A question about flying

[Red_count]

Hey how come Aes Sedai can`t fly?Somewhere in the books i remember mentioning that noone can explain why the channelers can`t fly but didn`t Rand and the ohter guy(a forgot his name) fight in the sky.Anyway I`m asking why the other Forsaken can`t fly? :?:

[RobertAlexWillis]

This was discussed in another thread, but what it amounts to is you can't use the Power to fly for the same reason you can't pick yourself up off the ground: the force originated from yourself.

 

Go ahead, try it. Grab yourself around the waist, and lift up. See? Doesn't work.

 

Rand and Ishamael/Ba'alzamon/Elan Morin Tedronai/Moridin (who should be named Ishalzaelmoteddin) did not actually fight IN the sky over Falme, people saw an IMAGE of them fighting. The people in Saldaea fighting against Mazrim Taim saw a similar image, and Rand and Ishalzaelmoteddin (that's just fun) were definitely not in Saldaea. The Pattern created that image in the sky as a way of sort of endorsing Rand as the real Dragon Reborn. That way of stating the concept involves a little personification of the Pattern, but suffice to say that the Pattern's fuzzy logic mechanisms produced that result.

[Jonn]

Well to fly you have to understand aerodynamic mechanisms and the common laws of physics and gravity.

To someone with no knowledge of these concepts, flying is a matter of literally picking yourself up off the ground by force. The result is that you might as well flap your arms continuously in hopes of taking flight.

From what I understand, you cannot Heal yourself either. This suggests to me more of a limitation in the Power than anything. Otherwise I imagine there would be people using a form of stilts technique to glide over the ground, using air. I suppose you could use an elevator style weave like a disc underneath your feet to push off of the ground, but as we can see in many instances in the books, the strength it takes to sustain even a bridge using flows of power is actually rather immense, and can stretch a channeler to his or her limits with one act.

I suppose there are ways to perform flying type feats using the Power, but the effort to sustain the action is so impractical and inefficient that it wouldn't even be worth calling it flying.

[RobertAlexWillis]

The problem with flying is that whatever Power-construct you create, even using Benoulli's principle to create a pressure difference because of airflow rates around curved surfaces using a form of thrust, you have to anchor it to yourself if you are to lift yourself off the ground. Anchoring the weave to yourself is the problem, because, like with Healing, it is coming from you, so it cannot affect you. The Power seems to only be able to affect the world around the channeler, not the channeler him/herself. An obvious hole in this concept is weaves like the Warder bond, Asha'man kiss, etc. However, those weaves affect the channeler only in relation to someone else, and are purely non-physical effects. Another more applicable hole is found with Rand making a bridge of air, and Siuan Sanche making a sword of air. Since both of those weaves clearly touched the channeler in a physical sense, it would seem to follow that a platform of air, shaped properly, with sufficient thrust, would enable a channeler to fly ...

 

Well now ... I just talked myself around to agreeing with Jonn.

 

Oh well, credit where its due, I suppose. I have to agree with Jonn's concluding sentence:

 

I suppose there are ways to perform flying type feats using the Power, but the effort to sustain the action is so impractical and inefficient that it wouldn't even be worth calling it flying.

[Luckers]

I'm sure a method of propulsion could be managed woven around the weaver--its only weaves entering the weaver that have some issue, things like mask of mirrors, inverted light and the webs to hide the ability have no issues--but that being said if a weaver had that sort of aerodynamic knowledge there would be much more comfortable constructs for flying that could be made... i.e. sho-wings.

 

I mean we can make jetpacks for instance, but its not a very good method of flying, so we use planes.

 

As for the image in the sky, Robert is right. It was just an image. A lot of strange things happened at that stage, which could not have been caused by the Power. My belief is that it was caused by a mixture of effects between the effect of the horn, and ta'maral'ailen, or the effect of ta'veren in bending the web of the pattern to their need.

