name_here

This is kind of true yet also not. Alpha, beta, and gamma radiation does fly in a straight line and not hang around, true, but radioactive dust can accumulate in clothing or be ingested or inhaled, and often the greatest danger comes from the dust rather than the hunk of material it broke off from, as alpha and beta radiation penetrates very poorly. This is why you see decontamination showers in media, to wash off the microscopic pieces of radioactive material. Also, neutron radiation can convert atoms into unstable isotopes and is the mechanism behind chain reactions. As a result, reactor components and protective gear for reactor workers can become hazardous waste.

No, gold ferrings would give you better data than Thugs. You can have them not tap gold until absolutely necessary, and then count any instances where they need to tap it as a severe and likely fatal reaction. Thugs resist the effects of poisoning, so even a dose fatal to ordinary humans might not produce a detectable effect on them, rendering the data useless.

Feruchemical gold probably would fix the symptoms of radiation poisoning, yes. That said, it's still a bit problematic. They'd inhale radioactive particles and accumulate them on their equipment, and neutron radiation can make materials it strikes radioactive. I'm not entirely sure whether Feruchemical gold will actually remove poisons or just compensate for their effects, but either way it won't do a thing about clothing or gear. The metalminds themselves could end up as high-level waste. Scadrial might very well opt to give nuclear power a miss. Economically speaking, it's not terribly efficent, at least at present they don't have much call for nuclear weapons, and while it does have some environmental advantages, Scadrial is pretty underpopulated in absolute terms, so I expect that by the time the downsides of hydrocarbon burning come back to haunt them they'll have a better option available.

I had a similar theory. Note that even though the experiment only showed that it worked with specific measured numbers, it might be possible to apply it in another manner with the aid of Stormlight.

I've theorized about the writing being used to control spren for magical purposes before. Pretty plausible that fabrials are an example, although there is a slight potential causality problem. The documentation of measurements has to be accurate, so they'd have to get a spren into a fabrial in the first place to get it to work. However, the act of writing could keep a spren in the fabrial. It's possible that a spren can be locked in a gem containing Stormlight, and documenting that it's in the gem keeps it there once the Stormlight runs out.

My personal theory on the glowing Shardplate is that Dalinar is a very early stage Radiant, and when he acts properly Radiant-ish he causes his Shardplate to function better and begin glowing because it recognizes him as a Radiant and unlocks special features. But it's very subdued because he hasn't properly bonded with a spren. Also, it's not entirely correct to say there's been no sign of a spren hanging around. During some battles he hears a faint voice that might originate from an honorspren. If it hates the Shardblade as much as Syl, it's probably been keeping its distance. Given that the bond is pretty weak, the honorspren probably isn't particularly distinguishable from a typical spren of its apparent type at the moment, if it's even particularly visible. Plus, my current theory has Dalinar as a Stoneward, mostly because he's in the devotary of Taln and both visions with Radiants in them in TWoK had a Stoneward. We know from Shallan and Jasnah that other orders have different forms of spren, so Dalinar might have a less-visible one.

I'm sure Harmony is more than capable of figuring out how his own power system works. But it doesn't seem to be his style to just go and tell everyone.

I got the distinct impression that possessing the Blade was what made Szeth Truthless. I believe it's the same principle as the warriors, but because he picked up an even deadlier weapon he has an even lower status. The warriors are slaves, Szeth was filth who was not even worthy of being sold. I believe that some number of Blades are stored in Shinovar, but anyone who picks them up becomes Truthless. I wonder if it might be a distorted form of the Radiant ideals; no one is to wield a Shardblade except to defend humanity from Voidbringers. But the Voidbringers allegedly don't exist/are all dead, so picking one up is in clear violation of that rule. I seriously doubt the Shin warriors make use of Shardblades. They must have fought off invasions at some point, and if they used Shardblades then people would have heard about it. The guards weren't visibly armed, but there are several possible explainations for that. It was a peaceful meeting with a long-time trading partner, so the guards were probably more a status symbol than a precaution. It could be that the highest-status guards are ones who fight unarmed, it could be that soldiers only carry weapons when their duty demands it, or it could be that openly displaying weapons would be an insult and they had concealed knives.

Shards at full power are apparently capable of creating matter and life, so even if they can't physically manifest they could just manufacture and dispose of a mouthpiece as needed for basically the same effect.

