Abrasion

[Leyrann]

2 hours ago, Tobbzn said:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76-shadows-of-self-chicago-signing/#e6389

I don't think the King's Drop is necessarily theoretically flawless - after all, when Dalinar carried it, had the slickness not dissipated? (I'm asking, I'm at work and can't quite recall. And for that matter, wouldn't the King's Drop be infused with Stormlight upon Dalinar's ascension? Shouldn't it be glowing? Hmm.)

Consider that Gravitation and Adhesion (I don't remember Tension glowing, are you sure about that?) usually features enhancing a force, whereas Abrasive slickness is reducing a force. Now, in real physics with conservation of energy you'd think the energy would be likely to be disposed of terms of light, more so for abrasion than the other ones, but here I think it's a matter of "opening" or "plugging" a connection to the spiritual realm. Gravitation and Adhesion glows because they've opened connection wider, abrasion does not because it diminishes the property. I'm not convinced there's that much reason to expect abrasion-slickness to give off light for that reason. I wouldn't expect Division to give off anything but chemically induced light, either.

Unless Brandon is reading into something with gravitational potentials being considered "negative" energy wells... but now I'm starting to ramble.

Of course, it is also possible that a theoretical flawlessly cut gem is inherently slick, and the only reason anyone can hold it is because of dirt and impurities on the surface rather than in the surface, and that the impurities held the abrasive infusion.

Finally, remember that we don't know the limitations of Voidbinding. Perhaps they have some limited access to adhesion to counteract the abrasion? It would be difficult to invest something already invested with another form of power, which explains how the might lose it in spite of the adhesion.

Can Abrasion not also increase friction though?

As for a flawless gem, it would still have a little bit of friction, as not all friction comes from roughness of surfaces. It would feel very smooth but you'd still be able to grab it if you'd just grab it properly. To get actual "no friction" you need more than just a perfectly smooth surface.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

EDIT THIS JUST IN!!!
I was looking up the point in part 5 where Szeth swears his 3rd ideal, and looky what I found in Chapter 120!

Quote

Szeth of the Skybreakers had, fortunately, trained with all ten surges.

The Fused transferred the enormous ruby to one of their number who could manipulate Abrasion—a woman who slid across the ground like Lift did. She infused the ruby, making it glow with her version of a Lashing. That would make the thing impossibly slick and difficult to carry for anyone but the Fused woman herself.

So from the above quote we know two things about the surge of Abrasion:

1. An external object slicked with the Abrasion lashing does glow
2. The slicked abrasion lashing is specifically keyed to the person applying the surge, and for them alone the slicked object will be manipulable.

The pendulum swings back to the magical cushion of Investiture theory on how the abrasion surge works! Yay primary sources!

My original misguided post is spoilered below, and is TOTALLY WRONG. Only read it as a cautionary tale for how convoluted speculating can be without referring to primary sources:

Spoiler

Sorry @Tobbzn, I don't think I worded that post as clearly as I could have.

The thing I was talking about in regards to the King's Drop is that it's the only external object that we have seen the surge of abrasion applied to, and it's notable because it's not apparent that it has been slicked. Here is the reasoning chain:

1.Fused applies abrasion surge to gem thinking that if Szeth grabs it he will be unable to hold onto it -->2. For this to be a trick that will work there would have to be no visible clue that the Drop was altered-->3. Szeth has practiced with the Edgedance honorblade and understands how this slicked version of abrasion works-->4. He suspects that the Fused is trying to trick him into grabbing the Drop, but that the Fused believes Szeth will fail to hold onto it because it's slicked. --> 5. Ergo he knows that the slick form of abrasion can be applied to an object without any obvious visual manifestation (like leaking stormlight, a noticeable glow, etc).

Granted this is a perfect gem, so there could be some wonkiness going on here like you mentioned Tobbzn, but I think this is pretty compelling evidence that there is no visible manifestation of the slick form of abrasion, but this is a single data point (and a less than perfect one, given that it's a perfect gem that has been slicked).

Also the fact that the King's drop can be handed to Dalinar, who can hold it while luring his old friend the Thrill into it, does imply that the external use of the slick form of abrasion is limited in duration (and not a physically permanent change, that would have to be undone with an opposite application of the abrasion surge).