 

Essentially i believe the horn works by blurring the lines between tel'aran'rhiod and the real world, allowing the heroes to exert a force in the real world. Reality itself grows... malleable, and the potent effect of the web rand was creating became amplified, with the laws of tel'aran'rhiod allowing the pressure of its force to litterally control the weave of the pattern all around. Its why the heroes and the seanchan became bound by the fight between Rand and Ishamael, why you see the image in the sky, its where the mist came from and why the heroes are so able to deny the laws of the physical univers, because at that time the universe wasn't entirely physical, but also of the dream world.

[Guest Majsju]

That the fight appeared to take place in the sky, displayed for all to see was caused by the Wheel. Basically just to show that the real Dragon Reborn finally proclaimed himself. And thus, at that very point, Taim and the other false Dragon got defeated, since the need for them was gone, the Wheel only has place for one Dragon Reborn.

 

RJ explained this either in his blog or at D*Con -05, my internet is a bit wonky atm so I can't check which one right now.

[Red_count]

Well that explains everything!10x :)

[Guest Majsju]

Ah, back in business with the actual quote.

 

Question: At the end of the Great Hunt when Rand and Ishamael were fighting in the air above Falme, they appeared in the sky over many places and my question is whether this is something done by the one power or something down by the Creator, how did they appear in the sky?

 

Jordan: An effect of the Wheel, really. It wasn’t the Creator. The Wheel is more than a simple mechanism. Remember the Wheel can spit out ta’veren, can spit out Heroes as a self correcting device because the Pattern is drifting from what it is supposed to be. We are not talking about something as simple as a spinning wheel at all, we are talking something more along the lines of the most complex computer you could possibly imagine. There were at that time, two, there were false dragons that had a chance to create a lot of disruption. By the appearance in the sky at that battle, not just in Falme but in other places, those false dragons were taken off the board because there was only room now for one, for one dragon.

 

http://p079.ezboard.com/ftheorylandfrm30.showMessage?topicID=6.topic

[Narg]

tp fly all a channeler needs to do is pick up another chanler and that channelr picks up the first channeler. still with me? now the 2 channelers that are holding eachother up carry eachother werever thay want to go. prof that this wuill work when rand met lanfear in the stone of tear they held eachother up against the wall with the power and if you can hold sum1 up against the wall why not fly them to ceamlyn.

 

but the real answer to this is why the hell wuold you fly when you can travel or skim.

[Mercer]

But now, really, we're getting into what actually classifies as flying, aren't we? This is going too far into it, being that it's a fantasy series, but if you want to get picky...did not Moiraine open the ground beneath Aginor(?)'s feet in EotW, a flaming pit, and Aginor simply stood above it, seemingly on nothing? If so, doesn't this suggest a contruct of air? Couldn't one, presumably, if they are powerful enough with air, create a pillar of air with them on it and lift themselves as though walking on air? I guess that doesn't classify as flying, though, does it,

[Luckers]

No they couldn't There is a limit to the length of bridges. For Rand it is fourteen feet, apparently its greater for women. Asmodean didn't know why.

 

As for Narg's suggestion, i highly doubt that would work. It would require for a force to go to nothing, and thats impossible.

[Bob T Dwarf]

As for Narg's suggestion, i highly doubt that would work. It would require for a force to go to nothing, and thats impossible.

 

If impossibility is going to be our yardstick, then we have to invalidate every "weave" in all of the books.

 

The only truly correct answer to the original question is that channelers can't fly because that's the way Jordan wants it to be, and he makes all the rules.

[Thor]

How does superman fly?

 

If we can understand that, maybe we will know how channelers can make themselves fly.

 

Superman gets energy from sun, maybe, he converts that stored chemical energy into kinetic to overcome gravity.

 

So channelers will first need to store some energy.

There must be an energy storing weave.

[Luckers]

I love comic book science.

[Narg]

the fact still stands. why fly when you can travel or skim. unless you want to do a dragonball Z fight scene.

[chuckievi]

For Rand it is fourteen feet, apparently its greater for women. Asmodean didn't know why.

