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The Pasage of Time and Space within the Realms


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As everyone knows, the passage of time and space within the physical realm is rigid, as in it cannot be altered. 5 seconds is 5 seconds is 5 seconds (at least within a certain shardworld), and 10 feet is 10 feet is 10 feet (with the same stipulation). This is a fact within the Cosmere, just like it is in real life.

However, space is fluid withing the Cognitive Realm. With people having the ability to Elsecall and Worldhop, space must be fluid within the cognitive realm. After all, if what is the benefit of Worldhopping if it takes you the same amount of time to get between worlds in the Cognitive Realm as in the Physical Realm.

As to time, it must be fluid in the Spiritual Realm. This is so because Forging works by changing the past of an object or person, and is known to affect the Spiritual Realm. This next bit is entirely theory as I don't know exactly how Hemalurgy works outside of the process within the Physical Realm, but Hemalurgy involves taking the powers of an individual and giving them to someone else. These abilities were given at a certain time, Allomancy specifically is given when snapped. So Hemalurgy could potentially involve changing the past of the individual so that they snapped, thus giving them the powers. This would of course only work while the spike is affecting a person.

That's my idea of how time and space are fluid in the different realms, please don't judge me too much on my Hemalurgy statement, Hemalurgy is one of the magic systems I understand the least.

Edited by Brightshade the Cunning
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Just now, Brightshade the Cunning said:

As everyone knows, the passage of time and space within the physical realm is rigid, as in it cannot be altered. 5 seconds is 5 seconds is 5 seconds, and 10 feet is 10 feet is 10 feet. This is a fact within the Cosmere, just like it is in real life.

Boy do I have some news for you regarding Special Relativity.

5 minutes ago, Brightshade the Cunning said:

However, space is fluid withing the Cognitive Realm. With people having the ability to Elsecall and Worldhop, space must be fluid within the cognitive realm. After all, if what is the benefit of Worldhopping if it takes you the same amount of time to get between worlds in the Cognitive Realm as in the Physical Realm.

We do have some insight into how this works; it's based on the amount of Cognitive activity in the region. So areas without any living things in them, like empty space, are contracted in the Cognitive Realm. However, areas of concentrated life, like cities and continents, span essentially the same distance. We do not yet know if there is a faster way to travel within the Cognitive Realm than walking.

7 minutes ago, Brightshade the Cunning said:

So Hemalurgy could potentially involve changing the past of the individual so that they snapped, thus giving them the powers. This would of course only work while the spike is affecting a person.

I think Hemalurgy is definitely a similar mechanism to Forging. Both involve altering the Spiritual makeup of an object or person. However, my impression was that Hemalurgy is much less elegant than Forgery. Forgery is very precise, and you need to change the history in believable ways or the change won't take. With Hemalurgy, it seems like you're basically using brute force to ignore the plausibility of a change and forcing it to happen. Allomancy isn't given when Snapped, but is present in the genes from birth IIRC. So while I think you could probably take somebody who had Allomantic potential but never Snapped and Forge their history so they had Snapped, I don't think you could take someone from another planet and Forge them to be an Allomancer. It's too big of a change, since you would first have to change where they were born. Hemalurgy doesn't have that restriction, so while they have some similarities (manipulation of Spiritual stuff), I don't think Hemalurgy does it in quite the same way.

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40 minutes ago, Brightshade the Cunning said:

As to time, it must be fluid in the Spiritual Realm. This is so because Forging works by changing the past of an object or person, and is known to affect the Spiritual Realm.

Hmmm... I wonder if this is how someone could travel through time. Unless this is something specific only to Hoid, we have a WoB saying that:

Quote

ERIC LAKE

Can Hoid jump through time? If so, can Shards jump through time? 

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hoid, so far, has only moved forward in time. He has not 'lived' all of those years, but has used some time dilation techniques. That said, he is far older (both in relative and real time) than a normal person can live.
Source (Question #106)

Could he have somehow gotten into the Spiritual Realm, then moved forward in time to reach an important event? Do we know if it is even possible to travel to the Spiritual Realm completely? It seems to me that you can, as I seem to remember that Perpendicularities are places where the Spiritual bleeds in to the Physical. Maybe you can take that connection the other way around?

(Just found out that you can. WoB (#47))

It could be that traveling forward in time is sort of a passive effect of being in the Spiritual Realm, then returning to time in the Physical. Only the Investiture itself is able to affect the past. That could explain why Hoid hasn't traveled back in time before, something I imagine would be extremely useful in his line of work. 

Just throwing things out there. I'm probably missing a lot of information, but that's where my mind went :)

Edited by Tariniel
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8 minutes ago, BeskarKomrk said:

Boy do I have some news for you regarding Special Relativity.

Beat me to it :-) Upvote.

6 minutes ago, Brightshade the Cunning said:

Please tell me more on Special Relativity.

Also, do you feel I was accurate?

In short, gravity effects time (specifically, the more gravity the slower the passage of time).

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14 minutes ago, Brightshade the Cunning said:

Please tell me more on Special Relativity.

Time and space are certainly not rigid. They are both affected by gravity and velocity, as well as who is viewing (the relative aspect). Time passes more quickly (or slowly depending on who is the observer (thats the whole relative thing)) if you are near something that is super massive (say a black hole) compared to a person standing on earth. 

One way to travel forward in time is to take a space ship, oribit a black hole for awhile, and come back to earth. Everyone on earth will have experienced more time relative to you. So if you had a twin who had stayed on earth while you were orbiting the black hole, your twin would be older than you.

Edited by tobar14
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9 minutes ago, Brightshade the Cunning said:

Please tell me more on Special Relativity.

Also, do you feel I was accurate?

Space and time are a little more malleable than what you stated in your original post. They are dependent on the reference frame of the observer, in a addition to the gravitational effects mentioned by @Iron Eyes. Here's the Wikipedia article on time dilation, with my favorite example of experimental testing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Velocity_and_gravitational_time_dilation_combined-effect_tests

Have you read Mistborn: Secret History? We find out some things in that novella about how the different realms work with regard to time and space.

Also @Tariniel: the second link in your post doesn't seem to go to any particular post

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