Leyrann

That is one of the best posts I have ever found.

I'd hope we figure it out before that... She's scheduled for book 10.

Those are both RAFO's. 99% chance they have already been RAFO'd in the past in fact.

A Roshar year is indeed 500 days, but Roshar days last shorter than Earth days. To be precise, a Roshar year is 1.1 times longer than an Earth year. (from that, we calculated that a Roshar day is just under 20 Earth hours) Anyways, there's a bunch of theories about this, I actually kind of doubt she bonded Ivory this long ago, considering in the WoR prologue she seems to meet him for basically the first time.

I am a Stick!

I would join.

It definitely was. I'd never have figured it out if I hadn't read about it in a WoB first.

The exact names of the crystal structures aren't important. It's just that, on a molecular level, there are something like 8 or so possible structures for a crystal to take, and that's displayed symmetrically in the allomantic table.

I have to say, that is actually a lot more convincing than I expected it to be, though the difference between atium and aluminium is that aluminium can be found in our periodic table. I do like the crazy theories though, so let's assume it's true, what metal would then belong in the places of aluminium and duralumin? Well, first of all, the Allomantic Table has a symmetry in the crystal structure of it's metals* (note that this is only valid for pure metals; alloys do not have a set crystal structure). The structure we want to find is FCC. Available metals for this are Calcium, Nickel, Strontium, Rhodium, Palladium, Ytterbium, Iridium, Platinum, Lead, Astatine, Actinium and Thorium. Additionally, the noble gases and several extremely heavy elements have this structure, but noble gases are not relevant due to their extremely low melting points and the heavy elements are not relevant due to their lack of natural occurence and high radioactivity. So what can we cross off? Calcium, Nickel and Lead are unlikely. Lead was known in ancient times already and nickel was one of the very first 'new' elements to be discovered, in 1751. Considering the importance of metals on Scadrial, we can expect the discovery there to be at an even lower level of technology. Calcium can be found in (relatively) significant amounts in our food, and would be found through instinctual burning. Arguably, Platinum can also be crossed off because of it's early discovery (1735), but considering this metal is much more expensive, it can maybe not be ruled out for certain. Strontium can perhaps be ruled out for the same reason as Calcium, as it behaves similarly in water and is relatively common. It is, however, used far less by living organisms, which would reduce exposure. Still, this metal has been discovered already in 1787 and would likely have been known during MB2, even though, as you said, experimentation is discouraged by risk of failure. Update: We have Rhodium, Palladium, Ytterbium, Iridium, Astatine, Actinium and Thorium left. Astatine and Actinium have no stable isotopes, and barely appear naturally, so we can probably rule them out. Thorium has no stable isotopes either, but does have an isotope with a half life of 10^10 years. Possible but unlikely. Rhodium is one of the rarest precious metals, making it a possible candidate. It might also be too rare though. It was, for reference, discovered in 1804. Palladium, which can be found in between Rhodium and Silver in the periodic table, is a favorite of mine, because it is often a very good catalyst for many kinds of reactions. It is rare, but not as rare as Rhodium, and I think it could have realistically escaped discovery by the time of MB2. It was discovered in 1802 however (by the same guy who discovered Rhodium) which makes it likely MB2 was aware of the existence of the metal. Still, they may have not realized it is allomantically active. There's little to say about Ytterbium. It's possible, but not necessarily likely. It was only discovered in 1878. Iridium is a neighbor of Rhodium and Platinum (and shares a corner with Palladium) and is frequently used as a catalyst, but also very rare. It was discovered in 1803. So, out of these four, I'd say Palladium is the most likely, but none strike me as particularly likely. -- *There is also a mistake. Tin only adopts the FCC structure below a certain temperature (about 13 C, iirc), otherwise having a TETR structure, while it's place in the Allomantic Table is supposed to be FCC. This can be explained in that Brandon originally had silver at spot, but later changed this; silver does always have the FCC structure. (and one final note, I forgot to mention silver in the rest of my post, having it appear in the footnote only. We have this WoB (AoB, Annotation of Brandon?) though) https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/#e7983 So yeah, all things said and done, it could be, but I don't really think it likely. If aluminium is in fact a fake, I'd go for palladium or platinum as the real one, which are coincidentally also right under one another in the periodic table. (okay, this is becoming a neverending post) There's one more thing we might have to consider, and that's that Brandon is throwing us off with the symmetry. As it is right now, the Internal Pulling metals (copper, gold, aluminium, tin below a certain temperature) have FCC structure, the Internal Pushing on the right side (zinc, cadmium) have HCP structure, and the Internal Pushing metals on the left side (iron, chromium) have BCC structure. It could theoratically be that tin isn't a mistake (even though it's actually correct below a certain temperature), and then we would be looking for a TETR structure to pair it up with. There are only two tetrahedical structures other than tin in the entire periodic table (at least at standard temperature and pressure) and those are indium and protactinium. Protactinium's most stable isotope has a half life time of 10^4 years, so can probably be ruled out. Indium is not too rare to be possible (it is about as rare as silver), so it could be an option. Technically, it is radioactive, but that's on a time scale that you really wouldn't need to worry about it as an allomancer. Or anyone, really. It was discovered, for the record, in 1863 and isolated in 1864. Okay, REAL conclusion now: Nice theory, but I doubt there's a good candidate that can take aluminium's place. If it turns out to be true, I'm going for palladium (possible due to scarcity and usefulness in the industry and therefore a relatively likely candidate), platinum (relatively scarce, relatively well-known to the average reader, but hard to explain away being unknown in MB2) or indium (only if Brandon really, really wants to mess with us).

