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Can fIron let you fly like a blimp?


Swimmingly

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Do they have helium in Alloy of Law? I imagine you could wear some really light clothing and attach a helium balloon to a harness and then fill your metalmind.

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If there isn't any wind, an earring will be enough to keep you pinned to the floor.

Helium was isolated on March 26, 1895, by 
Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay, thanks wikipedia.
Aluminium, on the other hand, was isolated in 1826, so we know that Elendel scientists have a few decades to go until the proper technology is available to them. Although, this might not be right, because chemistry in Elendel must be biased towards metals, so finding a gas might take them even longer.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, was isolated a century or two before Helium. And remember before the Hindenburg, blimps were filled up with Hydrogen anyway (hence, you know, the Hindenburg). So in AoL, they've probably already got access to hydrogen.

But when I read blimps, I instantly wondered if you can fill up a Cadmium mind with helium or hydrogen? You could adjust the altitude doing that. Not to mention the pitch of your voice, and maybe keep a separate mind filled up with oxygen, so you don't die from a lungful of noxious gas.

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Helium was isolated on March 26, 1895, by Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay, thanks wikipedia.

Aluminium, on the other hand, was isolated in 1826, so we know that Elendel scientists have a few decades to go until the proper technology is available to them. Although, this might not be right, because chemistry in Elendel must be biased towards metals, so finding a gas might take them even longer.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, was isolated a century or two before Helium. And remember before the Hindenburg, blimps were filled up with Hydrogen anyway (hence, you know, the Hindenburg). So in AoL, they've probably already got access to hydrogen.

 

Isn't Alloy-era Scadrial supposed to be at a 1910/1920's level tech? (I'm pretty sure its after the turn of the century tech-level-wise)

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Just to clarify the tech levels:
 

 

The major advantage of telegraphs in the short term comes from financial gain from up-to-date knowledge of far-flung markets, political information, or timely military intelligence. None of these are a very large concern when the vast majority of the population is concentrated in a single city that contains just about all of the major markets and politics that there are on the world. The rest of the population is also fairly close, either in the Elendel Basin or not worth talking with (and still not that far away) in the Roughs. There also doesn't appear to be any warfare so far on Scadrial.

This.
 
The technology level is meant to be about 1910 New York, but their electrical wires are mostly underground, and technology lags 1910 in certain areas and is ahead in certain areas (especially metallurgy). Let's say that internal combustion engines are at 1910 level, metallurgy is decades ahead, and anything involving electricity is decades behind. Also, I have no idea at all about the current state of medicine.

 

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Read above, a grown human should have lifting power of about 60g. I think you can fit an iron earring in that... Unless my math is wrong, of course.

Edit: I highly doubt one can store gas that isn't used for breathing (oxygen). In fact, I highly doubt Gasper is storing gas, rather than its oxidation power, since that would imply that one would have to exhale continuously while tapping.

 

How specifically do you measure how much lifting power a human should have? Are you talking "flapping your arms like wings"?

 

I actually really, really like to imagine a Gasper opera singer who can hold a note for seven minutes straight....

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How specifically do you measure how much lifting power a human should have? Are you talking "flapping your arms like wings"?

 

I actually really, really like to imagine a Gasper opera singer who can hold a note for seven minutes straight....

Imagine the cadmium-clad barbershop quartets, my friend. IMAGINE THEM.
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Just to clarify the tech levels:

The technology level is meant to be about 1910 New York, but their electrical wires are mostly underground, and technology lags 1910 in certain areas and is ahead in certain areas (especially metallurgy).

 

That is very interesting.  Apparently they are a bit behind in the use of electricity in metal extraction.  Aluminum is still very rare and expensive in Elendel, but, IRL, the Hall-Heroult process was discovered in 1886.  This process drastically reduced the price of aluminum.  Like, making the price of platinum go down to the price of aluminum in current dollars.

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By displaced volume. Human body is 60-70L on average. Air is 1-1.2 g/L with some variation. Assuming that weight/mass is one of the attributes you can store at 100% (unlike, say, health or speed), you'll get around 60g, maybe more. Flapping hands may help if you do it right (like swimming). Though the earring might not be the best choice, since it would turn you head down...

The average 80kg human has 110,000 calories in them.

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I suppose if you make yourself light enough you could float around with a reltively small helium balloon. You'd still need some wheight for the metalminds (and I suppose you want to keep some clothes too), and that would be enough to make sure that you can't just lift with the buoiancy provided by air on your body alone (the mass of air is roughly 1.3 kg per cubic meter, a normal human would receive less than 100g of lift. And I suppose you'd need a sizable metalmind to fill all that wheight for any lenght of time). Or you could still be light enough that you'd be blow away by a relatively weak wind.

But I think the coolest thing would be to strap wings to your arms and fly.

You could also walk on water thanks to surface tension.

Or go parachuting without a parachute.

Now lots of awesome things to be done with Feruchemical iron are mocing to my mind. I want it!

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