Gagylpus

Oh, the physics of magic. I love these kinds of discussions. One caveat to start off with is that Brandon, of course, is not a physicist. (And thank goodness, otherwise he would probably spend too much time doing math and not enough time writing books.) So his magic systems won't always act consistently with physical principles. Zane's balancing act with steelpushing is a good example of this. The book describes him as being able to carefully manipulate his orientation, twisting around in the air. But the books also explicitly state that Allomantic force always acts on your center of mass. A force that acts on your center of mass can never cause that kind of turning or twisting motion. So something is wrong here. Another problem is Vin and Kelsier's coin-pushing match, which flattened the coin between them. (Disregarding the fact that such a configuration is highly unstable, and the coin would never have remained between them long enough to get flattened - it would have been flung away just like the rest.) The only kinds of forces capable of always acting through an object's center of mass are body forces, forces distributed throughout the volume of the object. Whereas the kind of force required to flatten the coin would have to be stronger on the faces of the coin, compared to the middle, something that looks more like a surface force. The confusion is understandable, since the only body force we are familiar with is gravity or other inertial forces from accelerating reference frames (for example, an elevator that is starting or stopping, or a roller coaster) and we mostly only feel those by comparison with surface forces (I 'feel' gravity because my feet are supporting my weight - but that is actually the reaction force from the ground, a surface force). Another reason that Allomantic forces must be distributed across your body (and across the volume of the object you are pushing or pulling - it would be strange if they worked differently at the other end) is that, if the force actually acted on your center of mass, it would be like a hook in your gut yanking you around. Not particularly pleasant. And there is no simple (or even unique) way for the forces to be distributed across the surface of your body so that the net force acts through your center of mass, so it wouldn't make sense at assume we are dealing with surface forces. (Now I'm rambling a little bit. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense that Allomantic forces always act through your center of mass. There isn't any natural way to make this happen. Also, I'm contradicting myself because I just thought of a way to create a simple distribution of surface forces, though it still doesn't satisfy the center of mass requirement... though it will act through your center of volume whenever a related body force field would act through your center of mass. But I don't want to start postulating Allomantic ether theories.) ... Okay, so that was a long way of saying that, while we can try our best, no theory is going to catch all of the phenomena that we see in the book. But I think your main premise about Allomantic force is right. Here's how I would nuance it a bit. Allomantic force follows an inverse-square law. It has to decrease with distance. Otherwise, you could pull yourself to Luthadel all the way from Fadrex city by yanking on the spires of the Kredik Shaw. And inverse-square laws just make sense, given our three dimensions of space. (There's a nice image showing why here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) Allomantic force is a body force, distributed proportional to mass. In other words, just like gravity. This is where the advantage of the inverse-square law comes into play. Inverse-square body forces act between objects' centers of mass when the distance between the objects' centers is much greater than their sizes. So when Vin is up on the wall of Luthadel, pushing on a steel bar at the bottom to slow her decent, the force is basically through her center. Basically, I'm postulating that each little bit of mass of the Allomancer pushes or pulls on each little bit of mass of the metal, with a force that is proportional to the masses (actually, their Allomantic charges, see below) of both the little bits and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the little bits. The force on each bit of mass is pointed directly towards or directly away from the other bit of mass. (Then you integrate over all of the bits of mass on each body to get your total force.) This reduces to your theory, for the case where the Allomancer and the metal are far apart, and (I think) is the most natural way that the forces would be distributed. The snag is that when the Allomancer and the metal are close together, the total force no longer acts through the center of mass (and is also no longer exactly inverse-square, though it still diminishes with distance). However, I have an idea that might help solve this problem. Metals that can be pushed and pulled have an Allomantic charge, distributed proportional to mass. The charge has a special identity unique to each individual piece of metal, kind of like an electric charge, but only interacting with other charges that have that unique identity. Pushing or pulling on a piece of metal floods your body with the Allomantic charge unique to that piece of metal. Ironpulling obviously uses an attractive charge, and steelpushing uses a repulsive charge. The reason I put these unique identities on the charges is obviously because you only push or pull on certain objects at a time. Wax's steel bubble could involve a more general charge. The total amount of Allomantic charge that you can put on your body is proportional to your metal burn rate. So if you weigh less, you will be able to accelerate faster using the same push as someone who weighs more, because you have a higher charge per unit weight. (I think a similar thing happens with pewter and tin - as Ham explains it, part of the reason Vin packs such a punch is that she's enhancing a smaller body with the same amount of Allomantic power.) It is also quite possible that you get more Allomantic charge per unit metal burned if you have a higher innate Allomantic strength. Here's my idea that helps solve the center of mass problem. An Allomancer's Allomantic charge is somewhat mobile within their body (but the equilibrium state is distributed proportional to mass). So when you push on a coin directly beneath you to launch off the ground, here is what happens. Your feet are much closer to the coin than your head is, so initially the force on your feet is much greater, and the total force is acting way below your center of mass. But the Allomantic charge responds to the force to some degree as well, so it ends up being pushed away from your feet, concentrating higher up in your body. This moves the center of action of the force closer to your center of mass. And voila! An Allomantic force that seems to act through the center of mass. This could even explain Zane's balancing act, since he could be skillfully exploiting the fact that it isn't exactly through the mass center (it would be incredibly difficult, so Vin is rightfully impressed). I'm not sure yet if it explains the coin-flattening. I'll have to give it more thought. I'm gonna tackle your theory about iron Feruchemy next. (After the edit.) Edit: Okay, adding in commentary on your Feruchemy theory. Basically all I have to say has probably been said already in other threads about iron Feruchemy. The gravitational mass vs. inertial mass distinction has some merit - if I recall, Sazed's description as he floats down to the Conventical of Seran makes it sound like iron Feruchemy does affect them differently. But the theory is sadly put to rest in Alloy of Law. Wax changes weight while he arcs across the dining hall and specifically notes that this doesn't change his motion in any way, which means that his inertial and gravitational masses are still identical. So iron Feruchemy just changes your density, straight up. (With the added side bonus of immunity to self crushing.) Edit: About your attempts to calculate the proportionality constant. It sounds like you're looking for how much force you can exert on something before you start moving as well. In free space, of course, any amount of force will start you moving. There's nothing wrong with that, as that same force will also move whatever you are pushing or pulling on, whether its a coin or a planet. (The planet won't move by very much, of course.) On the ground, the force that will start you moving is just going to be equal to the maximum static frictional force between you and the ground. In general, this is proportional to your weight (with the coefficient of friction depending on the composition of the ground and of your shoes).

