Allomatic Thought Experiments

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Some of the science and temporal threads give me ideas for thought experiments only slightly related to them, and I cannot be the only one. This thread is for those!

1) If you did have a telegraph line in Scadrial, and a Slider were standing partway along it, creating a time bubble, would telegraph messages be altered by the "refraction"? Would they be noticeably altered by the slow time spot (even though the "message" is traveling at near-light speeds)?

2) Two Coinshot/Bloodmakers are having a duel in a frictionless vacuum. Each anchors herself to a large object behind them, and then pushes on a metal sphere, exactly between. The anchors and the Allomancers are of exactly equal mass between the two sides, and both have exactly equal skill and power as Allomancers. Will the sphere eventually become a smooth and thin sheet of metal, or do the straight-line forces from the Allomancers' centers of gravity mean that, once it deforms too much, the wayward pieces will be forced back into the whole?

3) I light a huge fire, then climb to a platform above it and begin burning Cadmium. My assistants extinguish the fire. Do the flames held inside immediately begin (slowly, from an outside view) dying, or does it take time for the removal of fuel to affect them? What if the fire is not extinguished, but it is a Bendalloy bubble - do the flames in the bubble die anyway, since they cannot get fuel fast enough to feed themselves from outside?

I know I had others, which I will recall eventually...

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[Kurkistan he/him]

Some of the science and temporal threads give me ideas for thought experiments only slightly related to them, and I cannot be the only one. This thread is for those!

1) If you did have a telegraph line in Scadrial, and a Slider were standing partway along it, creating a time bubble, would telegraph messages be altered by the "refraction"? Would they be noticeably altered by the slow time spot (even though the "message" is traveling at near-light speeds)?

2) Two Coinshot/Bloodmakers are having a duel in a frictionless vacuum. Each anchors herself to a large object behind them, and then pushes on a metal sphere, exactly between. The anchors and the Allomancers are of exactly equal mass between the two sides, and both have exactly equal skill and power as Allomancers. Will the sphere eventually become a smooth and thin sheet of metal, or do the straight-line forces from the Allomancers' centers of gravity mean that, once it deforms too much, the wayward pieces will be forced back into the whole?

3) I light a huge fire, then climb to a platform above it and begin burning Cadmium. My assistants extinguish the fire. Do the flames held inside immediately begin (slowly, from an outside view) dying, or does it take time for the removal of fuel to affect them? What if the fire is not extinguished, but it is a Bendalloy bubble - do the flames in the bubble die anyway, since they cannot get fuel fast enough to feed themselves from outside?

I know I had others, which I will recall eventually...

-- Deus Ex Biotica

My guesstimates:

1) Assuming that any "weird" effects upon entry are fully reversed upon exit, then it should behave similarly to if you just added X meters superconducting of cable to the wire - slightly increased transmission time, but no additional energy lost to resistance.

2) It really depends on what part of the sphere is pushed upon. Assuming that all of the metal of the sphere is pushed on simultaneously, I think I think it would result in an even sheet.

3)

I think that the fire would die at normal speed within the Cadmium bubble after the main burn was extinguished, although it would still be ludicrously fast within the bubble. Thinking of how Cadmium bubbles work, actually, you might have a super-flame in the bubble while the fire was burning, since the amount of fuel entering the bubble from real-time would result in far more fuel available per-second within the bubble.

I agree that a Bendalloy bubble would never have anything beyond the initial burst of captured flame, since fuel wouldn't be able to come in fast enough to maintain a flame.

[happyman he/him]

Some of the science and temporal threads give me ideas for thought experiments only slightly related to them, and I cannot be the only one. This thread is for those!

1) If you did have a telegraph line in Scadrial, and a Slider were standing partway along it, creating a time bubble, would telegraph messages be altered by the "refraction"? Would they be noticeably altered by the slow time spot (even though the "message" is traveling at near-light speeds)?

In the real world, telegraph and telephone lines are really "waveguides." If you look closely at the physics, most of the energy is being carried by a long-wavelength electromagnetic wave which is "anchored" to the wire (which reduces loss enormously compared to directly broadcasting the energy). Any discussion of the time-bubble effects on electricity would be essentially the same as the ones related to the wavelength shift---which is a real can of worms in its own right. Short answer: I don't know. You'd have to handwave it just like the other light effects were handwaved. A real mess is what it would be.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Short answer: I don't know. You'd have to handwave it just like the other light effects were handwaved. A real mess is what it would be.