I think Preservation and Ruin went around opposing each other everywhere and eventually made a deal, from what we get in HoA. They set things up so Preservation could sustain a world for a long period of time and Ruin could eventually destroy it because they got sick of stalemating on everything. Of the known Shards, they're the only two that are directly opposed such that anything in alignment with one of their Intents went directly against the other. Honor and Odium are close-ish, because Honor involves subjugating personal emotions to a higher code while Odium is an emotion overriding everything else, but it's entirely possible to hold to a code of honor while hating people who violate it. Devotion and Domination can coexist as opposite ends of the same relationship, and actually when I did a split into pairings I stuck them with other Shards for oppositions. I'm not entirely convinced Leras was more successful in fighting the Intent of Preservation. One important phase of his whole plan was dying and being replaced by someone fresh enough to be unaffected by the Intent, after all. I think he was just early enough in the process to still arrange for his Intent to be violated when he set it up and let it run. Maybe he could still have killed Ruin himself back then, but couldn't set up a heir to both Shards.

They all seem to be derived from verbs and have noun forms that can describe the product/act of performing the verb, come to think of it. Odium doesn't have a direct verb form in English, but it's derived from odeo, odire, odivi, which is Latin for "to hate". Well, technically, it's derived from a neuter noun, but I'm pretty sure that's because they used the gerund so often they made it an official noun. Also, except for Ruin and Preservation and arguably Cultivation they're all abstract and relate to human emotions and interactions. I actually theorized that they might have the same recursive paring pattern as the Allomantic metals, with pairs that are linked to another pair, and then that is linked to another quad and the resulting octets have some thematic opposition. Brandon has stated somewhere that Scadrial's system is an in-universe effort to impose order and does not necessarily reflect underlying reality, but given how Hemalurgy works, the quads seem to be meaningful, so I feel fairly confident in saying that the overall pairing pattern is actually a real phenomenon and could extend to the Shards. It would be rather appropriate if Preservation's system most accurately reflected the original, unaltered split.

Modern currency is fiat currency, and destroying it for raw materials is a criminal offense. I don't think Roshar is really centralized enough to enforce that.

Well, the pattern of a sex-linked recessive is pretty distinctive, but the Alethi don't know genetics. It'd seem to randomly skip generations sometimes and follow no discernible pattern; even if they drew up one of those hereditary trait trees they wouldn't know what to make ou it. If it were a simple recessive, then either most parings would have darkeyed children or almost all darkeyes are hybrids and would often have lighteyed children. I think that mismatches between parents and children are fairly rare, although I am willing to believe it occasionally happens and is blamed on adultery or divine will. It might also be a non gender-linked trait with an inheritance pattern considerably more complex than a basic recessive, but it would need to frequently produce mixed sets of children in mixed pairings while almost never leading to lighteyed children of darkeyes. I'll bow to your expertise if you know of one that fits that profile. I guess social factors would mean it'd be less likely to be known if light is dominant, since lighteyes have more of a reason to cover it up while darkeyes would be quite happy to have a high-status son, question about his legitimacy or not.

I think the implication of the standardization is exactly the opposite. Roshar just doesn't seem to be politically coherent enough to have an international monetary union. And it's kinda big relative to transportation technology to have a centralized anything, although spanreeds make it potentially possible to have local branches of an organization coordinate. So the fact that spheres are basically interchangable implies that no one has much control over the currency. Historically, many currencies were weights of precious metals and more-or-less identical between multiple governments except for the faces on the coins. On Roshar, each denomination of sphere contains a gem of a certain type and size, and everyone mostly agrees on how much that gem is worth. As long as the gem is real, and if it is holding Stormlight then it is, no one really cares who issued it. The value is from the material, where modern currencies generally derive their value from the issuing government declaring it has value. There's a number of possibilities for who actually makes them, and it probably varies by kingdom. There's a Royal Mint, and only it has the authority to make new spheres. I would guess that in the areas we've seen so far, the kings wish it worked this way but have not successfully made it so. Every noble of a certain rank can issue their own, possibly with some limitations. Alethkar and Jah Keved probably have it under the control of the Highprinces. Anyone who has the resources can make their own, and the moneylenders and banks generally do. As for why it's standardized, everyone probably agrees with the underlying assumptions about value that lead to the selection of sizes and ordering of gem types. It may also be a remnant from pre-Recreance, when there was enough unity to agree to a single standard to simplify trade. Probably no one has successfully imposed their own currency system, although having a unique system makes controlling the money supply easier. In light of Roshar's generally feudal governments, the kings probably don't have the power to force through that kind of major change, and the Highprinces would be rather wary of any attempt to centralize power. Oh, I also doubt they're made by Soulcasting; from what I can tell it's a bit expensive. The war effort uses it extensively, but wars are always expensive and in this particular case they have ready access to lots and lots of Gemhearts. Probably they pour molten glass into molds and stick a gem in the center.

