How to destroy cuendillar

[jsbrads]

the problem with that statement is that cuellindar is not a weave.

 

the weave to make cuellindar changed the iron, now you need a weave that would undo cuellindar, not a weave that would counter a cuellindar making weave.

 

Analogy iron can be made into steel, the process doesn't have an inverse and knowing the process doesn't tell you how to reverse it.

 

Theory of power wrought swords... ordinary metals fail usually along imperfections, imperfections removed by power process and perhaps chemical bonds altered to make it even stronger... by this theory cuellindar is a type of perfect crystaline or ceramic version of iron (though we can't change iron into either today and your chemistry teacher may tell you it is impossible, in the future we may develop new processes that can alter an iron atom so that it can create a crystaline or ceramic bond, imagine if you could make a diamond out of iron atoms, but to do so you need to push the atoms together a hundred times stronger than diamonds [won't happen in nature, and we may be decades from figuring out how to do it with machines])

[FarShainMael]

Interesting thought, that. In a diamond, carbon atoms are arranged in a pyramidal lattice which is very strong, unlike the hexagonal lattice of graphite or the 'football' lattice of buckyballs. (I refer to the European football which, these days, is in hexagonal and pentagonal sections.) If you could perhaps persuade iron atoms to do some similar trick, you might get something interesting.. Of course industrial (or even pre-industrial Randland) iron is far from pure and contains about 1% carbon, which might actually help!

[Dreggs Morlock]

I was SURE the "unmaking" of cuellindar had to do with drawing power out of the object, as opposed to inflicting it. In other words, channeling something into cuellindar makes it stronger... but would there be a way of reversing the weave to draw what makes cuellindar cuellindar away? Thus, that was the trick the dark one used to weaken the seals, thought it took 3,000 years to get it done...

[Dastion]

I asked Maria about this, and got RAFO'd. The one thought I can think to add is this--people say that to use the One Power on cuendillar makes it stronger--which is an odd thought. How can you make something indestructable stronger? This leads to three points.

 

1. People at one stage knew that there was a way to destroy cuendillar.

2. Using the One Power on cuendillar makes it more resistant to that method.

3. Given people knew of it, it seems unlikely that it refers to something like Fain, or even the True Power, (both sources of power are relatively unique).

 

My guess is that this second method does not directly destroy it, but instead reverses the process (or perhaps continues the process and changes it into some third thing which isn't indestructable), turning it back to its base metal, and that the more One Power it is exposed to, the harder it is to then reverse the process.

 

 

It's not really an odd thought. The property of getting stronger is what makes it indestructable, the two things aren't separate effects. Cuendillar is indestructable because even if it starts out brittle as pottery and you hit it with a hammer, it becomes harder than diamond.

 

However, some people do seem to assume that cuendillar has some special fox-head medallion like effect vs. the power, and that's not true. You can still channel on cuendillar, they used the stuff as the focus for the seals on the dark one's prison after all. It's entirely possible they even blasted the stuff with everything they could throw against it, which allowed it to survive the Dark One's taint for so long. This could be the very method Luckers indicates.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Dastion

[jsbrads]

I have never heard anyone say they know (/knew) how to destroy cuellindar.

 

It was never done with the exception of the seals and the method used on the seals was the corruption of DO's prison.

[mb]

A thought that just occured to me::

make a cuendillar blade then use that to break the cuendillar item.

[FarShainMael]

Immovable object, meet irresistable force..

[cmsnaith]

What if the very fact of an absence of power/force on cuendillar results in it's slow and inevitable disintigration? A sort of half-life rule, which gets reset whenever a force is applied to it.

 

I suppose this might account for Taim's apparent fear of Rand threatening to break the seal (ie, make it stronger).

Edited September 14, 2011 by Randlander

[Smittyphi]

What if the very fact of an absence of power/force on cuendillar results in it's slow and inevitable disintigration? A sort of half-life rule, which gets reset whenever a force is applied to it.

 

I suppose this might account for Taim's apparent fear of Rand threatening to break the seal (ie, make it stronger).

That's not the case. The integrity of the Cuendillar seals has been compromised. Didn't Moiraine scratch off flecks with a knife. She couldn't do that if the seals weren't corrupted.

[Myself]

I was wondering if a gateway could destroy cuendillar, if you open one on it, as a gateway has been said to be able to cut through anything.

[JJLXL]

On 10/20/2019 at 7:48 PM, Myself said:

I was wondering if a gateway could destroy cuendillar, if you open one on it, as a gateway has been said to be able to cut through anything.

 

 

The gateway would push the heartstone aside.  

 

Quote

 

https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=162#7

 

MICHAEL MARTIN

What happens to a piece of heartstone if a gateway is opened across it?

ROBERT JORDAN

Heartstone is pushed aside, gateway remains intact. (He appeared fairly amused by this one.)

 

 

 

[Sabio]

Since the women wouldn't help I always assumed that meant the seals were flawed from the start plus the DO's slow corruption.