How speed bubbles work

[Farnsworth]

Time in the Cosmere does not seem like something that can be warped. For example, we don't have any time travel magic so far, and even shards that can see into the future only see possibilities.  Then all of a sudden, in Mistborn era 2, something happened that allowed time to speed up and slow down. This is a really big deal! Bendalloy, which speeds up time, essentially allows a person to go into the future at a very slow pace! This is crazy! So I have a theory. I don't think the time is actually being altered. It's the cognitive aspect that is altered. The person's perception  of time changes, not time itself. They age more slowly/quickly inside the bubble because their body itself doesn't think that it's aging. Time itself stays the same. Now, this seems kind of like a moot point to argue, since either way it looks like the same to the people both in and out of the bubble. However, this is actually a pretty big issue since if it's true, it proves that time in the Cosmere is immutable and can't be altered. Otherwise we would have to look at time as something that could be warped by investiture, and that would be very confusing.

 

Ideas?

[Yata he/him]

I am sorry to disagree but the time is actually twisted into a bubble. We have some confirmations in this.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Figberts said:

They age more slowly/quickly inside the bubble because their body itself doesn't think that it's aging.

Age is a spiritual factor though. Your perception of thinking time is moving slower wouldn't change anything as your soul would still know your true age and have you reflect this. 

 

[CalaCrisp88]

Also, if time didn't truly speed up or slow down, then BS wouldn't have had to worry about redshifts in.

 

Picture from Alloy of Law annotations

[Farnsworth]

Oh well... can't get every theory right!

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Interestingly, I think bendalloy and cadmium have their in world descriptions confused. Bendalloy is slowing time and Cadmium speeds it up. Bendalloy makes seconds seem like minutes, To the people in the bubble it seems that time is moving faster. Cadmium makes hours feel like minutes, which makes me think that time in the bubble is compressed. The people in the bubble perceive themselves as moving slower than the world, which they are, so assume time is going slower.

The above WoB seems to agree with this actually, as he mentions slowing time relative to a 'speed' bubble.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

I think the confusion is introduced by the concept of relativity, which in general, Sanderson seems to be trying to avoid referencing in-book, as many Cosmere fans aren't super interested in astrophysics.  Whether bendalloy is "speeding time up" or "slowing time down" depends on which side of the bubble you're using to observe the phenomenon.

For the sake of simplicity, I think it's easier to say that: bendalloy "speeds time up" in a small sphere around the user.

However, it's very likely that an equivalent description would be that: bendalloy "slows time down" for the entire Cosmere, except in a small sphere around the user.

The current explanation as I understand it for, "why don't time bubbles have red/blue shifts?" is that there is an as yet unexplained energy/momentum transference for particles (which in this case, includes photons) that pass through the edge of a bubble.  IE: as a beam of light enters a time bubble, it apparently transfers enough of its energy into the Cognitive and/or Spiritual realms to maintain its wavelength (so shining a flashlight on Marasi doesn't cause her to be blasted with gamma rays if she's in a cadmium bubble), then if/when it bounces back out of the bubble, it recovers that energy.  The process doesn't work in a precisely 1 to 1 manner however, and there's some "twisting" involved that ultimately results in the light (or projectiles like bullets) being scattered slightly, resulting in a visual blurring effect around the edge of speed bubbles.