 

Probably because women are stronger in air then men.

[Luckers]

Probably, or at least an aspect of that prediliction.

[Thor]

You want to fly sometimes because gateways leave a freaking heavy residue and people can track you.

[loki redfern]

i bet if you rigged up some hot air ballon weave to a disk of air weave (like part of the thing for a bridge)you could.this way would prob. be slow though . maybe not, theere's probably some reason this wouldnt work. flying would be good though so you could see the lay of the land about and people apporaching from a distance. and in a fight it would probably be an advantage (droping things on their heads) and for spying. and the ...err yeah i forgot this part oh well.

[Bob T Dwarf]

The uses to which "the Power" is put violate most of the physical laws of the universe.

 

Take the stairway of air that Rand constructs to mount up to the Sea Folk ship.

 

Leaving aside the problem of what supported those steps, there is the problem of the steps themselves.

 

In order to compress something as amorphous as air into a state where it is dense enough to support the weight of people, you will simultaneously heat it to the point where it burns, thus destroying it's compressed state. To say nothing of having created something that it would be impossible for anyone to approach, let alone use, without severely damaging themselves in the process.

 

Yet, Jordan has Rand create the physically impossible stairway in the air and then have his entire party mount it without any problems.

 

So, the problem of flying doesn't fail on the basis of the physical impossibility of a force going to nowhere, but rather on the basis of, "This, the author does not allow."

[Thor]

No, once again BtD you are wrong, muahahahahahaha.

 

If you heat air up, air becomes less dense so no stairs.

 

To solidify air, you obviously need to cool it and not heat it.

 

Get your facts straight.

[Red_count]

Why the chanellers can`t turn themeselves into birds.It`s pretty stupid idea but since the Power is the most powerful supernatural stuff i now realize that Aes Sedai and the Asha`men are simply very limited.This stinks!

[Bob T Dwarf]

And, therein lies the physical impossiblity, Thor.

 

In order to make air dense enough to support people, you have to compress it. But, when you compress it, you also heat it which makes it try to become less dense. If you continue compressing air beyond that point it will eventually heat to the point where nuclear fusion occurs. There probably isn't enough atmosphere on the whole planet to create that kind of atomic density. But, even if there were, you still wouldn't have something that could or would function as a stair step. You'd have your own private sun... for the nanosecond before it consumed you anyway.

 

If you try to compress air by cooling it, you eventually reach a temperature where the gasses precipitate out as liquids. None of the liquid forms of any of the atmospheric gasses are dense enough for people to stand on, either. As well, they are far too cold to touch even with shoe leather.

 

In short, the physical properties of air make it impossible for it to serve the purpose for which Jordan has Rand using it.

 

Egwene, Cadsuane, etal couldn't make switches or cudgels or wrap anybody up in it either.

 

There's simply no way air can be made dense enough to perform any of those tasks and have it remain air. If you need a switch, you need something that is both dense enough, temperate enough to be held, and supple enough for that task. If you need a stair tread you need something that is solid enough and strong enough to support the necessary weight. You also need a riser to support it.

 

Air plainly doesn't qualify for any of those tasks.

 

Yet, Jordan has Rand construct a stairway of air to climb up to the Sea Folk ship. Something that is no more and no less impossible than pulling himself up by his bootstraps and flying onto the deck.

 

One is permitted by Jordan's Rules For What Can Be Wrought With The Five Elements of Power, and the other is forbidden.

 

Authorial caprice having no logical nor scientific basis and nothing more.

[Thor]

Wait, why does air even have to be solid/liquid to be able to pick up people?

 

A wind strong enough can move anything.

 

And I'm pretty sure that you can't see wind, nor is it compressed/heated/cooled into liquid.

 

So what RJ did is perfectly reasonable.

[Bob T Dwarf]

But, they weren't picked up by a gust of wind.

 

Rand built a stairway of air and they walked calmly up onto the deck.

 

Nothing reasonable about it.