cosmere Cosmere Theory and Gedankenexperiments [Spoilers]

[Necarion]

I've noticed that Brandon is generally far more receptive to thought-experiment-based questions regarding his magic systems than he is to direct questions.  So I'm proposing this thread for Cosmere mechanics questions (i.e., not character/plot/worldbuilding questions) as well as potential in-universe experiments to investigate these questions in-universe.

Please post the question you want answered (Q), as well as the experiments you would perform (E) and potential hypotheses and how they would relate to particular experimental outcomes. Some of these will be easier than others, so I'd recommend secondary questions based on certain outcomes and/or possible consequences (C) of each answer (A).  The archetype for this thread is Krhriss' wonderful interrogation of Wax in Bands of Mourning.

Examples:
1) Q: Does aluminum block Steel/Iron Sight.
E: Take two equal-mass/shape metal pellets and coat one with aluminum. Can a Coinshot can see lines any difference in the lines pointing to the aluminum-coated one?
C: Can you use aluminum to shield valuables from detection or to smuggle weapons under the nose of coinshots?  Can aluminum be used to protect metalminds that are not embedded in the body?
A: No lines.  E_2: Does partial blocking protect the object from steelsight? How much coverage do you need? Is there a strictly line-of-sight effect (note: Line-of-Sight not required for protection against soothing)
    Lines equally strong.  Aluminum probably unuseful as a shield. E_2: Repeat with much thicker Al block.
    Visible lines, but less strong.  Is there a threshold to total blockage? E_2: Try with different thicknesses of aluminum, different coverages, etc.

2) Q: what happens to metals when they are burned?
E: Put an allomancer into a hermetically sealed chamber that is very carefully weighed during the process.  Have them burn different metals at different intensities and record the weight for the chamber.
C: Could you figure out a way to collect the metals that are burned and reuse them?  Is there any chance for long-term metal depletion on Scadrial? Can you recycle metals?
A: Weight unchanged. Metals not 'destroyed'.  E_2: Carefully filter air and test for trace metals.  E_3: Test to see if there is a weight-change _while burning metals_ to see if active use of investiture conveys any sort of weight change.
    Weight changes. See if you can use this to quantify allomantic burn rate among individuals. E_2: See how this change correlates with allomantic strength in specific contexts (I suspect that burn rate is uncorrelated with innate allomantic strength, even if one individual can push harder with a faster burn.  So TLR and Vin would use up their metals at a relatively similar rate despite a vast disparity in power levels).

Subquestion 2.5: Can you quantify Mass-Investiture equivalence with a sensitive enough scale?
E: (a) Carefully prepare two identically-massed metalminds and then Charge them to different levels.  Can you see a weight change?
C: Feruchemy is considered here in case allomantic metals are completely destroyed.  Note that this experiment would only be able to provide upper bounds for Mass-Investiture equivalence and couldn't be used to completely rule out 'no conversion'.
 

[KnightGradient]

I think this is a great idea.

Q: Is Hoids' immortality and health regeneration based, or is it through fiddling with Connection?

E: If Hoid were to drink punch, which was spiked(heh) with liquor, and he did not know it was alcoholic, would he get drunk?

C: If yes, then his longevity is due to Connection fiddling.
A: If not, then his immortality is due to regeneration, similar to pewter/Stormlight.

[Necarion]

17 hours ago, KnightGradient said:

I think this is a great idea.

Q: Is Hoids' immortality and health regeneration based, or is it through fiddling with Connection?

E: If Hoid were to drink punch, which was spiked(heh) with liquor, and he did not know it was alcoholic, would he get drunk?

C: If yes, then his longevity is due to Connection fiddling.