5 hours ago, Tobbzn said:

Consider that Gravitation and Adhesion (I don't remember Tension glowing, are you sure about that?) usually features enhancing a force, whereas Abrasive slickness is reducing a force. Now, in real physics with conservation of energy you'd think the energy would be likely to be disposed of terms of light, more so for abrasion than the other ones, but here I think it's a matter of "opening" or "plugging" a connection to the spiritual realm. Gravitation and Adhesion glows because they've opened connection wider, abrasion does not because it diminishes the property. I'm not convinced there's that much reason to expect abrasion-slickness to give off light for that reason. I wouldn't expect Division to give off anything but chemically induced light, either.

 

@Tobbzn, in regards to tension glowing, there's this bit from OB, Chapter 59 Bondsmith, when Dalinar uses the surge of Tension to pull together the temple of Battah, right after he He-manned the doorway back into place:

Quote

He could feel the temple urging him onward. It wanted so badly to be whole again. Dalinar drew in more Stormlight, as much as he could hold, draining every gemstone he's brought.

Sweat streaming across his face, he got the block close enough that it felt right again. Power flooded through his arms into it, then seeped across the stones.

The carvings popped back together.

The stone lintel in his hands lifted and settled into place. Light filled the cracks in the stones and knit them back together, and gloryspren burst around Dalinar's head.

When the glow faded, the front wall of the majestic temple—including the doorway and the cracked reliefs—had been restored. Dalinar faced it shirtless and coated in sweat, feeling twenty years younger.

That's an interesting theory about glowing being related to whether a property is being augmented, versus not glowing if a property is being diminished, I'll have to give that idea some more thought...

You're totally right that we don't know much about voidbinding, but what the Fused seemed to be doing is a hacked form of surgebinding, using Voidlight to access one surge, so I don't know that I would consider what they are doing Voidbinding as of yet.

Edited January 19, 2018 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
Got some good information about the Abrasion surge added

[Spoolofwhool]

I knew I remembered it glowing. Just didn't have time to check. Good job. 

Regarding tension, I thought Dalinar was using adhesion at that point. 

Edited January 19, 2018 by Spoolofwhool

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Regarding tension, I thought Dalinar was using adhesion at that point.

Here's the continuation of the scene from Chapter 59, Bondsmith:

Quote

No, the man he'd been twenty years ago could never have done this.

Bondsmith.

A hand touched his arm; Navani's soft fingers. "Dalinar...what did you do?"

"I listened." The power was good for far, far more than breaking. We've been ignoring that. We've been ignoring answers right in front of our eyes.

We saw Dalinar use the normal surge of Adhesion in Urithiru to stick a chair to wall to use like a step ladder to investigate the ventilation shaft (and he also used it to stick Kadash to the ground during their fight), and we saw him use Spiritual Adhesion to learn foreign languages. The Stormfather explains how learning languages is possible with Adhesion by saying:

Quote

Try touching one of them. With Spiritual Adhesion, you can make a Connection.

So the continuation of the scene from Chapter 59 heavily implies that his pulling together and reforming the temple was a power that Bondsmiths specifically had. Given that we've seen the surge of Adhesion (in both it's physical and spiritual aspects) I was just assuming that this was the other Bondsmith surge of Tension being used to pull the broken pieces of the building together. It's interesting to note in that scene that Dalinar can feel the temple wanting to be whole again, which implies a Connection to the temple, almost as if he is talking to the shadesmar bead of the temple. So I always read this scene as Dalinar using Spiritual Tension (tension being the force that is exerted on the connection between things).

Edited January 20, 2018 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine

[Spoolofwhool]

Maybe. My interpretation though was that it was spiritual adhesion, binding the structure back into what it wanted to be. I don't think we've seen tension yet, in any shape. 

[Leyrann]

I think it was a combination of Adhesion and Tension actually. Adhesion to put the parts in the right places and Tension to seal them back together (after all, the temple wasn't held together by Stormlight but actually made whole again, something we haven't seen Tension do). What supports this is that the definition of "tension" in material sciences is the strength of the molecular bonds in a material, so it makes sense Tension manipulates that, and can therefore also create the bonds needed to permanently get the parts back together again.

We're getting offtopic though...