Serack

Yah, and people can be pretty obsessive on their fandom. The world fan literally comes from "fanatic" and

I did exactly that. Edit: @Chaos, please consider it a mark of my high esteem that since everything else your team does for the website is so amazingly polished, I immediately worried in the one instance it wasn't that something was horribly wrong.

Brandon spells it out in the annotations. It's necromancy.

Quoted from RoW chapter 67 “Song of Stones” when Venli discovered her stone shaping powers:

I suspect this is a parallel to dawnsinging.

Hi @G2F4E6E7E8, I hope you are still active. I was reviewing your post and realized that in one of my own science heavy topics, I've done a follow up write up on harmonics in light waves that you might enjoy

Here’s my writeup on this topic

@LewsTherinTelescope watching you interact with Brandon and Peter cracks me up. Your OP here is the type of annotated theorizing of the highest standard. I used to do that kind of thing for Jim Butcher's stuff, but I've burned out on taking it to that level, and really admire your work.

@Quantus *wave* You've got me thinking that in such a state, CS Kelsier might find a way to draw some kind of sustenance from mortals in the physical realm exhibiting a particular level of survival tenacity, kind of like how Rosharan spren seem to be doing for their respective aspects.

This is a fantastic collection of the WoB and in text info on Roshar’s genesis! It’s my expectation that Also Aldonasium was a being of sufficient smarts (really struggling for appropriate term there) that he didn’t really need to “experiment” in an exploratory way. So my theories on Roshar’s purpose tend to be more focused on it having a more deliberate purpose. And my best guess is it is like a flawless gem trapping a Spren, except it’s trapping Odium, and probably the other 2 shards and likely recombining them to an extent https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/94762-roshar-is-engineered-to-be-a-shard-trap-theory

If you like this, be sure to check the posts collected in the link in my signature. Brandon has explicitly called cosmere science "fake science" and has also discussed that the mechanism of "Intent" is pretty much supposed to allow for handwavy stuff to happen in cosmere physics that wouldn't be possible in real physics, such as slightly changing the shape of a plate to be sure that the tone it plays perfectly cancels out and negates an intended pure tone. Reality works way differently. On a resonance plate like what Navani was playing with, if you put sand on it, the places where the sand collects are WHERE the tone is negated by itself due to reflections off the edges of the plate, and the clear spots are where the tone is doubled. These are called anti-nodes and nodes respectively, and the sand collects where the plate is relatively still, and is bounced away from the parts vibrating from the sound waves. In Cosmere physics, stuff (investiture) is attracted to the tone itself, rather than the being corralled by the nodes and anti-nodes of the resonance chamber. Via handwavy Intent, a separate "tone" can attract the anthesis of the "stuff" attracted by the first tone, and the 2 together can cancel each other out and go boom. So as much as I want to try to project forward on where the cosmere physics are going, I'm limited in how I can guess what cosmere principles Brandon is going to hand wave into diverging from my limited understanding of RL physics going forward. I may try anyways. Which isn't a dig at him. RL physics can be exactly the same way, in that until we look really close at the fringe cases, we don't know where the rules are going, and when we see it it sometimes looks really handwavy. Einstein called quantum entanglement "Spooky action at a distance."

