EmeraldPaladin he/him Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 How would their weight change if there is no weight already in space? Would they not be able to fill or draw upon their metalmind? Could they fill their metalmind with an infinite amount of weight? Would would they be attracted to if they increased their weight, or would they be able to increase their weight at all?
Spoolofwhool Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 Iron feruchemy actually changes the effective mass of the feruchemist. The change in weight is simply an expression of that, as it's a function of mass. An area without gravity would have no effect on your ability to perform iron feruchemy.
ZenBossanova Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 It might increase/decrease their inertia (resistance to change in movement)
Calderis he/him Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 Let's compound us up a gravity well, boys! 1
king of nowhere Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 Actually it's not clear, because iron feruchemy is not 100% consistent with pure mass change; there are a few effects (I don't remember them right now) which work a bit differently, especially the way your kinetic energy is affected. but yes, you can call it a mass change with good approximation, and therefore in space it would work as usual; it's just that it would't really change anything noticeable about you until you tried to fire a rocket or something. Well, technically, since orbiting around a planet or star actually means that you and the planet/star both orbit around your common center of mass, which just happen to coincide almost perfectly with the center of the planet/star because it is so much heavier than you, if you tapped enough weight you could noticeably change the orbit of the celestial body you're orbiting. But there's no realistic way to compound that much.
Calderis he/him Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 40 minutes ago, king of nowhere said: Well, technically, since orbiting around a planet or star actually means that you and the planet/star both orbit around your common center of mass, which just happen to coincide almost perfectly with the center of the planet/star because it is so much heavier than you, if you tapped enough weight you could noticeably change the orbit of the celestial body you're orbiting. But there's no realistic way to compound that much. I was being sarcastic about the gravity well. And yes, in terms of kinetic energy and density it doesn't perfectly fit with mass. If it did, Wax could tap weight and utterly destroy someone with a punch while being impervious to bullets. But it fits in pretty much every other way.
Glamdring804 Posted June 14, 2017 Posted June 14, 2017 3 hours ago, ZenBossanova said: It might increase/decrease their inertia (resistance to change in movement) Inertia is, for all intensive purposes, mass.
ZenBossanova Posted June 14, 2017 Posted June 14, 2017 25 minutes ago, Glamdring804 said: Inertia is, for all intensive purposes, mass. That is, of course, entirely correct. But often it is an popularly overlooked property of mass, in spite of the fact it is practically how mass is defined.
Glamdring804 Posted June 14, 2017 Posted June 14, 2017 13 hours ago, ZenBossanova said: That is, of course, entirely correct. But often it is an popularly overlooked property of mass, in spite of the fact it is practically how mass is defined. Indeed. A lot of people forget that mass is both the proportionality constant of acceleration, and the amount of matter in an object.
+Lewis Nethur He/Him Posted June 15, 2017 Posted June 15, 2017 On 6/13/2017 at 2:53 PM, gaberz24 said: How would their weight change if there is no weight already in space? Would they not be able to fill or draw upon their metalmind? Could they fill their metalmind with an infinite amount of weight? Would would they be attracted to if they increased their weight, or would they be able to increase their weight at all? You've touched on a subject that has been left deliberately vague because of its relationship with potential FTL theories for the last Mistborn trilogy. When an iron ferring stores mass/weight their momentum is (at least partially) conserved, indicated by their linear velocity increasing. However, their increased speed and decreased weight/mass means they are affected more strongly by air resistance, so crashers like Wax can generally only use this power to get short-lived bursts of speed. In a nearly friction-free environment like the vacuum of space, things get much more interesting... Storing all, or nearly all, of your mass/weight would presumably accelerate you to relativistic speeds if you were moving at any appreciable speed relative to a meaningful reference frame. Things start to get super weird at relativistic speeds though; for starters, your effective mass begins to increase, and the way you approach calculating kinetic energy and momentum get wicked more complicated. Throw in the concept of moving objects suddenly becoming nearly massless and the fact that energy and momentum aren't always conservative in the Cosmere and things get even funkier... To date, I've looked at the equations and not come up with any way that storing in iron could allow someone to exceed the speed of light, but it could probably get you pretty close. 1
Fezzik Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 Isn't that the gimmick from mass effect? Putting power through element 0 decreases your mass enough to go an appreciable fraction of the speed of light?
+Lewis Nethur He/Him Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 5 minutes ago, john203 said: Isn't that the gimmick from mass effect? Putting power through element 0 decreases your mass enough to go an appreciable fraction of the speed of light? Pretty much yeah. Not sure how they justify faster than light travel, though.
ZenBossanova Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 6 hours ago, hwiles said: o date, I've looked at the equations and not come up with any way that storing in iron could allow someone to exceed the speed of light, but it could probably get you pretty close. There is an option that is a perfectly valid solution to Special Relativity. As long as a character can increase or decrease by a Real number, we are stuck at sub-luminal speeds. But if we can make the mass become Imaginary, then that person will never travel slower than the speed of light. Particles that do this are called Tachyons. They are theoretical and have a number of interesting properties. So, this method really depends on how creative our feruchemists can get. 1
+Lewis Nethur He/Him Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 Point taken. However...Negative mass, super luminal particles, and objects that move "backwards" through time generally don't make for good fantasy novels because they are so theoretical that readers without a pre-existing background in high level math and physics would be left bored or confused. It is my hope, for the sake of the Cosmere's continued popularity, that Sanderson will find a more "elegant" solution to FTL travel than requiring readers to study relativity, or even calculus to be totally honest. I'm familiar with the subject matter and even I don't like applying it if I'm not getting paid. That's just a personal value call though, strictly speaking, what you said would in fact constitute a valid explanation.
Calderis he/him Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 6 hours ago, hwiles said: It is my hope, for the sake of the Cosmere's continued popularity, that Sanderson will find a more "elegant" solution to FTL travel than requiring readers to study relativity, or even calculus to be totally honest. I'm familiar with the subject matter and even I don't like applying it if I'm not getting paid. That's just a personal value call though, strictly speaking, what you said would in fact constitute a valid explanation I don't think we really need to worry here. With the way Brandon approaches the technical aspects of his magic systems, it seems like he'll end up explaining just enough that the people who understand the math and science will be like "yeah, that work." The majority of people will be like, "OK, there's jargon, so it must work." and the minority that want to understand it will be on here asking questions of the even smaller minority who already do. I really don't think we're going to get a math and science lesson in book. Just enough hints for people who get it to make some educated guesses. 1
Ari he/him Posted June 16, 2017 Posted June 16, 2017 On 14/06/2017 at 1:25 PM, Glamdring804 said: Inertia is, for all intensive purposes, mass. pet peeve: it's "for all intents and purposes," as in, "whatever your motivations or criteria are in considering [inertia],it's still functionally the same as [mass]." Intensive purposes isn't a commonly used phrase for a reason, and the phrase you used there doesn't actually mean anything. 16 hours ago, hwiles said: Point taken. However...Negative mass, super luminal particles, and objects that move "backwards" through time generally don't make for good fantasy novels because they are so theoretical that readers without a pre-existing background in high level math and physics would be left bored or confused. It is my hope, for the sake of the Cosmere's continued popularity, that Sanderson will find a more "elegant" solution to FTL travel than requiring readers to study relativity, or even calculus to be totally honest. I'm familiar with the subject matter and even I don't like applying it if I'm not getting paid. That's just a personal value call though, strictly speaking, what you said would in fact constitute a valid explanation. Brandon is a good enough writer that he knows the tricks to avoid it seeming too much like an infodump or even technobabble, though. You also don't need to study relativativity to understand a good analogy, anyway, which is likely what he'd use.
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