Jozomby he/him Posted September 24, 2020 Posted September 24, 2020 So I was reading up about random topics, as one does, and I came across the topic of grain entrapment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_entrapment Apparently this is a decently common workplace hazard - the wikipedia article says 26 people died from grain entrapment in 2010. It seems it's much harder to escape from a pile/pit/container/etc. of grain than I would have expected. The article states a few things that are interesting (and perhaps even relevant!): Apparently if you are submerged above your knees, you cannot escape the grain unaided. This blew my mind. I don't know the physics here, so if someone wants to chime in with an explanation that would be awesome. (Or I'll probably just end up looking one up ) Apparently the force from the weight of the grains is seriously intense. Again, I'm just going off that Wikipedia article, but people described not even being able to wiggle their toes inside their shoes, the pressure was so great. So of course, after reading about this, my first thought was Shadesmar. I'm no expert here, but it seems to me like a similar phenomenon might occur to someone submerged in beads. Obviously, though, from the sequence in Oathbringer when our characters are walking across the bottom of the bead ocean, this is not the case. Of course, it's possible Brandon just got the physics wrong. Assuming he didn't, though, here's a few things that might mitigate the effects of the "bead entrapment": I believe the beads are perfectly spherical. Do we have confirmation on this? Regardless, they're smooth and probably aren't going to have a ton of friction with each other. I imagine this will mitigate the effects of entrapment, though I really don't know. The beads are larger than grain. At first I thought this might resolve the problem almost completely, but apparently over half of grain entrapments occur in corn (maize), and corn is a fairly large grain. I believe the beads are still larger, but it makes me wonder. How dense are the beads? They need to be dense enough for buoyancy to work (since ships sail on them) but perhaps if they weigh quite a bit less than grain, then that might assist here. It could just be magic. People think about the shadesmar beads like an ocean, so they behave like a liquid. The more I try to make everything work in my head (especially the buoyancy bit) the more likely this seems. This makes me really want to fill a large container with marbles and see how hard it is to move around in.
Brgst13 Posted September 24, 2020 Posted September 24, 2020 (edited) Hmmm...this is interesting. In my head cannon, the beads are about the size of a peach. I will have to do a reread and see if the size is mentioned. EDIT: after checking the Coppermind, the spheres are bean sized or slightly smaller than a fingernail. This is considerably larger than maize, which allows more space between particles even when densely packed. I would like to know if the buoyancy is the ship truly floating or compressing the beads under the ship into a regular structure, which then supports the ship. If the ship was large enough, this should be possible, where the beads behave like water molecules. I wonder also if there are the equivalent of intermolecular forces between the beads. Given that they ripple like an ocean, I would expect some form of cohesion force to exist Edited September 24, 2020 by Brgst13 new info
Jozomby he/him Posted September 24, 2020 Author Posted September 24, 2020 (edited) Ok, here's a wob on the size of the beads: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/174/#e8533 Quote Questioner How big are the beads from Shadesmar? Brandon Sanderson ...Bean-size, not as big as spheres. Questioner Spheres are the size of your thumbnail, right? Brandon Sanderson Spheres are a little bigger than that. They're like a big marble. Not quite as big as a shooter. Oathbringer Portland signing (Nov. 16, 2017) Edited September 24, 2020 by Jozomby
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