But that means that Cohesion and Tension would be the same but opposite. I very much doubt that is the case, because no other Surges are even remotely opposite to one another.

On a molecular scale, most solids look more or less like this, with the white dots being atoms: So basically, the entire thing is one big molecule. An ball-and-stick example, showing molecular bonds:

The problem with that is that solids tend to effectively be very large molecules with a bunch of imperfections along the way (good luck smashing a dent into a perfect molecule...).

Not sure what the goal of this thread is, but if you just want some discussion of these Surges in general, I can already say Brandon messed up in that first WoB. Wikipedia: Leaving a print in a material is more on the order of molecular bonds, which is confusing, as Tension clearly works with that as well. So, the problem is that both work with solid materials, which tend to consist of molecular rosters and arrangements, and it is hard to seperate those into two distinct parts, even though on a macro scale the difference between the Surges appears quite clear. I think that the most likely actual difference beween the two is this: Cohesion works by changing the phase of solid materials (as Brandon says "melt it") to allow you to modify them, and then reforming them as solid materials once you are finished. Possibly, this also works on liquids or gases, but I think those are already covered by Adhesion, which seems to be related to chemical cohesion (as opposed to geological cohesion). Tension works by increasing or decreasing the strength of molecular bonds in solid materials, allowing you to break bonds more easily (bending, stretching, etc solid materials) or less easily (a material that can withstand something that would logically break it).

Perhaps similar to how something can be soulcast into aluminium or how allomancers and feruchemists can still burn/store it.

Shardblades are inspired on the Honorblades. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/216-jordancon-2014/#e6446 They have a disease based magic system. We have no reason to assume the same was true 10000 years ago. Brandon has said, however, that the viruses and the like that cause the diseases have evolved in-line with the investiture. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/62-firefight-seattle-public-library-signing/#e3086 I would personally assume that this will come down to another way to gain access to Surgebinding, possibly with different limits and possibilities than the Surgebinding we know, and I expect both to be toned down versions of the Surgebinding that caused the Cataclysm.

The spren have created the Nahel bond with the Honorblades as example. The Honorblades are from after the First Desolation (humans turned to Honor after that), so the Nahel bond couldn't possibly exist yet, let alone Shardblades.

This is an important part in my opinion. If Kaladin will bond a second spren or something like that, I don't think it will happen in the first arc.

Are you proposing some kind of catch 'em all with spren?

Good one. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/156-words-of-radiance-lexington-signing/#e2841 This is now my new favorite theory. Dalinar will give the bond to the Stormfather to Kaladin at some point, and he gets access to three Surges instead of the usual 2, and maybe even something extra for Adhesion? Also: Remember how Kaladin rode the storm and, as far as I am aware, is the only one other than Dalinar who has talked to the Stormfather (except when the Stormfather was speaking to Dalinar and others at once, like at Dalinar and Navani's marriage)

That's what I'm kind of thinking. We don't see Syl get protective like that anywhere else.

I have absolutely nothing to base this on, but what if Dalinar dies and for some reason they need the Stormfather, so Kaladin decides, in the moment, to give his bond to someone else and then bonds the Stormfather?

I first thought you were going to go in the direction of Kaladin becoming a Bondsmith, and while you ended up not doing so, I'm going to drag up a very obscure WoB and go in that direction anyways: https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1125#26 Now, I don't remember exactly where it was (I think at the end of Part I where Kaladin held off the highstorm?), but at some point a number of gloryspren appear around him, and Syl "swats one [of them] away" and says "he's mine". What if, at some point, Kaladin transfers his bond with Syl to someone else (someone from Bridge Four? His brother? His father? Someone else?) and then becomes a Bondsmith, who seem to already be associated with gloryspren?

Oooh wait, now I get it. Lol. Apologies for being so confusing.

Wait, what series is that then? Either way, quite the coincidence that they have almost the same name and did the same thing.

Ahhhhh, of course! Have an upvote. (I was actually sitting there thinking for five seconds before I realized it, well done)