When I posted the above, I wrote it thinking I would make some applications of those RL principle to Navani's research, but never really got around to doing that in a fleshed out manner. However, today I did some thinking about how this applies to the "3rd heightening" which allows for a sort of perfect pitch, but for vision. I cringe a little when Lightsong describes some red lips as “three shades shy of the seventh harmonic.” Particularly since Red is the lowest frequency of the primary colors, and higher “harmonics” are usually defined as higher frequency. I mean, you could get colors to “harmonize” if you treat the math /very/ carefully, but how we perceive colors is more related to the peak absorbance spectra of our eye’s 3(ish) cone receptors, not how their wavelengths “harmonize” mathematically. Of course Bent Weeks hand waved all of this in his Lightbringer series, but he used the term “resonance points” rather than harmonics. So I just went down the optical harmonics rabbit hole a bit. Borrowing the term "octave" from sound/music to mean a doubling of the wave frequency, Human hearing with a range/spectrum of about 20Hz to 20,000Hz (for those with superb hearing) is 10 octaves of harmonics that can be perceived. However, unlike our hearing, our vision does not have a wide range or "spectrum" but is limited to between a deep red of about 740nm to a violet of about 380nm, or about one "octave" of harmonics. (even outside of typical color blindness, not all eyes can quite perceive all of this spectrum. I can't see all the way to 380nm). Even though light sources are quantum in nature (involve photon particles of specific energies/wavelengths) they can have these photons combine to emit light in higher harmonic frequencies. The commonly used infrared Nd:YAG laser with a wavelength of 1064nm is frequently "doubled" to emit green light at 532 nm, or higher harmonics at 355, 266 and 213 nm. If you have ever bought a green laser pointer, it was probably a "doubled YAG." Which demonstrates that yes indeed, light sources can have emission that has harmonic content like sound saves do.* Even though a green "doubled YAG" laser pointer is a perfect harmonic of a standard Nd:YAG infrared laser, the human eye can't see that far down the infrared spectrum. Speaking of light in terms of harmonics is kinda irrelevant for the range of human perception, as the photons of of higher or lower harmonics of light sources in the visible spectrum can't be detected by the eye to perceive their "harmonic/dissonant" constructive or destructive interference. (I originally wrote this in a Reddit response, but I find the forums to be a better medium for long form/long term theorizing so I'm also placing it here) Edit to add: The eye can't come even come close to seeing it, but when I was in college, I built an instrument that detected "beating" of 2 close together peaks of emission from a doubled YAG laser, exactly like the sound waves beating together in the video in the OP above. It took hours of measurements and calculation to show that that might be what was happening in my slipshod michelson interferometer though. *edit to add: This is sort of comparable to how a bugle can get different notes from a fixed length of tubing. The bugle tubing has a fundamental harmonic frequency that has it's wavelength (Frequency and wavelengths are inversely proportional to each other and are practically interchangeable in these discussions) defined by the length of the tube. The bell shape at the end helps the player to emphasize the resonance of higher frequency harmonics and get those notes out of it instead. If I remember my schooling right though, those notes have to be higher frequency harmonics of the primary. Just like the higher frequency photons you can get out of a Nd:YAG laser by tuning it to the higher harmonics. Quoted from a post I make below that really tries but doesn't quite manage to make a theory about the different shardlight frequencies using the above information:

I wrote up some stuff about the RL principles of tones and such in an old post and it might influence how you think about these things.

Sorry for the necro, but I was working on my own new topic to discuss this at length and saw that Brandon already broke the mystery in a recent WoB. So I got this one wrong. Edit to add: By the way, a few months ago, the this fantastic reddit post theorized that the coins were a coppermind. I think that's still a good possibility, particularly since the text calls them a "cent" in the literal sense.

Has this one been added to the arcanum yet? I can’t listen right now Edit: Part of my theory here is that Roshar was created by aldonasium to resonate with the “Pure tones” associated with the 3 shards there and that: So by that reasoning, the planet itself was created with a capital I Intent to have tones have profound affects on the investiture present. This goes in the other way too in that tuning to the planets Rhythms for the tones channels the investiture towards purposes like growing food. Presumably this is dawnsinging in one form or another.

