Skimmers floating and flying

[AnotherOneArmedHerdazian]

I am very new to this community although not new to the works of Brandon Sanderson. 

I was listening to Shadows of Self yet again, and a thought came to me.

A skimmer would have to be the hardest person to drown. They could always decrease their weight to that of air or lighter and float like an inflated bag. They would never drown, even if weighted down with mafia cement shoes. 

Since reading of when Sazed floated down into the Inquisitors' HQ with Marsh back in the first trilogy I have always had one hilarious thought about the skimming ability. It is that of someone completely naked slowly flying/floating around like a miniature blimp with a small handheld fan propelling them. I believe it would genuinely grant the ability of flight but a very hilarious and not too glamorous version of it.

This flying idea was demonstrated by the flying machines in Bands of Mourning.  I'm curious to know that if the skimming ability were present in a modern era with modern tech, could a lightweight jet pack of sorts be made for only skimmers could use? Or even a modern 4+ prop drone they could ride?

I'm curious to know what others think of these ideas.

If I'm late to the discussion regarding the ideas of skimmers and how their weightlessness could be used in such ways please direct me to the appropriate threads. 

[Oversleep]

Relevant WoB:

Quote

He said the weight of your gear and metalminds will weigh you down, but after I asked if you could do it naked with your hand against an ironwall he said yes you would indeed float like a balloon.

source

 

[Farnsworth]

Skimming is not like Gravitation, so you can't get lighter than weightless. That means that any gear or clothing will give you a positive weight, including the fan. However, if you burned pewter you could probably be strong enough to blow themselves forward. I love this image though!

[Reborn radiant]

Welcome to the shard!
Now all I can think of is going through water like a jet skii x'D

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

Welcome to the shard!

Quick question: If iron stores weight, not density, shouldn't a person sink regardless of their weight since they still have a greater density than water?

Edited May 19, 2017 by Faceless Mist-Wraith

[Spoolofwhool]

10 minutes ago, Faceless Mist-Wraith said:

Welcome to the shard!

Quick question: If iron stores weight, not density, shouldn't a person sink regardless of their weight since they still have a greater density that water?

No, because the reason people sink is because of the force of gravity pulling them downwards is less than the buoyancy pushing them upwards. Lowering mass lowers the force of gravity. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[NewbSombrero he/him]

On 5/18/2017 at 11:15 AM, Figberts said:

Skimming is not like Gravitation, so you can't get lighter than weightless. That means that any gear or clothing will give you a positive weight, including the fan. However, if you burned pewter you could probably be strong enough to blow themselves forward. I love this image though!

I thought that there was no such thing as  a perfect Twinborn combination, but you just proved me wrong.

[Steeldancer he/him]

On 5/21/2017 at 10:55 PM, NewbSombrero said:

I thought that there was no such thing as  a perfect Twinborn combination, but you just proved me wrong.

That and Steelrunning. Ah if only. Now, given, there is the friction issue. But a little crossover from Roshar can fix that 

Edited May 24, 2017 by The Flash

[orangesrhyme he/him]

So, if you can fill an Ironmind to the point of being weightless, shouldn't you still float like a balloon? You'd have buoyancy in the regular atmosphere, no?

[The One Who Connects he/him]

13 minutes ago, orangesrhyme said:

So, if you can fill an Ironmind to the point of being weightless, shouldn't you still float like a balloon? You'd have buoyancy in the regular atmosphere, no?

From Oversleep's post earlier in this thread:

Quote

He said the weight of your gear and metalminds will weigh you down, but after I asked if you could do it naked with your hand against an ironwall he said yes you would indeed float like a balloon.

source

[orangesrhyme he/him]

11 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

From Oversleep's post earlier in this thread:

Ah, I should have clarified – the direction I was going was that the buoyancy provided by essentially, to the air, becoming a vacuum (a volume with a mass of zero) by filling to weightlessness should be able to lift clothes and stuff. 