Thanks!

Hey all! So I'm way up here in Canada, that big place on top of America, and I don't know of a way to get my hands on a Steelhunt code short of a long roadtrip that I really don't have time for right now. And I hear that the Steelhunt goodies include some WoR tidbits, which I am desperate for. Is there a chance someone could PM me a code? I am offering 100 emerald broams and the rest of my atium in exchange.

That isn't quite correct, though I don't have quotes to back it up. Ruin is his intent - his ultimate goal - but he is very capable of destroying in a planned, deliberate way. I think Brandon said somewhere that he can build something up if it would result in further destruction later.

Pewter is different because it enhances the force produced by the muscles, rather than generating an entirely new force. Vin gets more out of pewter because there's less of her to accelerate with her strengthened muscles, and because with her higher innate allomantic strength she can get more strength out of the same amount of pewter. (And possibly because there's less of her for the pewter to enhance in the first place.) That doesn't neccessarily mean that the force generated by steelpushes and ironpulls is proportional to the allomancer's mass for the same amount of metal burned. I would guess that the default force level is proportional to the allomancer's weight (since it is, essentially, using your weight as leverage against the push/pull) but that heavier allomancers have a higher base burn rate as well. Then the impulse, per unit mass of the anchor, per unit mass of iron/steel burned, is approximately constant and independent of the allomancer's mass. Actually, thinking about it, it seems likely that the base burn rates of all the physical metals are higher for heavier allomancers. With pewter and tin there's more body for the metal to enhance, and with steel and iron theres more mass to generate allomantic forces from.

Yes. Actually, we can extend this to the allomancer as well. Every bit of matter in the allomancer's body is exerting a force on every bit of matter in the anchor. This is the only way for the center-of-mass rule (steelpushes and ironpulls always act through the allomancer's center of mass) to fall out of the equations naturally, without any handwavium. This means that the basic allomantic force equations actually should not relate the force between the allomancer and the metal, but the (vector) differential bit of force between the differential bit of allomancer mass and the differential bit of metal mass. The differential force should be a scalar function f times the unit vector r/|r|, times the differential masses. dF = f(|r|, burn rate, other variables)*dm_a*dm_m*r/|r| Total force F = double integral of dF over allomancer body (domain of dm_a) and metal body (domain of dm_m) (Each of those integrals, of course, is over a three-dimensional domain, so the end equation is six-tuple integral of a three-dimensional vector over very complicated domains. Not something that anyone wants to do by hand.) To fit with what we see in the books, f should fall off with |r| (the distance between the allomancer bit of mass and the metal bit of mass) and increase with burn rate and innate allomantic strength. Also, the domain of the first integral is fixed to be over the whole body of the allomancer (although not mathematically fixed, since the allomancer can change their position and orientation). All the evidence of the books indicates the allomancer has no control over this. However, it does appear that they can control the target domain. Vin can pull on part of a spire of Kredik Shaw without being pulled towards the center of mass of all of Kredik Shaw, so a skilled allomancer can probably push on just part of a coin, causing it to spin as it flies away. The one problem with this is that the books very frequently describe opposing pushes or pulls as squeezing or stretching the allomancer between them, when, if the allomantic force is a body force as the center-of-mass rule indicates, the opposing forces should just cancel out. There's a similar problem for metal subjected to opposing forces from two allomancers, such as the coin flattened by Vin and Kelsier in book 1. Although that might be explained by the two of them subconsciously pushing more on the side of the coin that is closer to them. ...and that was a bit longer than I expected. Haha.

