and neutrons (which themselves form 99.9% of the mass of all matter) is from the kinetic energy of its constituent quarks and the binding energy of the gluon field. Neither of these would even change that much if quarks were massless (because even massless particles have momentum and kinetic energy, thanks to special relativity).

 

So most of our mass is really just a function of the strength of the strong force between quarks and gluons. And I doubt iron feruchemy fiddles with that, because Wax doesn't dissolve into a quark-gluon plasma when he stores weight. :/ So yeah. Iron feruchemy still breaks physics.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Gagylpus

[Shadeshadow227]

...so, Iron is kind of like Chromium and Duralumin, Feruchemically affecting outside things which affect the Feruchemist. (Chromium being probability values, and Duralumin being spiritual connection.)