Excellent theory here. You really go into the weeds on a lot of details and I could pick at some of those, but the idea that Roshar has gem qualities that trap shards runs parallel to my own thoughts. More on that later though, first I'll respond to some of the discussion in the comments. Someone else brought this up, but where does the idea that Honor's tone has shifted? When would this shift have occurred? What is the evidence? Its an interesting concept that could have really cool implications but I want more support before I use it for further theorizing. Here's something I wrote on that subject for a theory I'll link later: The Rosharan system resonates with the "pure tones" of the three shards involved with the system, and consdering WoB is that "the moons existed before the gods came" I think it's likely that those "pure tones" of Roshar, tuned specifically for those shards were there beforehand too. Hold up. The 1,000 years was in the original written terms, but not in the final terms. Those just say "bound to the system." It sounds permanent. The exchange was basically just for control of Alethkar and Herdaz. There is a fantastic theory here that the Unmade were originally the spren of the major cities of Roshar that have the cymatic patterns. Ok, done with my thoughts on the comments. Your theory actually has some things in common with my own theory here that Aldonasium created/engineered Roshar to be a shard trap, specifically for these 3 shards. I even said: I didn't however consider that the planet is a literal gemstone. Although I also concluded that forcing the shards to integrate is the purpose of the planet.

This is pretty cool. I like the idea that the two could be tied together, although I’d rather expand it to that they may be similar flora not necessarily identical. They could be identical though.

I've re-written the OP to reflect some thoughts based off of a WoB I found recently. I'm saving the original version in this post in the spoiler code below. When I wrote the original post, I considered it was possible that the Rosharan system's tones tuned/changed to the 3 shard's tones after they showed up and became involved with the system. However, I found another WoB specifically stating that the 3 moons were there before the shards, which implies to me that the "tones" were already tuned to those shards before they showed up too.

@mathiau, @mdross81, I thought we had already documented all the relevant quotes on this subject in this topic that you both participated in: Edit: I liked it so much, I link it as a reference in the collection of references linked in my sig.

I'll point out that a Regrown Fabrial was used by a Radiant in the Midnight Essence vision in tWoK. As it held gemstones, and the knight later used a sword in a fight, I doubt it was the knight's radiant spren.

Cymatics/Chladni patterns are determined by the edge conditions (shape of the resonance body, and where/how you vibrate it) and the frequency. These are morphing as the frequency changes. Point being, just as Nevani altered the tone of her plates by filing at them to change the shape, you can change the shape of the pattern the same way, and probably get a pattern that more closely resembles the Knights Radiant Symbol

So pulling back some for some broader perspective...And for that I'll provide a WoB: Ok, so the Highstorm is a driving force for Aldonasium's design for his interesting creation, and Honor as part of the Highstorm is a bit of a recent development. I have to think that part of these unknown ramifications would have to do with the inner-workings of how the Highestorm seems to maintain a quazi stability for both the geology and the ecology of the planet through magical means. So if Dalinar or Kaladin were to convince the Stormfather to change how he blows, that could destabilize the planet's geology and ecology. There are other WoB about how it's a good question to ask how the crem gets into the storms, and that might be related too. On a similar note, Brandon RAFO'd if the Everstorm has crem, and I have to wonder how having 2 storms coming from opposite directions might have ramifications on the planet's long term stability.

Here's a writeup I made that discusses some of the mathematics behind musical notes. Some of.

In this theory I wrote last year, I concluded that the back 5 SA books will have a new big bad antagonist and: Discussions in @LewsTherinTelescope's reference on the events surrounding the Recreance timeline, as well as the fact that we still don't know what the heck scared the Radiants so much they committed the Recreance has me thinking a new WAG. The imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram caused a wound that opened up Roshar to an external threat much like the Scadrial Trellian Incursion. Somehow this threat depended on surgebinding to manifest and the Recreance patched things enough to hold it off until the current times. Thoughts backing this are how Hemalurgy opens individuals to external shardic influence via damage to the sprit web, so possibly when BAM was imprisoned, this caused similar damage. And since the damage seems to have been incurred on Roshar as a whole, the vulnerability was also to Roshar as a whole. This could also explain the nebulous enemy that was still a threat in the Recreance vision at Feverstone Keep. This enemy wasn't Odium or BAM influenced, but was a threat from an external shard. So now that Surgebinders are active again, this threat is already re-manifesting, and reinstating BAM will help, but it'll already be to late. The continued existence of the Skybreakers is problematic to this theory.

I'm actually forming a theory on this right now... more of a WAG. I'm posting it as a response to a theory I made last year because it and your reference above form the context for it.