Kaladin's flight

[Housedunn]

doing the WOR, Kaladin swore the 3rd oath, he flew all the way to the shattered plains. my question is how FAST did he fly? It is obvious that he made a day-to-weeks trip in hours, but exactly how fast i wanted to ask 

[Niteshado he/him]

Well when he swore the 3rd ideal, he was in the make shift palace ON the shattered plains. so really he didnt take long, he was already there. 

[Weltall]

It took the armies about one (Earth) week to reach the ruins of Stormseat but they had to move very slowly for a host of reasons (dealing with the chasms each plateau, not outrunning the supply train etc) while Kaladin was not constrained by silly things like chasms and could go in a straight line at a much faster speed. I'm sure someone could take the various measurements we have and make an estimate of the radius of the Plains and thus how far Kaladin had to travel and then figure out what sort of speeds he could reach but I don't know if anyone's done so yet.

[Toby_H]

Remember, Kaladin does not "fly", he "falls".

Falling speeds are governed by terminal velocity. On earth, a human body falls at terminal velocity of 120-180 mph depending on wind resistance (diving, flat, etc). Kal dives, so he would be closer to 180 mph. 

Gravity & atmosphere are different on Roshar. You are welcome to do the research and calculations to determine that difference. I'm happy to say 150-180 mph.

It took the armies approx 7 days to reach the center of the plains. Marching 12 hours per day at an average of 2 mph would be impressive considering the challenges. That's 180'ish miles.

So I'd estimate it took Kal just over an hour to get there.  

[theRoyalDingus]

That's true - gravity is different on Roshar. Now I wonder: If you made a similar lashing on another planet, would it shift to match the gravity of whatever body you were on, or would it be something else, like the homeworld of the user or just Roshar itself? What governs the mechanics of stormlight?

[Weltall]

The Ars Arcanum describes the Basic Lashing as twisting the user's Spiritual connection to the planet, so I suspect that it 'keys' itself to whatever world (or gravity-generating body) you're on. Aside from fitting the description of how it works, it's also more sensible from a storytelling persepective since you don't need Surgebinders to calculate the relative strength of gravity and mentally adjust their Lashings to compensate and you don't need to worry the reader about that sort of thing either.

Now, where this breaks down is when you're in zero-gravity environments. We know that Kaladin could theoretically use his powers to travel through space (but as Brandon says, that would take a long time) so in that situation, maybe it defaults to whatever planet you were born on? It's explicitly a Spiritual thing so Physical separation isn't really an issue.

[Xtafa]

46 minutes ago, Weltall said:

 is when you're in zero-gravity environments. We know that Kaladin could theoretically use his powers to travel through space (but as Brandon says, that would take a long time) so in that situation, maybe it defaults to whatever planet you were born on? It's explicitly a Spiritual thing so Physical separation isn't really an issue.

I Imagine it would default to the nearest biggest gravitational object [or whatever is closest in the cognitive realm]

[Naurock]

4 hours ago, Toby_H said:

Remember, Kaladin does not "fly", he "falls".

Falling speeds are governed by terminal velocity. On earth, a human body falls at terminal velocity of 120-180 mph depending on wind resistance (diving, flat, etc). Kal dives, so he would be closer to 180 mph. 

Gravity & atmosphere are different on Roshar. You are welcome to do the research and calculations to determine that difference. I'm happy to say 150-180 mph.

It took the armies approx 7 days to reach the center of the plains. Marching 12 hours per day at an average of 2 mph would be impressive considering the challenges. That's 180'ish miles.

So I'd estimate it took Kal just over an hour to get there.  

Hey, just spit balling but could him pouring on lashings allow him to surpass terminal velocity? Or would it just make him hit TV faster? We've also seen him subconsciously tap the powers of surgebinding, maybe he's using the Surge of Adhesion somehow to surpass it? I'm no super genius, just throwing stuff against a wall to see what sticks.

[Oblivion]

Oathbringer spoilers. It only contains some travel destinations, but regardless you've been warned.

Spoiler

He flies to thaylen city in a day it appears and Kholinar from urithiru and i'm pretty sure somewhere else in oathbringer he flies dalinar from the oathgate to the warcamps in no time at all, enough there surprised how quickly they arrive.

So i would he is flying close to the speed of a conventional aeroplane 800-900 km an hour. that's about 4 lashings. It really depends how many lashings they use though, as he was in a hurry but didn't make a sonic boom i'd say it was close to that. i can't recall if he mentions how many he lashes he uses just that he got low

[The One Who Connects he/him]

11 hours ago, Naurock said:

Hey, just spit balling but could him pouring on lashings allow him to surpass terminal velocity? Or would it just make him hit TV faster?

Given that F-Steel doesn't let you avoid air resistance, I tend to think other powers can't beat it either, for sake of consistency.

The adhesion thing could work(I think), but I'm not sure how well it would work in practice.

[Scion of the Mists]

12 hours ago, Naurock said:

Hey, just spit balling but could him pouring on lashings allow him to surpass terminal velocity? Or would it just make him hit TV faster?

It wouldn't let him surpass the terminal velocity, but it would change what that velocity is.  

Terminal velocity occurs when the force of gravity is canceled out by the force of the air resistance.  A larger gravitational force would allow for a higher air resistance force, which would mean a larger top speed.  However, air resistance is proportional to your velocity squared, so it's not a one to one increase.  