I know! That's why it's such a cool thought experiment!

[Aradel he/him]

1) If you did have a telegraph line in Scadrial, and a Slider were standing partway along it, creating a time bubble, would telegraph messages be altered by the "refraction"? Would they be noticeably altered by the slow time spot (even though the "message" is traveling at near-light speeds)?

Light isn't distorted much, so I'd tend to think that at most the message would be distorted a little. And I'm starting to think that bendalloy and cadmium work more with Brandon's Special Cosmere physics than ours. Something to do with either the cognitive or spiritual realm.

2) Two Coinshot/Bloodmakers are having a duel in a frictionless vacuum. Each anchors herself to a large object behind them, and then pushes on a metal sphere, exactly between. The anchors and the Allomancers are of exactly equal mass between the two sides, and both have exactly equal skill and power as Allomancers. Will the sphere eventually become a smooth and thin sheet of metal, or do the straight-line forces from the Allomancers' centers of gravity mean that, once it deforms too much, the wayward pieces will be forced back into the whole?

Weaknesses in the structure of the metal would cause it to deform unevenly, possibly separating into two pieces going either direction. In the case of a perfect metal sphere, It would guess that the 'blue line' is drawn from the coinshot's center of mass to the sphere's center of mass. flattening it in the center with a bulge around the outside.

3) I light a huge fire, then climb to a platform above it and begin burning Cadmium. My assistants extinguish the fire. Do the flames held inside immediately begin (slowly, from an outside view) dying, or does it take time for the removal of fuel to affect them? What if the fire is not extinguished, but it is a Bendalloy bubble - do the flames in the bubble die anyway, since they cannot get fuel fast enough to feed themselves from outside?

Water dumped to a cadmium bubble to quench a fire would move and extinguish the fire at cadmium speeds.

As to how fire behaves inside a speed-bubble: How fast can slow air get through the 'barrier'? A fire would consume oxygen and fuel at a pace that seems normal to the misting inside. If air takes time to be drawn through the barrier by dispersion, the fire may use up all the oxygen in the bubble, and extinguish itself. The smoke would be cool to watch as it leaves the bubble, then freezes in place.

If air moves easily into the bubble, then air would be drawn in as the fire consumes it a bendalloy speeds. Creating a little breeze.

[Djerf he/him]

@1

I would believe that a telegraph is more or less digital in that that it isn’t analog but instead works on impulses. As a simple digital system it wouldn’t be harmed directly by a time bubble since the changes upon entering nullifies the changes upon exiting the bubble.

But the refraction from entering and exiting the bubble could (would) cause interference that might or might not be noticeable in a telegraph but would wreak havoc in a more complex system. The different speeds of time would cause the signal to be more or less delayed which again don’t matter much to the telegraph but would be a pain if you’re playing online.

Some kind of capacitance effect might occur

Now if the angle of entry and exit is different it could cause some interesting trouble due to the way an electrical charge moves thru a conductor not to mention what would happen if the transfer was parallel.

The thing that would affect the telegraph directly is the act of creating and uncreating (do we get the term used for this?) the bubble.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Would the delay even be noticeable with a near-light speed process of electron transfer, though, however complex the signal it conveyed?

[discipleofhoid he/him]

Would the delay even be noticeable with a near-light speed process of electron transfer, though, however complex the signal it conveyed?

Most network systems have a delay(latency) of at least 50 ms already. In comparison to that

speed of electricity in a copper cable = 200,000,000 meters/ second

Assume a maximum area the size of a large room 35 m (ballroom in Buckingham palace)

Compression ratio of 4 hrs to a 5 min conversation(this maybe unreasonably large) Note: I am going for 4 hrs outside the bubble to 5 min inside - The other way would be impossible

4 hrs = 4*60 min = 240min

time ratio is 240min/5min = 1/42

time to cross normal = 35m/200000000m/s = 1.75 * 10^-7 s

time to cross in bubble = (35m/(200000000m/s))*42= 7.35 × 10^-6 s

difference in time to endpoint = 7.17500 × 10^-6

So that is 7 microseconds in comparison to the 50 or more millisecond delay on most network systems.

So would this be detectable on modern systems - yes with the right equipment. Would it be noticed? Not unless you were looking for it and could filter out most other forms of interference. Most networks wouldn't even notice it in all of the larger background noise values.