Interesting question, and could probably open up a decent line of inquiry.  However, I'm not sure how you would separate Connection-based from Identity-based effects?  And how could you be sure that connection effects, which may be left on for the purposes of communicating in a strange land, wouldn't work on the alcohol actively? We also don't know if Hoid's healing is some sort of active ward that he leaves on, or something innate.  However, I feel that after (N+1),000 years, Hoid probably doesn't slip much

[kenod]

Q: How much Joule is one filled average diamond chip
E: If you could change the source of Investure for steelpushing, for how long could you provide a force of one newton on a metal object using a average filled diamond chip?
A: With this answer you could get a unit for Investure and a conversion scale.

P.S.
I'm not using surges because the most obvious surge, Gravitation seems to work using Connection, so I don't know if the requires the same amount of energy.
 

Edited June 28, 2016 by kenod
spelling

[Jondesu he/him]

14 minutes ago, kenod said:

Q: How much Joule is one filled average diamond chip
E: If you could change the source of Investure for steelpushing, for how long could you provide a force of one newton on a metal object using a average filled diamond chip?
A: With this answer you could get a unit for Investure and a conversion scale.

P.S.
I'm not using surges because the most obvious surge, Gravitation seems to work using Connection, so I don't know if the requires the same amount of energy.
 

Brandon would probably wiggle around that by saying there'd be power loss converting it to another magic system. 

jW

[kenod]

Just now, Jondesu said:

Brandon would probably wiggle around that by saying there'd be power loss converting it to another magic system. 

jW

Yeah, I should probably add in that the process is advanced enough that you don't get any energy loss, or use the equivalent of the diamond chip in Preservation Investure.

[Landis963 he/him]

On 6/28/2016 at 4:43 PM, kenod said:

Yeah, I should probably add in that the process is advanced enough that you don't get any energy loss, or use the equivalent of the diamond chip in Preservation Investure.

Not really.  Find a Squire Radiant who doesn't have any 'Light in him at the moment, hand him an unkeyed empty nicromind and an infused clearchip, and ask him (in the interest of science) to breathe in the 'Light from the chip and place it in the metalmind.  At which point you take it to a handy-dandy Coinshot or Lurcher and ask them to push (or pull) on the filled nicromind with a specific amount of force for a specific amount of time, and compare that to your control, which would be that same metric applied to another nicromind which is identical to the first save that it is completely empty and is thus a normal piece of nicrosil.  Presto, a measure of how much an infused clearchip's Stormlight messes with Allomancy.  And a similar system can be used with basically any system where Investiture is floating around - wouldn't work for, say, Sand Mastery, as seen in the first volume of White Sand anyway, but would work for both BioChroma and Stormlight.  

Edited July 2, 2016 by Landis963

[kenod]

5 hours ago, Landis963 said:

Not really.  Find a Squire Radiant who doesn't have any 'Light in him at the moment, hand him an unkeyed empty nicromind and an infused clearchip, and ask him (in the interest of science) to breathe in the 'Light from the chip and place it in the metalmind.  At which point you take it to a handy-dandy Coinshot or Lurcher and ask them to push (or pull) on the filled nicromind with a specific amount of force for a specific amount of time, and compare that to your control, which would be that same metric applied to another nicromind which is identical to the first save that it is completely empty and is thus a normal piece of nicrosil.  Presto, a measure of how much an infused clearchip's Stormlight messes with Allomancy.  And a similar system can be used with basically any system where Investiture is floating around - wouldn't work for, say, Sand Mastery, as seen in the first volume of White Sand anyway, but would work for both BioChroma and Stormlight.  

Perhaps, but the purpose of the experiment isn't to have a measure of interference, but to conversation scale between ICC (Infused ClearChip) and Joule.

[Landis963 he/him]

3 hours ago, kenod said:

Perhaps, but the purpose of the experiment isn't to have a measure of interference, but to conversation scale between ICC (Infused ClearChip) and Joule.

And once you have the measure of interference from the chip, you can compare that to feruchemic interference, which gets you a basic scale of how much investiture is in a clearchip.  

The only issues with the setup are 1) you need the scale of how much feruchemic investiture messes with allomancy first, and 2) there might be some loss if your Radiant guinea pig doesn't immediately transfer the Stormlight over.  