 

However, I did some research! The concept of using a vacuum to provide lift in lieu of ultralight gases is nothing new: Wiki on vacuum airships

 

We see in that link that 1 L of displaced air lifts about 1.3 grams, depending on air temp and altitude, as well as other factors.

 

Since a human has roughly the same density as water, we can estimate the volume of a person by taking their weight in kilograms, which is probably within a few percentage points of their volume in liters.

 

So, given a 200 lb (90kg) iron ferring, tapping to full wieghtlessness, you can expect 90L of displacement, or 117 grams. Which, unfortunately, is less than clothes, and far less than a decently sized Ironmind. Perhaps if one wove ultrathin (and marginally lighter than 117g) clothes out of iron... 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

37 minutes ago, orangesrhyme said:

Ah, I should have clarified – the direction I was going was that the buoyancy provided by essentially, to the air, becoming a vacuum (a volume with a mass of zero) by filling to weightlessness should be able to lift clothes and stuff.

However, I did some research! The concept of using a vacuum to provide lift in lieu of ultralight gases is nothing new: Wiki on vacuum airships

Ohhhh... so that's what you meant. Thanks for the link, it's a fascinating read so far. Interestingly enough, this seems to be a concept that should work better on large scale than small scale.
I haven't really dived into the math section yet, but since 1L of displaced air could lift 1.28g of weight, then it stands to reason that it would be more effective as you increase the size of the empty space. The gap between the two numbers increases as the numbers increase, so the extra weight they can carry goes up too. Not sure if it'll ever reach a practical gap since you need strong walls so the vacuum chamber doesn't implode, but interesting nonetheless

[orangesrhyme he/him]

Yeah, I remember io9 (when I still read it) did an article about proposed geodesic superstructures at near-vacuum, providing enough lift for essentially a sky city.

 

The most interesting or amusing implication in the Cosmere is that the bigger you are as an iron ferring, the "lighter" you can get (as far as displacement and stuff). It's a tiny difference – you'd have to be a gigantic freak to be able to lift your clothes and metalminds – but still, kind of interesting that that's how it works. 

 

Of course, on the other side of the boxing, being more heavy would presumably fill metalminds at a greater rate...

[Alfa he/him]

There might be a solution for Ironflying, which I personally do not support, but that could be true. It works on the following known mechanics:

1) a mistborn can burn even things thazt are not technically in their digestive tract, but in other places too (there was an example about accidentally burning a copper IUD)
2) a feruchemist can in general use swallowed metalminds; i conclude that an IUD could be used as a coppermind.

I follow with the assumption that somebody, if crazy enough, could burn metallic implants (like bone-fixing screws), or use them as metalminds.

I also assume that you could see implants as part of you, given the right mindframe (unluckily, that means that neither gold nor stormlight will heal the injury that made them necessary).

Here comes the interesting point: If you see an iron implant as a part of yourself - could you see it as a feruchemical storage, too? My intuition says no, but if so, you could get an ironmind that, when storing weight stores its own weight and therefore weights nothing - like your whole body.

 

[Calderis he/him]

@Alfa as far as the Cognitive part of this I think that's actually plausible.

The problem I see though, is that for it to be a "part" of you, cognitively, it's going to have to be there for a looking time. 

If you aren't a gold feruchemist, that's going to lead to a lot of problems of its own. 

[Alfa he/him]

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Alfa as far as the Cognitive part of this I think that's actually plausible.

The problem I see though, is that for it to be a "part" of you, cognitively, it's going to have to be there for a looking time. 

If you aren't a gold feruchemist, that's going to lead to a lot of problems of its own. 

Well, metal poisoning is also a problem I did not think abouzt, but a full feruchemist could conteract it; however I think to see something both as a metalmind and part of your boidy will not work well, because cognitively a metalmind might be necessarily a singular entity. If indeed possible, the interactions between invested parts of your body and ironstoring might be interesting at least.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Alfa

[+hwiles]

So...a normal helium balloon that you'd find at a party store or amusement park is going to have a net lift of something like 10 grams.  All Wax has to do if he wants to fly is get something like 100 of them, strip naked, then wear an ironmind with a mass of less than 1 kg.  Considering how much time it takes him to fill his normal bracers walking around at half weight, a 0.5 kg bracer would probably allow him to float at least half a day, if not significantly longer.

