Lights and Their Spectrums

[leester1478]

I was re-reading the bit in RoW about Navani splitting the various Lights with a prism, and how they don't follow natural light patterns (wavelengths of light broadening, rather than changing in intensity). Thinking about Taldain made me question what their understanding of waves and the electromagnetic spectrum would be like.

Their Investiture is received directly from the sun, at least the micro-organisms in the sand receive their Investiture directly from the sun. This probably means that if they repeated the prism experiment with their Light, they would see how Autonomy's Light is split, whatever that looks like, rather than how natural light is split.  Seems to me that they would have a warped idea of the electromagnetic spectrum, or the relationship between frequency and wavelength. The relationship between wavelength and frequency in the real world might not ever be discovered on Taldain, because they would be starting from a false supposition, that light everywhere actus the way their Light does. And unless anyone thought to repeat the same experiment with a man-made, full spectrum light source they would never have a good basis for optics or a whole bunch of technologies that depend on wave mechanics.

How do you all think that no understanding, or incorrect understanding, of this would effect technology on Taldain?

[Serack he/him]

I haven't finished the White Sand graphic novels so I had to reread the Taldain section of Arcanum Unbound.

Quoting from that:

Quote

For years we assumed that our Shard, Autonomy, had Invested only Dayside, through the sunlight itself.  We know now it is not as simple as this, though the mechanism is best explained under those assumptions.  The investiture beats down from the sky and is absorbed by microflora that grows like lichen on the surface of the sand...

I'm going to theorize that "the Investiture is received directly from the sun" is an oversimplification like saying Mistborn investiture comes from burning their metals.  The Investiture isn't in the metal, the metal is a "focus" and perhaps the sunlight on Taldain is similar, in that it is the key that allows the microorganisms on the sand to access/store investiture.  

[+Ark1002]

@leester1478, I find this very interesting. I would assume you're correct, though it might be to a much smaller extent, as presumably this light is less invested.

[eissturm]

3 hours ago, Serack said:

I haven't finished the White Sand graphic novels so I had to reread the Taldain section of Arcanum Unbound.

Quoting from that:

I'm going to theorize that "the Investiture is received directly from the sun" is an oversimplification like saying Mistborn investiture comes from burning their metals.  The Investiture isn't in the metal, the metal is a "focus" and perhaps the sunlight on Taldain is similar, in that it is the key that allows the microorganisms on the sand to access/store investiture.  

Metals on Roshar act as a direct Spiritual key to Preservation's power source in the Spirtitual Realm.  The microorganisms in the sand are reacting to the Investiture that radiates from the sun on Taldain.  "The investiture beats down from the sky and is absorbed by microflora that grows like lichen on the surface of the sand".  We've seen enough cannonical examples of Sand off-world that we know the lichen is definitely absorbing radiated investiture, not pulling it from some other source via a key.  This is likely a similar mechanism to the Investiture that rains down with the crem during a highstorm, and how plants and spren react to it.

[leester1478]

@eissturm This reinforces my original statement. The sand re-Invests during Highstorms, and normally re-Invests over time on Taldain. This implies that the Light coming down on Taldain is constant, if not particularly powerful. I still think their "normal" light spectrum would be skewed.

[eissturm]

On 12/30/2020 at 1:04 PM, leester1478 said:

I was re-reading the bit in RoW about Navani splitting the various Lights with a prism, and how they don't follow natural light patterns (wavelengths of light broadening, rather than changing in intensity). Thinking about Taldain made me question what their understanding of waves and the electromagnetic spectrum would be like.

Their Investiture is received directly from the sun, at least the micro-organisms in the sand receive their Investiture directly from the sun. This probably means that if they repeated the prism experiment with their Light, they would see how Autonomy's Light is split, whatever that looks like, rather than how natural light is split.  Seems to me that they would have a warped idea of the electromagnetic spectrum, or the relationship between frequency and wavelength. The relationship between wavelength and frequency in the real world might not ever be discovered on Taldain, because they would be starting from a false supposition, that light everywhere actus the way their Light does. And unless anyone thought to repeat the same experiment with a man-made, full spectrum light source they would never have a good basis for optics or a whole bunch of technologies that depend on wave mechanics.

How do you all think that no understanding, or incorrect understanding, of this would effect technology on Taldain?

To be honest, I think the very fact that you can get Investiture right from the air on dayside is probably why Autonomy has banned travel to and from the world, given the ambitions of the Ghostbloods.  This could also drastically affect technology on Taldain drastically, in fact I'd bet they have a rather sophisticated understanding of Investiture reactions and most likely something similar to fabrials, if left to their own devices to develop them.

And yeah that definitely would imply that the light on Dayside would NOT behave like normal light.  In theory, this observation might have been what led Khriss into her studies of Investiture, since doing any sort of prismatic experiment in the daylight on Dayside would NOT work like she'd have expected.  On the Darkside, they would use candlelight or some other non-Investiture source, so at some point somebody who traveled between both poles would have made the observation.  Khriss just seems a likely candidate to me

[Honorless he/him]

Stormlight is gaseous Investiture but it also emits Investiture in the form of radiation that acts like light. I think Taldain's sun might be doing the same or something similar to that: distributing radiation Investiture. This would be a very minute amount of Investiture. The fact that it takes 4 hours of exposure from the sun above Dayside in order for the White Sand microorganisms to be Reinvested and turn white again, while a little Stormlight usage from Lightweaving (which is much less Investiture intensive than other Surges from what we saw in Oathbringer during the events in Kholinar and Shadesmar) recharges it in a few seconds/minutes further supports this hypothesis.

 

As for White Sand affecting other Shardworlds

Quote

Yoitsthew

Are there any deserts on Roshar, and if so could the white sand organism spread? Just imagining how sand mastery might possibly migrate to Roshar lol.

Brandon Sanderson

The White Sand organism could spread on Scadrial, and on any planet, but it would need investiture to do so. It would be easier for it to spread on Roshar, for example, because of the storms.

General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 30, 2020)

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Honorless

[Cheyenne Sedai she/her]

On 1/11/2021 at 1:39 PM, eissturm said:

To be honest, I think the very fact that you can get Investiture right from the air on dayside is probably why Autonomy has banned travel to and from the world, given the ambitions of the Ghostbloods.  This could also drastically affect technology on Taldain drastically, in fact I'd bet they have a rather sophisticated understanding of Investiture reactions and most likely something similar to fabrials, if left to their own devices to develop them.

And yeah that definitely would imply that the light on Dayside would NOT behave like normal light.  In theory, this observation might have been what led Khriss into her studies of Investiture, since doing any sort of prismatic experiment in the daylight on Dayside would NOT work like she'd have expected.  On the Darkside, they would use candlelight or some other non-Investiture source, so at some point somebody who traveled between both poles would have made the observation.  Khriss just seems a likely candidate to me

I really like this theory. It makes a lot of sense, and would be fascinating to explore in the future, since we really don't know as much about Taldain. It would be a great catalyst for Khriss to begin her studies on investiture.