[Naurock]

2 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

It wouldn't let him surpass the terminal velocity, but it would change what that velocity is.  

Terminal velocity occurs when the force of gravity is canceled out by the force of the air resistance.  A larger gravitational force would allow for a higher air resistance force, which would mean a larger top speed.  However, air resistance is proportional to your velocity squared, so it's not a one to one increase.  

Thank you for the physics backing I'm too lazy to look up! I've currently been on a kick of the YouTube channel Because Science and this topic is making me think about this like some of his episodes. Probably could've Googled it before I just threw it out there.

@The One Who Connects by looking up Coppermind about Surges saying Adhesion is the surge of Pressure and Vacuum. OB note:

Spoiler

We saw Kaladin manipulate the surge in Oathbringer accidentally with the windspren, villagers and the Highstorm.

Then a Google search led me to a Quora article saying, he could accelerate until he runs out of energy. Of course we have haven't seen how the surge works yet, and it would require Kaladin to create a constant vacuum further and further ahead of himself to accommodate his speed. I don't think he was using Adhesion subconsciously like he was with Lashings like WoR.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Naurock
WoK to WoR, because I forgot which book we were talking about

[vikorr]

Isn't terminal velocity of a falling person mostly related to wind resistance, rather than gravity? This is of course, assuming that Roshar's gravity, even if somewhat different to Earths, is still at a point where it is air resistance, and not gravity that determines terminal velocity. 

Quote

Near the surface of the Earth, an object in free fall in a vacuum will accelerate at approximately 9.8 m/s², independent of its mass. With air resistance acting on an object that has been dropped, the object will eventually reach a terminal velocity, which is around 53 m/s (195km/h or 122 mph) for a human skydiver.

That's from a search 'Terminal velocity person falling'

Edited June 24, 2018 by vikorr

[Scion of the Mists]

On 6/24/2018 at 2:49 AM, vikorr said:

Isn't terminal velocity of a falling person mostly related to wind resistance, rather than gravity? This is of course, assuming that Roshar's gravity, even if somewhat different to Earths, is still at a point where it is air resistance, and not gravity that determines terminal velocity. 

Terminal velocity is dependent on both air resistance and gravity.  It occurs when the force attempting to accelerate you (the force of gravity) is perfectly canceled out by the air resistance.  It is proportional to the square root g (the acceleration due to gravity).  If you double g, you end up with ~1.4x terminal velocity.  

 

On 5/22/2018 at 0:34 PM, Naurock said:

Then a Google search led me to a Quora article saying, he could accelerate until he runs out of energy. Of course we have haven't seen how the surge works yet, and it would require Kaladin to create a constant vacuum further and further ahead of himself to accommodate his speed. I don't think he was using Adhesion subconsciously like he was with Lashings like WoR.

Because terminal velocity is the result of resistance, if you are in a vacuum (which has no resistance), you could definitely accelerate indefinitely.*  This would basically be the same as him being in outer space.  

 

* Until you start to approach the speed of light, then weird stuff starts happening.  

[Naurock]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Terminal velocity is dependent on both air resistance and gravity.  It occurs when the force attempting to accelerate you (the force of gravity) is perfectly canceled out by the air resistance.  It is proportional to the square root g (the acceleration due to gravity).  If you double g, you end up with ~1.4x terminal velocity.  

 

Because terminal velocity is the result of resistance, if you are in a vacuum (which has no resistance), you could definitely accelerate indefinitely.*  This would basically be the same as him being in outer space.  

 

* Until you start to approach the speed of light, then weird stuff starts happening.  

Yeah, I was reading about that because for a minute I had convinced myself he had subconsciously used the surge of Adhesion to go faster. But since it was so obvious he had done something before with the Wind Spren, I dropped it. But yeah going speed of light you'll suddenly become infinitely massive or some such weirdness...

[Journey Before Pancakes]

1 hour ago, Naurock said:

Yeah, I was reading about that because for a minute I had convinced myself he had subconsciously used the surge of Adhesion to go faster. But since it was so obvious he had done something before with the Wind Spren, I dropped it. But yeah going speed of light you'll suddenly become infinitely massive or some such weirdness...

You would just approach the speed of light with a constant decay to an external observer.

 

From the perspective of the one moving; you would accelerate the same amount indefinitely; and time dilation would account for the difference between the two observers.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Journey Before Pancakes

[Blind Radiant]

I know I’m suuuper late to this, but I realized something that might help answer this question.

In chapter 5 of Oathbringer, it says that Kaladin managed to cover over 1,000 miles in half a day. I’m not sure if half a day means that literally, or if it means half of the daylight hours, so I’ll talk about both possible meanings.

Days on Roshar are 20 hours long. If it literally took Kaladin half a day to fly more than 1,000 miles, then that means that he covered that distance in 10 hours. That would make his speed upwards of 100 mph.

If half a day in stead refers to half of the daylight hours, then Kaladin would’ve traveled over 1,000 miles in roughly 5 hours or so. This would make his speed at least 200 mph.

Either way, that bridgeboy can go storming fast!

[Gilphon]

Which matches with the calculations above- a single lashing would let him travel at a maximum of 180 mph, and multiple lashings would let him go faster than that. And it's possible that Adhesion could reduce the air resistance and let him go even faster.