[8bitBob]

4 hours ago, hwiles said:

So...a normal helium balloon that you'd find at a party store or amusement park is going to have a net lift of something like 10 grams.  All Wax has to do if he wants to fly is get something like 100 of them, strip naked, then wear an ironmind with a mass of less than 1 kg.  Considering how much time it takes him to fill his normal bracers walking around at half weight, a 0.5 kg bracer would probably allow him to float at least half a day, if not significantly longer.

Theoretically, you can use very small metalminds (a couple hundred grams at most) instantly tap it all when it fills and then continue dumping weight afterwards. You'll be incredibly heavy for the briefest of moments, but you shouldn't lose much height to it due to the small window of time in which the force was applied.

To go further, we know that Feruchemy granted by Hemalurgy is "leaky" in that you lose some attribute as you store. If you spiked yourself to be an incredibly weak Iron Ferring, you could still dump all your weight in an Ironmind, but you wold have to tap the weight less often because you fill it slower. Theoretically, this could also be achieved by medallions.

[DocHoliday he/him]

I don't see why an object might not be perceived as a part of oneself and a metal-mind at once. Take Inquisitors for example, surely they see the Spikes as being a part of themselves and HoA confirms their Spikes can be used as metal-minds.

Edit: for clarity

Edited June 15, 2017 by DocHoliday

[Alfa he/him]

1 hour ago, DocHoliday said:

I don't see why am object might be perceived as a part of oneself and a metal-mind at once. Take Inquisitors for example, surely they see the Spikes as being a part of themselves and HoA confirms they Spikes can be used as metal-minds.

Good point, but I disagree.

I think that in Cognitive mechanics spikes are not a part of the Inquisitor: if you remove one spike from the inquisitor (without killing him or her) it is still a hemalurgic spike. If you remove an arm from an Inquisitor (also without killing him or her) it would now be a dead arm. In one situation the cognitive identity is preserved, in the other it is changed.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Alfa

[8bitBob]

12 minutes ago, Alfa said:

I think that in Cognitive mechanics spikes are not a part of the Inquisitor: if you remove one spike from the inquisitor (without killing him or her) it is still a hemalurgic spike. If you remove an arm from an Inquisitor (also without killing him or her) it would now be a dead arm. In one situation the cognitive identity is preserved, in the other it is changed.

I don't feel that this is a very strong argument. I see my organs as mine and a part of me, but when I die there's a strong chance that they'll be harvested and given to another person. That is to say, my organs are a part of my self and Identity, but that doesn't mean only I can make use of them.

Personally, I think it's probably possible that a spike could become a part of your Identity due to what we learn in BoM and Soulcasting. Stick, being the boss that it is, is entirely made of non living material, yet it has an Identity. Before he fell off a tree, I'm sure the tree saw Stick as part of its Identity. Similarly, we know that Southerner airships can use Iron Feruchemy to alter their weight. I imagine the limits of what weight is altered largely has to do with Identity, as that makes the most sense. So the walls, floors, frame and everything that is the ship has its weight reduced, while the cargo and passengers do not.

But the ship is just interchangeable parts. Ships like that would often go through repairs, swapping planks and ropes and such constantly. But it incorporates these pieces as a part of its Identity and is still the same ship. It is a literal Ship of Theseus. I imagine this sort of thing is more difficult for people, as we have a much clearer Cognitive impression of what is Us, but it should theoretically be possible.

[Calderis he/him]

As a person who used to have facial piercings, I can say that even though a piece of metal inserted into the body is a foreign object, if it remains there long enough it feels normal and is viewed as a part of yourself. 

My own experience is why I lean towards the interpretation that at least cognitively it could be done.