[kenod]

On 2-7-2016 at 3:54 PM, Landis963 said:

And once you have the measure of interference from the chip, you can compare that to feruchemic interference, which gets you a basic scale of how much investiture is in a clearchip.  

The only issues with the setup are 1) you need the scale of how much feruchemic investiture messes with allomancy first, and 2) there might be some loss if your Radiant guinea pig doesn't immediately transfer the Stormlight over.  

I'm thinking that we are talking past each other. If I read what you are writing correctly you are trying to find out how much Investure is inside a Clearchip. I'm trying to find out how much joule one measurement of Investure is worth. I'm just using the Clearchip as a form of measurement and could also use Breath for example.

[Landis963 he/him]

There's no guarantee that any discrete measure of Investiture will be equivalent to 1 joule.  (Which you'll need to find if you want to have a proper conversion between Joules and whatever we're calling units of Investiture) For all we know, we could be trying to get a single cup of water with a 3-cup measure and a 5-cup measure.  And we can only tell how much water's in each measure by echolocation.

With that said, however, the easiest way to populate such a scale as I describe would be to push on a standardized metalmind in increments of Joules.  Which gets the units right, at least.

[Lightspine]

24 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

There's no guarantee that any discrete measure of Investiture will be equivalent to 1 joule.  (Which you'll need to find if you want to have a proper conversion between Joules and whatever we're calling units of Investiture) For all we know, we could be trying to get a single cup of water with a 3-cup measure and a 5-cup measure.  And we can only tell how much water's in each measure by echolocation.

With that said, however, the easiest way to populate such a scale as I describe would be to push on a standardized metalmind in increments of Joules.  Which gets the units right, at least.

A joule is defined to be a kilogram times meter squared per second squared, aka the amount of energy to accelerate a one kilogram object at one meter per second squared over a distance of one meter. So all you need is a windrunner or skybreaker to lash an object of a known mass at a known constant of acceleration (one lashing would have a constant of 0.7 x 9.8 = 6.86 meters per second squared) with a known amount of stormlight, measure how far the object goes before the stormlight runs out and it stops accelerating, and bam you can calculate joules.

Edited July 3, 2016 by Lightspine

[Landis963 he/him]

When you put it that way it sounds so easy.   However, what about, say, Breaths? Or Dor power?  

[Lightspine]

19 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

When you put it that way it sounds so easy.   However, what about, say, Breaths? Or Dor power?  

As mentioned above, using an unkeyed nicrosil metalmind seems as if it can convert between forms of investure. A radiant could fill it with stormlight and a Nalthisian would draw Breaths from it.

On a side note, it doesn't seem that Breaths use their own investure to awaken things, as they are never used up. It seems that they are more similar to an allomantic metal, as a focus that allows energy to be drawn from the Endowment. Unlike metal though, it still contains investure so I find that confusing. Also, would an Elantrian have to draw an Aon to be able to draw investure from an unkeyed nicromind?

[Landis963 he/him]

I was more wondering how you'd equate different forms of Investiture with Stormlight/joule.  My trick with the nicromind and the clearchip might work for some forms, but not nearly all of them.  Notably, Breaths, which as you state aren't used up in granting things motion, unlike Stormlight or allomancy.  Also, anything relating to pulling power directly from a Shard - The Dor being a prime example - has no real method of quantification.  

[kenod]

11 hours ago, Lightspine said:

A joule is defined to be a kilogram times meter squared per second squared, aka the amount of energy to accelerate a one kilogram object at one meter per second squared over a distance of one meter. So all you need is a windrunner or skybreaker to lash an object of a known mass at a known constant of acceleration (one lashing would have a constant of 0.7 x 9.8 = 6.86 meters per second squared) with a known amount of stormlight, measure how far the object goes before the stormlight runs out and it stops accelerating, and bam you can calculate joules.

IIRC Lashings work through modifying Spiritual Bonds, so I'm not sure if you could get the same scale.