How important is the number 16 in the cosmere

[Aluminum he/him]

I know 16 has massive importance on Scadrial but does it have any relevance anywhere else.

[Weltall]

There are sixteen Shards of Adonalsium so yes.

There are other numbers with significance on different planets, such as ten being significant on Roshar; these numbers are associated with the planets rather than the Shards directly.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Weltall

[Wander89 he/him]

1 hour ago, Aluminum said:

I know 16 has massive importance on Scadrial but does it have any relevance anywhere else.

16 Shards

16 Metals

1/16th of people taken by the mists and so on....

[Aluminum he/him]

That's scadrial. I want to know if the number is important elsewhere besides you know, the shards

[Arith Matic he/him]

an interesting thing I found out: Scadrial's number system (the metallic symbols before every chapter) are comprised of a base 16 number system in era 2 since they have discovered all conventional/misting metals.

[Karger he/him]

Khriss states that many systems have 16 elements and I personally believe that their are 16 hightenings(with only 10 known).

[Aluminum he/him]

The theory I've been thinking about in relation to this is what if 16 was not a universal number. Maybe each world has their own magic number. Scadrial-16, Roshar-10, Taladin-2 (they have 2 suns, 2 worlds) Maybe Sel is 4 because the Aons have 4 sides. It's really undefined right now. What do you think

[Karger he/him]

23 minutes ago, Aluminum said:

The theory I've been thinking about in relation to this is what if 16 was not a universal number. Maybe each world has their own magic number. Scadrial-16, Roshar-10, Taladin-2 (they have 2 suns, 2 worlds) Maybe Sel is 4 because the Aons have 4 sides. It's really undefined right now. What do you think

16 is supposed to be universal while another number(possibly the ones you have noticed) are local at least this is what I understand.

[Aluminum he/him]

That makes sense

[+Invocation]

16 is...very important. There's some history behind it relating to the 16 Shards and their creation. (I'm unsure how much of that you know of, so I'll put it in a spoiler box to be sure).

Spoiler

There was big mega-Shard which was pretty much God. Even his name related to it (Adonalsium). Adonalsium (or, as I like to call him, Big A) got murdered. His power became the 16 Shards and the Shattering that created all of them and was set off by his death resonated through the dwarf galaxy/star cluster (which one it is depends on when you're asking BSandy), helping along the theme of 16 across of the cosmere (thought it might have been there before, there was just not really anything to build on it and make it apparent).

That's the main significance.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Invocation

[Scion of the Mists]

On 5/30/2019 at 1:37 PM, Karger said:

Khriss states that many systems have 16 elements and I personally believe that their are 16 hightenings(with only 10 known).

Where does Khriss say that many systems have 16 elements?  I don't remember that.  

 

On 5/30/2019 at 1:59 PM, Aluminum said:

The theory I've been thinking about in relation to this is what if 16 was not a universal number. Maybe each world has their own magic number. Scadrial-16, Roshar-10, Taladin-2 (they have 2 suns, 2 worlds) Maybe Sel is 4 because the Aons have 4 sides. It's really undefined right now. What do you think

The is a commonly believed theory on the forums - good job coming up with it independently!

[Karger he/him]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Where does Khriss say that many systems have 16 elements?  I don't remember that.  

Arcanum Unbound "other then the common 4 or 16"