I was bored the other day, so I looked up the compositions of all the Allomantic metals and alloys and overlayed them on the periodic table. I thought the result might be interesting to some of you. As Sanderson himself has said, it appears to be pretty random. A couple curiosities: Most basic metals are paired with alloys for which they are also the base metal, that is, the most predominant metal in the alloy. The exceptions are brass, which contains more copper than zinc, and bendalloy, which contains more lead, tin, and bismuth than cadmium. Depending on the exact composition, electrum might also fall into this category (if I recall correctly, electrum usually contains between 45% to 55% gold, with the rest silver). Most of the alloys are (as far as we know) binary alloys, combining only two elements. The exceptions are bendalloy (cadmium with lead, tin, and bismuth) and nicrosil (chromium with nickel and silicon, as well as trace amounts of magnesium). Most of the alloys have significant quantities (10% or more) of the alloying elements. The notable exception to this is steel, which contains less than 2% carbon. (Side note: If I were to guess the composition of Allomancer's steel, I expect it would be 0.8% carbon and 99.2% iron. This is known as eutectoid steel, and has the property that it transitions from a the ferrite phase to the austenite phase at a unique temperature while heating, rather than transitioning to ferrite + austenite and then to austenite over a range of temperatures.) I should probably get back to studying for my exams now. Have fun!

Have you read the end of Warbreaker?

If you look at the illustration of the layout of Vedenar, capital of Jah Keved, you can see it has a similar six-arrowed configuration to our mysterious compass symbol: http://isaacstewart.com/images/wok/tWoK_MAP-6_FOUR_CITIES-webres.jpg Very interesting. Good find, Elwynn!

One set of evidence that seems (at least to me) strangely neglected in this thread is the Herald images that appear in the arch at the beginning of each chapter. Going through quickly, I picked out all the chapters where Shallan and/or Jasnah appear, and the herald images for each of these chapters. CH3 - we first see Shallan - 2x herald 6 CH5 - we first see Jasnah - 2x herald 5 CH7 - Shallan attempts to convince Jasnah to take her as her ward - 2x herald 10 CH8 - Shallan convinces Jasnah to take her as her ward - 2x herald 5 CH28 - Jasnah communicates with Dalinar via spanreed - herald 5, herald 1 CH29 - Shallan and Jasnah debate viewpoints - herald 5, herald 6 CH33 - Kabsal shows Shallan the cymatic patterns - herald 5, herald 10 CH36 - Jasnah takes Shallan for a practical lesson - herald 5, herald 2 CH39 - Shallan considers the morality of Jasnah's murders and her own theft - herald 6, herald 2 CH42 - Shallan presents her conclusion to Jasnah, and plans to leave - herald 5, herald 10 CH45 - Shallan enters Shadesmar and soulcasts for the first time - herald 5, herald 6 CH48 - Kabsal attempts to poison Jasnah and ends up poisoning himself and Shallan - 2x herald 10 CH70 - Shallan realizes that Jasnah can soulcast as well, and both go to Shadesmar - herald 5, herald 7 CH72 - Jasnah reveals her suspicions about parshmen - 2x herald 5 CH74 - Shallan learns about the Ghostbloods - herald 5, herald 10 13 of the 15 chapters they appear in have either Herald 5 or Herald 6 at the beginning, or both. Once I realized the significance of the Herald images, I immediately thought that Shallan would belong to Order 6, and Jasnah to Order 5, based on the associations between the herald images and the chapters. The only thing that really doesn't fit for Jasnah being Order 5, in my mind, is the soulcasting with organics thing... which could just be something Brandon tossed in to throw us for a loop.

