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Are you saying that Nynaeve could not have picked up Siuan until Siuan put her back on the bed? (Which is NOT what happened, by the way.)
No, I am not saying that. How clear do I have to make it? You cannot hang in mid air unsupported by anything. With me this far? If Nynaeve was braced against the wall, she could push Siuan. If she wasn't braced against anything then she couldn't. She doesn't need to physically touch the wall, she could brace against the floor with Air, but she cannot lift Siuan up unless she is braced against something. The same is true if you attempt to pick things up with your arms. You can't pick things up unless you are braced against something. This something is usually the floor you are standing on. Or you could brace yourself against a wall while pushing someone else into a wall. You would both support each other and would both be pushing against the wall. That is what Nynaeve and Siuan are doing. If you are held off the ground, in contact only with the person holding you up, you CANNOT lift them. That is what I am saying and have been saying all along.

 

As for not responding until I am civil, I am rarely civil when people repeatedly fail to grasp my point.

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"Do we have any engineers here?"

 

I am not as resourceful as an engineer but I do have degrees in Physics and Math.  Of course that does not make me an expert but I do understand some basic relationships between objects in nature.  I agree one can’t pick themselves up by their own hair without violating Newton’s 3rd law of motion.  However, the idea I had would not rely so much on gravity and would need nothing to “push off” of.  I was thinking more in terms of air pressure.

Instead of floating on air consider two AS suspended beneath the surface of a sufficiently large pool of water (The buoyant force neutralizes gravity).  If AS #1 could remove a large volume of water in front of AS #2 forming an evacuated chamber/hole, she could then open both ends of the chamber in such a way that AS #2 would flow through the chamber along with the water.  It would take a little practice but AS #2 could perform the same operation at the same time AS #1 could “flow” as well. 

In fact, now that I think about it a single AS should be able to fly alone.  It may take a great deal of power (or not if they were clever) but an AS may be able to create a long evacuated cylinder (lets say a few miles long) and tie it off.  The cylinder could go straight up high enough to clear trees and other obstacles then go horizontal for a few miles and finally descend to earth.  If the both ends of the cylinder were opened in just the right way air would flow from one end to the other and the AS could tag along for the ride.

Granted with traveling and such flying may not be of much use, but at least academically, it should work.

 

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Blasting through a tubular vacuum at intense speeds may somewhat upset the regal and serene appearance of Aes Sedai.

 

Make sense, watermelonhead but way too complex. And how could the AS breathe? It would be very difficult in such a situation where air pressure would be significantly different from normal atmospheric pressure-and the human breathing mechanism largely depends on a pressure gradient.

 

As for not responding until I am civil, I am rarely civil when people repeatedly fail to grasp my point.

 

Which may mean that your point is not correct to begin with (general statement-not specific to this thread).

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Let's turn slightly left here for a second -

 

When Rand finally goes to open negotiations with the Sea Folk, he erects a series of steps woven of Air by which he and his entire party ascend to the deck of the ship.

 

Now, while I agree with Mr. Ares on this one - ya gotta have support - Rand actually made those steps and they worked as steps.

 

So, what supported them?

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So, what supported them?

 

Drums and trumpets fell silent, and Rand channeled, making a bridge of Air laced with Fire that connected the longboat's railing to that of the Sea Folk ship. With Min on his arm, he started across, to every eye but that of an Asha'man, walking upward on nothing.

 

If a platform can be made with the power such that you can move on it, why can't a moving platform be made (something like a flying carpet)?

 

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Firstly, the bridge Rand made was grounded--connected to the ground. It was supported by the fact that it was sitting on the ground. Furthermore in the same paragraph he states that the height above the ground that a bridge can reach is limited. It's not indefinate.

 

Secondly, Rand it would be possible, but it would require that you weave legs of Air to move it--like a giant spider. The platform Rand made was sitting on the ground, to move it you'd have to move the flows touching the ground. Maintaining that web, whilst asserting the effort to move it would require both great strength and great dexterity both beyond the average channeler. And for those strong enough, a simply missup and you faceplant, and even if you didn't you'd still exhaust yourself very quickly.

 

In effect it'd be easier to ride a horse.

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Not the way Jordan wrote it.

 

One end on the longboat's rail and the other end on the ship's rail.  They'd been rowed out to the ship.  No 'ground' anywhere about.

 

Sure there was, both boats rest on water which holds weight when displaced by a process called bouyancy--the more the water is pressed out, the more it presses back. This displacing of the water also pushes at the bedrock underneath the water. It's quite literally called displacement, and its how boats float.

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As someone who absolutely despises physics ::shakes fist at gravity:: I'm curious.. If Nynaeve'e back was NOT against the wall, would it not be possible to brace against the flows of air themselves, as when a person bound with air sags against their bonds?