Also due to the way signal travels in a wire(propagation not one particle actually traveling all the way through.) I am not sure if the refraction would even effect it that much. Also note that light is not refracted as much as larger objects. So it would be reasonable to assume a low refraction value for electrons.

Edited December 13, 2011 by discipleofhoid

[Deus Ex Biotica]

4) Ironminds store weight, but not volume or density. Pewterminds, on the other hand, do change your volume when you use them. Do they also change weight, or do you weigh the same amount no matter how much "bulk" of muscles you create with it? Would the extra bulk decrease your agility? Do Metalminds resize to match, and if not, how is Sazed not cutting himself up when he taps Strength?

5) If you made a lot of loud noises in a Bendalloy bubble, would them being compressed together as they leave it result in a sonic boom?

[ulyssessword he/him]

1) Seeing as you can see through the bubble, I don't see electrons having much of a problem with distortion. Now, for them to use Bendalloy to compress information that they send through transmission lines, and decompress it on the other end, freeing up 85-98% of the capacity in the process (once they get good enough technology).

2) I believe that the force is (or can be) spread out over an area, so it would spread out into a thin sheet. For an example of this situation in the books, look at when Vin got in a pushing match with Kelsier, the coin was warped and twisted, contrary to our theories so far (though it was probably just from random variations in their pushes).

3)The flames would grow to 8x or 20x the size (depending on the speed of the bubble) before the fire was put out, and would dissipate once they weren't getting fuel. Bendalloy would shrink flames inside of it with external fuel by a similar factor. Interestingly, if you built a fire just inside the top edge of a Bendalloy bubble, you could shoot some pretty amazing flames out of it.

4) If by weight, you mean mass, then that is correct.

I am fairly sure that pewter Feruchemy stores muscles, so it would increase or decrease your weight the same amount that exercising or atrophy would, but faster. The extra bulk decreases your agility, as seen in Sazed's fight with the Koloss army.

Metalminds (at least Sazed's) are designed to expand to deal with pewter Feruchemy. I believe that this was from the fight with the koloss as well.

I believe that iron and pewter Feruchemy could both be used to increase your weight, and would stack multiplicatively with each other. For example, if you tapped iron to double your mass, then used pewter to grow to twice your normal size while maintaining tapping iron at the same rate, you would become 4x as heavy.

5) By definition, there would be no sonic boom (sound cannot travel faster than mach 1 to make one). I doubt if there would even be a very loud noise, or else it would not work to have a conversation inside one without deafening everyone outside of it.

Edited December 14, 2011 by ulyssessword

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Clearly, I need to re-read Sazed's fights in Well of Ascension. As for this:

5)By definition, there would be no sonic boom (sound cannot travel faster than mach 1 to make one). I doubt if there would even be a very loud noise, or else it would not work to have a conversation inside one without deafening everyone outside of it.

People outside the bubble to hear a fast jumbling of everything said inside, though (Wayne covers this by coughing). And Wax and Wayne are probably speaking pretty quietly (Marasi isn't when the explosion comes at her, but any noise she made was dwarfed by, well, the explosion). Since a sonic boom is the result of sound waves forced to interfere with each other, it seems to me that the edge of a time bubble is a perfect environment to generate them.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

P.S. I am saddened that nobody else has seen fit to share their quandaries in my thread. I can't be the only person who thinks of these things!

[ulyssessword he/him]

New one for you all:

6) An Allomancer creates a bendalloy (or cadmium) bubble in a river, in the middle of some fairly fast/steep rapids. What happens to the flow of water within/outside of the bubble? What if the bubble spanned the entire width of the river compared to if it was isolated in the middle (or one of the banks, but not the other)?

Edited December 14, 2011 by ulyssessword

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Good one!

I think that a fast-time bubble which spanned a stream would create a wave. Between the deflection of water going in and out¹, and the fact that all the water which was inside when the bubble was created would be exiting at almost the same time, it still probably wouldn't be huge, but could be noteworthy. A bubble which only came partway across would probably do much the same thing, but with an even more muted effect. In either case, I think the water level inside would steadily fall, as the water is not flowing in as fast as it flows out.