Very interesting. It certainly seems plausible, with the knowledge I have of Dragonsteel - which is exactly none, lol. However, I highly doubt we will find out anything on that level of significance about Hoid before the Dragonsteel series is published. We can always add "Is Hoid a dragon?" to the list of questions to ask Brandon, though.

IE Dalinar gave the shards to Elhokar, not for Elhokar to use, but for Elhokar to then award them to an honoured warrior.

So Galladon is the only Elantrian in the interlude... I wonder, then, if his two companians are simply non-Elantrians from Sel or if they are from other worlds?

I think it's highly possible that, as Musicspren suggests, the removal of memories is in fact the boon. Which makes Dalinar's trip to the Nightwatcher even more regretful. However, Renarin's sickness doesn't seem quite in line with what I imagine the Nightwatcher does - it seems like more of a curse on Renarin than Dalinar himself. Still, the OP may be correct. Also: Musicspren, you are epic for writing a ketek related to Mistborn.

A belated welcome to you! Excellent name you have there. (Yes, my name is also Matthew.) Congrats on being accepted into the Ardentia.

Oh wow, nice! Think I'm gonna have to say the one of Navani is my fav. Love the way the dress wraps around behind her neck. Though she does seem a little younger than she should be. Not like I'm complaining.

Thanks everyone! Looking around the intro forum, my heart is warmed to see some other members who love both math and language. I guess I'm not really surprised to see some like-minded individuals here. Math is awesome! I once taught myself the basics of tensor algebra and differential geometry so I could understand the mathematical description of general relativity... these days I'm (unsuccessfully) trying to wrap my head around group theory and abstract algebra because it seems to have some bearing on the Standard Model. Quantum mechanics is STRANGE.

Welcome from yet another math enthusiast! Hehe, I'm in engineering, but I think my favourite classes were the math ones... which were everyone elses least favourites. They just don't see.

Welcome! Ahaha I love tvtropes. In addition to all the scenes listed there, another one I love is when Jasnah soulcasts the men in the alleyway, and another when Shallan figures out Jasnah's secret. Can't wait for SA2.

Welcome! Oohhhh just you wait till you get to the end of the Mistborn trilogy... massive epicness ensues.

That's my hope. The situation he is describing is almost guarenteed to be completely false. But the hints about feruchemy may have some basis in truth. Because I'm a fan of symmetry, I suspect that if there are no more Mistborn, there are probably no more full Feruchemists either. (Although it may be a reversal of the situation in the trilogy. Where there were once Mistborn, Allomantic Mistings, and Feruchemists, there are now Feruchemists, Feruchemical Mistings, and Allomantic Mistings. That has a kind of symmetry to it as well.) So I'm leaning towards Handerwym carrying multiple metalminds because he can use them to store connections to different people. I'd venture to guess that this is a Feruchemical Enhancement ability. It doesn't really line up with the one temporal ability we know (storing health in goldminds). Although there is less of an association between abilities within the same group for Feruchemy, case in point the storing of warmth being a mental ability... so could be anything goes. The more I think about it the more I realize I'm just grasping at straws.

Good day, members of the 17th Shard! Been lurking on these forums for a couple months. I finally caved and signed up when there had been no discussion of a certain tidbit about feruchemy from the Elendel Daily broadsheet, and I am dying to know what other people pulled from it. Everyone who has read the broadsheet go comment on it. Funny story, I discovered this site in early May, and this news story was still close to the top: For a few minutes, I was more shocked than I have been in a very long time, until I realized the story was posted on April 1. Yeah. Best month-late April Fool's Day joke I have ever fallen for.

Taking off my lurker hood to jolt some life into this thread, though this maybe could start its own topic... I noticed that no one has commented on this passage yet, where Allomancer Jak discusses how his servant retrieved his gun. As far as I see it, there are a couple possibilities here. Either "Allomancer Jak" is completely making stuff up, and there is no such feruchemical power that allows one to store up a connection to someone else (whatever that means). Or he is drawing this aspect of his tale from reality, and this feruchemical ability exists. Also interesting to note is the phrase "one of his metalminds". This clearly implies (as long as "Allomancer Jak" is not just making stuff up) that Handerwym has multiple metalminds, so either this ability is like tin or copper in that its metalminds can have distinct contents (connections to different people, maybe) or Handerwym has more than one feruchemical power. Or, I suppose, he just carries multiple metalminds that serve the exact same thing. So what do you all think? How does this connection storing ability work? Does it store connections to individuals (the koloss who had possession of the gun) or groups (the entire band)? What does storing and tapping a connection even mean? And does this passage point to the existence of full Feruchemists? Ahhhh so many questions!