 

/I think this topic is above me.. I tend to enjoy the books on a more precritical level.

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``This is why the AOL AS used flying machines powered by the Power to fly, in much the same way as we use flying machines powered by the power sources we have available to us. So why not just build an aeroplane and use flows of air to spin the propeller?''

 

Where does it say that sho-wings---or for that matter jo-cars, etc.---were propelled by the one power? In the AoL both the power and more ordinary means were used as sources of energy. Also, even one of the stronger Aes Sedai (in the power, I mean), male or female, couldn't keep that up for long: using the one power like that is quite tiring, as we are often told in the WoT.

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Sure there was, both boats rest on water which holds weight when displaced by a process called bouyancy--the more the water is pressed out, the more it presses back. This displacing of the water also pushes at the bedrock underneath the water. It's quite literally called displacement, and its how boats float.

 

Uh huh.  And, what happens when you try to stand on the rail of a rowboat?  It both tries to roll over and also skid away from the off-center force.  Placing weighty forces on the rails of small vessels is a good way to get quite wet.  Since the boat didn't rollover, none of the forces actually got transmitted to it.

 

So, what did they get transmitted to?

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"If Nynaeve was braced against the wall, she could push Siuan. If she wasn't braced against anything then she couldn't. She doesn't need to physically touch the wall, she could brace against the floor with Air, but she cannot lift Siuan up unless she is braced against something."

 

I’m not sure I agree with the need to brace against something if you want to push someone with air... as far as I can tell this is not how it works with the power. For example when an Aes Sedai lifts someone of the ground, if they were bracing against the ground themselves would they not feel like they were supporting the weight of the person they are lifting with air?

 

Also i seem to recall rand pushes lanfear in the stone of tear at one point before he knows what he is doing. he was simply standing there and had nothing braced against his back, but when he pushed lanfear back into the wall he didn’t even stumble backwards, she must weigh something right? so unless rand unconsciously supported himself somehow from behind when pushing lanfear away, it didn’t have any effect on him at all, meaning a brace is unnecessary when something is pushed with the power.

 

true he may have been on the ground, but he wasnt pushing up, but forwards so any bracing would need to be behind him, and he had none.

 

this would also mean that you could not simply push against the ground with air to lift youself up as there seems to be no dirrect opposite force on the chaneler when they exert a force with air.

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Uh huh.  And, what happens when you try to stand on the rail of a rowboat?  It both tries to roll over and also skid away from the off-center force.  Placing weighty forces on the rails of small vessels is a good way to get quite wet.  Since the boat didn't rollover, none of the forces actually got transmitted to it.

 

So, what did they get transmitted to?

 

They weren't on a rowboat mate. The weight of two people standing on the rails would not roll a boat like the one they were on over...

 

 

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They were on a small, rowed vessel.  They climbed up to the deck of the Sea Folk ship.

 

When you climb up, the majority of the forces exerted are transmitted to the base of the structure you're climbing - in this case to the railing of the vessel they are climbing away from.  They were not the only ones to make that climb.  Every person who left that vessel would have made it lighter and more unstable.  Even more likely to roll under from the asymmetrical force.

 

Whatever was supporting the lower end of the structure they were climbing, it wasn't the railing of that vessel.

 

So, what was it?

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Champ, only ten people climbed, and at diffrent times. The 'small boat' you mentioned held many people other than those ten--a hundred of Dobraine's men accompanied Rand, and four hundred Aiel. Many of those were on the boat with Rand.

 

First two people climbed, then eight--all based from the boat--probably not even the railings, but even the railings could more than sustain it. Sorry.

 

Quote from: Luckers on Today at 03:43:49 AM

The weight of two people standing on the rails would not roll a boat like the one they were on over...

 

 

I wasn't aware that a degree in Naval Architecture was among your accomplishments.  Congratulations.

 

That's ok, you have no reason to be aware of what i know.

 

The fact remains that a craft of the size they travelled on would not have been capsized by people standing on the railing--not even the eight that moved after Rand and Min.

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May I take a few steps back? And if I have missed where this has already been explained, please forgive me and just point me in the direction.

 

Some of you are working from the premise that Channeling must follow the rules of physics. I am not discounting this; I simply have not seen any proof of it (yet again: I'm not saying it isn't so, just that I might have missed it). Is there such proof? (Bearing in mind that this is a work of fiction, and "proof" would be RJ having stated so, either in an interview (etc) or somewhere in the books themselves.)

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RJ had a background in physics, and stated directly on the subject of the power re: magic, that "if you were asking an audience to believe something fantastic then you had to base it in the real world as much as you possibly could."

 

 

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