A slow-time bubble which completely spans a river (or, given its larger size, maybe an entire canal) would be the opposite: it would fill with water, since the water inside moves more slowly than the water outside. Once it filled even a little, though, water would be flowing out the sides in all directions, even back up stream, so it probably would not fill very fast. It would still be cool to watch, though. If you kept it going long enough, however, it might appreciably reduce the water level downstream, while the bubble held.

The behavior of a totally submerged bubble would probably be harder to notice.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

¹:I refuse to believe that deflection entering and exiting a time bubble cancel each other out, since if they did, that would mean the deflection is entirely predictable, which in turn means that a shot as good as Max could learn to accurately compensate for it.

[happyman he/him]

Also due to the way signal travels in a wire(propagation not one particle actually traveling all the way through.) I am not sure if the refraction would even effect it that much. Also note that light is not refracted as much as larger objects. So it would be reasonable to assume a low refraction value for electrons.

The problem of what happens is way complicated, because as stated before, in the real world, the electrons are not carrying most of the energy---the electromagnetic fields around them are. Without taking this into account, there is no sensible realistic model of what would happen to the wires when a field was put around them---the best I can come up with is that the electromagnetic fields which drive the electrons would experience significant time dilation, which would drastically reduce the coupling between the electrons and the fields. This is turn would lead to the electromagnetic fields promptly radiating away in all directions, destroying the signal entirely. However, these conclusions are bound up in other assumptions which would also affect light. The bubbles do not have the correct response to light, and so postulating their response to normal electricity is folly, because at their core, electricity in wires and light are the same thing.

[Aeshdan he/him]

7: What happens if two Chromnium Ferrings tapping equal quantities of Luck have a dice game?

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I assume they just cancel each other out and the normal laws of probability assert themselves.

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

I assume they just cancel each other out and the normal laws of probability assert themselves.

Either that, or both extremes become more likely, with the middle becoming less likely. I don't know if this is likely, though.

[ulyssessword he/him]

If a bendalloy misting set up a speed bubble around a mechanical pump (or anything else automated), could they increase its output 20x? Will they gain huge demand at factories looking to boost short term production?

[Deus Ex Biotica]

If a bendalloy misting set up a speed bubble around a mechanical pump (or anything else automated), could they increase its output 20x? Will they gain huge demand at factories looking to boost short term production?

If it costs a huge amount to have this boost for only five minutes? It must be cheaper to just build a second factory.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Could someone who isn't me take a look at this FTL theory? Either I'm well on the way to solving mistborn-FTL or I'm going crazy.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Babtest she/her]

Provided they had enough recources to burn bendalloy excessively, would a bendalloy-misting age faster than other people?

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Technically, they would age exactly as fast as other people, but in a faster timestream, yes.

I did the math, though, and doing it five times as much as Wayne (who burns through his Bendalloy "like a maniac") still ages you, like, an extra month over the course of your life. Smoking will do a lot more than Benalloy (even five minutes worth is expensive!) ever could.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[whynaut]

4) If by weight, you mean mass, then that is correct.

This is an important distinction if Iron Feruchemist are storing weight or mass? The Coppermind Wiki states it is mass, but the Ars Arcanum states it is weight. Though saying "weight" might just be because from Scadrial have not identified mass yet. This distinction would make all the difference once they start traveling into space.

Technically, they would age exactly as fast as other people, but in a faster timestream, yes.

I did the math, though, and doing it five times as much as Wayne (who burns through his Bendalloy "like a maniac") still ages you, like, an extra month over the course of your life. Smoking will do a lot more than Benalloy (even five minutes worth is expensive!) ever could.

Just as a Cadmium Allomancer can travel into the future past what would have been their "expected" life span, a bendalloy Allomancer would definitively have a shorter lifespan compared to everyone else. Though like you said, it might be a negligible amount of time, but it is still there.

[ulyssessword he/him]

This is an important distinction if Iron Feruchemist are storing weight or mass? The Coppermind Wiki states it is mass, but the Ars Arcanum states it is weight. Though saying "weight" might just be because from Scadrial have not identified mass yet. This distinction would make all the difference once they start traveling into space.

It is mass (Evidence). That thread contains very nearly all of the information available in the original trilogy, though practically nothing from interviews/signings, Alloy of Law, or the RPG.

[nikomis he/him]

How does a Lurcher or Coinshot affect a metal ring that is set perfectly so their center of mass goes through the open hole in the middle? The center of mass of the metal would be in a location that has no metal.