I was pretty surprised and liked it. I'm told someone called it way back before WoA even came out, incidentally.

We get some explanation in the Kaladin flashbacks. Apparently a mixed marriage can produce some of each. Genetically, that's pretty confusing, lending credence to the idea that it's mystical in origin. Yes, that sort of thing can happen, but if lighteye-darkeye marriages regularly produce mixed first generation families then one would expect it to happen with reasonable frequency among non-mixed marriages. We have no specific evidence on whether it ever happens for non-mixed, but if it does it's probably a rather rare event or we'd see significant social implications. I would guess that it's associated with sDNA that has only one "slot", and which parent fills the slot is semi-random. If it is genetic, I'd guess it's a sex-linked trait on Roshar, mostly because that can obfuscate inheritance patterns. While the resultant impact of that is fairly distinctive, Roshar doesn't necessarily have the genetic knowledge to figure it out and the most obvious first guess about the pattern would have counterexamples.

I just now remembered: in the case of Shardplate this isn't actually true. Yes, each set in the modern era is decorated distinctively, but it's mentioned in the narration that the decorations and paint jobs have been added by the current owners. Dalinar's set is plain grey with no decorative attachments because he specifically decided not to customize it, not because he happened to get a boring one.

Huh, good point about Elhokar. That said, I'm not sure Adolin's got won on the plains; got a quote confirming that? If neither of them got it, I expect whoever found the body grabbed it and got to keep it. The only non-Shardbearer male in House Kholin seems to be Renerian. Jasnah does not appear to have anywhere to hide Plate, and while I would credit her with being willing to spit in the face of traditional gender roles and keep Shards, I seriously doubt she'd take them and then go off and research in a library while her beloved-but-foolish brother was off at war without his own set. Sadeas definitely didn't end up with the Blade, and if he did get the Plate it got repainted.

I don't believe anyone is ever stated to flare copper. Everyone who makes use of it thinks it's absolute; Vin has a very strict need-to-know policy about high-end allomancy, and since she and Marsh were the only known super-seekers in the city no one else needed to know. Marsh probably didn't tell anyone due to Ruin's influence, since it's pretty clear he didn't explain Hemalurgy at all. For instance, we're pretty much certain he didn't have Allomantic gold and I'm pretty confident he did have Feruchemical gold. I expect that duralumin pulses would change somehow. While I've previously commented that they don't seem to propogate like waves, the intensity might vary like one, in which case there are two possible outcomes, where it either increases the frequency or the amplitude. An amplitude increase would make them "louder" and be detectable from further away. A frequency shift would not increase propagation distance unless it really does act like a wave propagating through a medium. How it would be perceived is an open question, although I'd be willing to bet it feels like a different and probably nonexistent metal.

I'm actually pretty sure Vin got a mild case of pewter savanthood in Well Of Ascension. She was noted to be burning it fairly frequently and averaged four hours of sleep a night over a rather extended period with no noticable ill effects, then collapsed for an entire week at the end after her first lengthy period without pewter in quite a while. Also, Kelsier alludes to the nasty side-effects of overdoing it back when first explaining the metals to Vin, with the implication that it could happen to her. I expect you mostly don't see Mistborn savants because they've got so many options. Since multiple metals will provide potential solutions to any given problem they have, they don't have a good reason to focus on one exclusively. The only metals they'd be likely to overdo are copper, which everyone thinks is absolute anyhow and also doesn't seem to stop Inquisitors even for savants since Clubs burns it constantly but Vin breaks through just fine, and tin, which they generally won't burn during daylight and don't flare too terribly often.

The effects of tapping and storing are both temporary, so it wouldn't reduce life expectancy much if at all.

Her Intent would make her try to cultivate Roshar.

Diskworld, Hogfather, created due to manifestation of excess belief during Teatime's attempted assassination of the Hogfather, when the Arch-chancellor commented that it was strange how there was a god of wine but not a god of hangovers.

Shard of Molar Mass. Using its powers requires writing in scientific notation.

Szeth is pretty bad at holding Stormlight compared to Kaladin, though. Of course, by the time Kaladin starts actually holding it for a long period of time, he's already bonded with Syl, so he's probably better at it than Elhokar. But more importantly, it appears that gems crack when you drain them too rapidly. If they'd been mostly drained already by the time they fought the Chasmfiend, they wouldn't shatter; the Plate would just lock up.