Time Bubbles and Bullets

[dannnex male]

So it’s a continuing plot point in MBE2 that you can’t fire bullets out of a bendalloy bubble because they refract and do crazy stuff. Couldn’t you just stick the barrel of the gun outside the bubble and shoot it? I thought that maybe that would ‘pop’ the bubble but that doesn’t really make sense, bullets have been shot through bubbles before without them popping, so why would sticking something out of the bubble pop it. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Danex

[Kurkistan he/him]

Items are either entirely within or entirely outside of time bubbles.

Quote

Kurkistan

If you are standing inside of a time bubble, and throw a spear out of the bubble, what happens to that spear as it traverses the border of the bubble? Are different parts of the spear ever in different "time zones," going fundamentally different speeds?

On that line of reasoning, what would happen to a train and its occupants if Marasi stood next to railroad tracks holding up a Cadmium bubble while that train sped by?

Brandon Sanderson

In general, a large object going through a time bubble is not going to notice. An object is either in or out, and it depends in part on how the object views itself. People inside the train would be inside of its influence, and wouldn't notice the bubble. The spear would go from one to the other, but would never be in both.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

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You can search for x2.1 and x2.2 of this thread for some more details on bubble occupancy and "jostling".

[Karger he/him]

1 minute ago, Experience said:

What if you stick the gun out far enough that the bullet will always be outside of the bubble, but the trigger is always on the inside? 

You might manage that especially with a well designed gun.  In fact I think eras three and four will have special gun emplacements inside bubbles that allow you to aim at slow time and the entire apparatus of the gun is outside firing at normal speed.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Karger

[Frustration]

Reason: plot.

In world answer: ..........

I don't know.

[Experience he/him]

Is there some weird physics thing with that? Like the part of the gun inside is moving faster then the gun on the outside, so the gun would break or something?

[Frustration]

Just now, Experience said:

Is there some weird physics thing with that? Like the part of the gun inside is moving faster then the gun on the outside, so the gun would break or something?

No, until the 'cognitive center' of the gun leaves the bubble it counts as all the way in, and until the center enters it counts as all the way out.

[Karger he/him]

You would still probably get extremely poor penetration.  With the bullet rattling around inside the barrel on the way out it might project weirdly and eventually head off course.  Also if the bullets inside the bubble are moving faster then the ones outside they might hit each other.

[Experience he/him]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

No, until the 'cognitive center' of the gun leaves the bubble it counts as all the way in, and until the center enters it counts as all the way out.

Is the cognitive center large enough to be both inside and outside of the bubble?

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Experience said:

Is the cognitive center large enough to be both inside and outside of the bubble?

It's made of collective human persseption of the center so I'd say no.

[Experience he/him]

3 minutes ago, Karger said:

You would still probably get extremely poor penetration.  With the bullet rattling around inside the barrel on the way out it might project weirdly and eventually head off course.  Also if the bullets inside the bubble are moving faster then the ones outside they might hit each other.

What if you stick the gun out far enough that the bullet will always be outside of the bubble, but the trigger is always on the inside? 

[Chiberty]

This also gets into the question of what happens if you punch something that isn't in the bubble, and I don't think we know.