Words of Radiance Typo Thread

[alder24]

11 hours ago, DrPhysics said:

This isn't a typo, but it is a physics error that has bugged me for years and would be easy to fix.

One page 612:

If he dismissed his lashing except for one up and one down, there would be nothing to slow him to a stop (air drag isn't that strong). It's newton's first law: it doesn't take a force to move, it takes a force to change how you are moving.

The fix would be for him to stop first, cancel the lashings, then hang in the air.

I see no error here. This is the one example where you can't ignore air drag as that's the only force acting on Kaladin at that moment and it's enough to eventually stop him. It's not that weak to have no effect on Kaladin, it depends on the speed squared - the faster you move, the stronger drag is.

[DrPhysics he/him]

28 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I see no error here. This is the one example where you can't ignore air drag as that's the only force acting on Kaladin at that moment and it's enough to eventually stop him. It's not that weak to have no effect on Kaladin, it depends on the speed squared - the faster you move, the stronger drag is.

Since it depends on speed squared, it's also true that the slower you go the weaker it is. 

It would take hours for air drag to slow him down to what a human would perceive as stopped. 

[alder24]

1 minute ago, DrPhysics said:

Since it depends on speed squared, it's also true that the slower you go the weaker it is. 

It would take hours for air drag to slow him down to what a human would perceive as stopped. 

This isn't a good place to argue about this, but Kaladin is above the cloud layer, at night, with strong wind blowing all around him - he lacks a good reference point and nearly motionless would be perceived by him as truly motionless. I highly doubt it would take hours like you suggesting. 

[DrPhysics he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

This isn't a good place to argue about this

Good point. If you'd like to discuss it further, lets take it somewhere else. Otherwise, I'll just add this last point.

 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

but Kaladin is above the cloud layer, at night, with strong wind blowing all around him - he lacks a good reference point and nearly motionless would be perceived by him as truly motionless. I highly doubt it would take hours like you suggesting. 

You might be thinking of a different scene. This scene is from when he is first practicing with his powers. He's still below cloud level (the paragraph before talks about reaching toward the clouds but being afraid of running out of stormlight).

I'm teaching a class on this later today, so I shoved some numbers into the model I built for my students. If he had slowed to a slow jog/brisk walking pace before canceling the lashings, it would take a full 20 minutes before he would be slow enough to perceive it as motionless (abt 0.1 m/s. Humans are really good at sensing motion if we can see anything that might be a fixed point, including clouds, which would be motionless relative to the wind. 0.05 m/s would probably be more reasonable and would double all the stopping times).  Canceling at a fast jog would bump the time up to 35 minutes, then anything faster than that bumps the time up to 45 minutes.

So, it looks like hours was an exaggeration, but if he's worried enough about stormlight that he makes the flight back to camp take the length of a short conversation, I doubt he would wait 20-40 minutes to come eventually to a stop.

[Lhyllianna they/them]

Less of a typo, more of a technicality. Apologies in advance, I didn't note the page numbers but if they're strictly required I can fish them out [edit: I got curious and went looking]. In TWoK (Gollancz 2011 paperback edition [Part II chapter 56 page 270+275]) and WoR (Gollancz 2015 paperback edition [Part I chapter 29 page 375]), Dalinar and Sadeas respectively use their knees to direct their horses.

This is very poor equitation form, as gripping with your knees shifts your centre of gravity higher, which is dangerous because it can cause you to topple forwards at higher gaits. The proper/safe way is to grip the horse's flanks with your calves, and tighten your grip briefly to cue the horse forwards. Failing that, you'd do the same and add a nudge with your heels. Being highprinces, the two - and their horses - would have received a solid education in equitation. This means it would be unusual for them to grip with their knees, and if they did their horses are most likely to stop moving at all, especially Gallant, being Ryshadium.

The vestiges of memory give me reason to think that the instance with Dalinar is in battle on the Shattered Plains, and that the moment with Sadeas is later and separate, when he stops at one end of Bridge Four to look back at something; I don't believe it's during his betrayal of Dalinar at The Tower though [he's not on the bridge, he's talking to Amaram after going on one of his plateau runs defiant of King Elhokar's orders of cooperation; god, he's such a vain little worm].

From what I do recall of the wording, these would require very small tweaks - perhaps even as simple as swapping out "knees" with "calves" or "heels".

Dalinar - "He directed Gallant with his *knees* [calves], performing an expert side-swing, cutting through the necks of two Parshendi, then the arm of a third." + "Hooves beat a thunder upon the rocks; Dalinar urged Gallant on with his *knees* [calves/heels]."

Sadeas - "With a squeeze of the *knees* [calves], Sadeas started his horse forward, leaving Amaram behind for the moment."

As a (newly) resident neurodivergent equine enthusiast, its correction would bring me some joy; it is very minor though, so I understand if the decision is made not to address it for future editions.

Edited November 22, 2024 by Lhyllianna
to add typo location specificity

[lacrossedeamon]

I know I am like 10 years late. But ch 88 after the updated text about Szeth releasing the bond and falling into the storm Nale still says "your soul cut through" and while technically true the context Nale says it with implies the original spinal severing rather than just the wrist.