If a kandra where to get the bones of a Dakhor monk, would they get the Dakhor monk's abilities?
If a kandra got a hold of the bones of a Dahkor monk, yeah, would they get the abilities… It would take more than just the bones, but that would be a big part of it.
Just in the cosmere alone, are there any--Do you believe there are any specific magic systems that are stronger than the others, or have an advantage? Or do they kind of even out?
Oh, do-- Yeah. Do any of the magics have advantages or stronger-- Definitely some are stronger than others. Definitely. There is no attempt made on my part to power balance between magic systems and things. Power balancing is for RPGs where it's very important, it's not for storytelling.
A lot of people like to ask the "Who would win, X or Y?" sort of thing, and I don't get into a lot of that, I usually say, "Well, what's the situation?" I'm not big on the-- I will, if people clash, or if different powers clash, I will write the situation, but it's so conditional. So I have a hard time with these cage match things that people really like to do and things like that, because they're fun, but as an author I'm like, "I can come up with a dozen situations where either one of them wins or someone else does". Right? That's what you do, in writing. You say, what is the context of this?
But that's a tangent from your question, which is the powers are not equal. The Shards were generally equal. Some have given up more power than others.
So in Words of Radiance, when Hoid has-- switches places with the carriage driver, who was mentioned as having a hat and a strange accent - is that carriage driver important?
Hehehehe… That's a-- I'll leave this one to you. It's a RAFO, but it's not a big RAFO.
If a kandra were to somehow take the form of a dragon, would they notice any differences in anatomy, or is it spot-on impersonation?
I'm going to RAFO that, to leave Dragonsteel for Dragonsteel when we get there.
You recently said that dragons in the cosmere can take the form of humans.
Yes.
A kandra from Mistborn can do something very similar. Is there a meaningful connection between what the dragons and kandra can do?
Noooo, except for on fundamental cosmere rules stuff, but that's-- I would say no, in the same way that if you're like, "Is there any similarity between the way that bats fly and birds fly?" Well, there is some similarity 'cause-- But there is [convergent] evolution and stuff like that.
In the Letter, in The Way of Kings in all the epigraphs. It was mentioned that the author of the Letter was accused of perpetuating grudges regarding Rayse and Bavadin.
Yes.
That being said, are there any Vessels or Shards i.e. Bavadin, sympathetic towards Rayse's cause?
There are some who are more li-- more willing to go along with it than others, yes.
You have, like you said, thousands of years of history--mostly I'm talking about Stormlight Archives--you have, you know, Radiants have done this, and Heralds have done this, you have in some ways figured out what happened and what's going to happen with that stuff. And you have a, at least I think, friend/author Patrick Rothfuss who also has kind of this mythos of stuff that happened many, many years ago, have you guys ever talked to make sure you're not going to do the same cool thing?
You know we-- *laughter* Good question. No I haven't ever asked him about that. We haven't spent a lot of time-- Like the only thing I ever remember talking to Pat with-- about world-building wise was magic and his magic and things like that. I was really interested in sympathetic magic also, Warbreaker has an element to it. I really liked how he did his sympathetic magic in Kingkiller. But when I get together with Pat I try not to ask the questions that I know the fans are asking him a lot, I try to be somebody who's a colleague that we can talk about other sorts of things to give him a break from that. I never ask him when the next book will be out *laughter* That's your job not mine. I ask him how his kid is, and I ask him how has it been working with DAW lately, are there any frustrations for you in the business, and that sort of stuff. The stuff he can't talk with other people about. He can talk about his kids but he can't really talk about publisher stuff with a lot of other people.
In Awakening an object when you give it the sort of Command like, go get the keys, or something. How does that object perceive the world around it? Since it doesn't have standard human senses, how does it see? How does it touch?
It is not--
Repeat the question.
Oh… go ahead.
The question was, how do Awakened objects actually perceive the world.
…The closest correlation you have to this is how Inquisitors see.
Okay, following up on that say, someone who has-- say someone with bronze who-- a bronze Misting managed to somehow get access to Breath and Awaken would he then be able to tell that object "Hey I sense this Allomancer over there, can you find it".
That is not outside the realm of possibility.
In The Rithmatist you previously confirmed that Lines of Vigor behave a lot like light waves.
Mmhmm.
So if two lines of vigor collide do we have wave interference patterns? Does it matter if--
Yeah, I am planning some wave interference patterns and things like that, definitely.
Does it matter if they come from the same Rithmatist?
Eh... It should not, no.
On Nalthis is the-- We know that Endowment makes Splinters to create divine Breaths to bring Returned.
Mmhmm.
The process with which those Returns are chosen, is that deliberate from Endowment or is there a process that was put into place to select?
Yes. *laughter*
Question about Hoid--
Okay. RAFO. *laughter* No, no, go ahead…
When Hoid said that Ivory wasn't capable of harming him, is that related to his stated difficulty in harming others?
RAFO.
Spren. The phenomenon that creates spren. Is that Roshar-specific or is that a general effect?
Well, yes and no. So the question is, the effect that creates spren, is that Roshar-specific or is it general. The general fundamental rules that create spren are cosmere-wide. Spren are pieces of Investiture, usually pieces of Investiture that come straight from one of the Shards of Adonalsium, split off in some way, that because of human or other sapient creatures thinking about it or interacting with the power, the power starts to take on a life of its own. Develops personalities and comes alive, so to speak. And this can happen on any pla-- in any place where there is Investiture. So it could happen on any planet in the cosmere with significant amounts of free Investiture. The places you've seen this happen most commonly are on Sel and Scadri-- err Roshar. You haven't seen it on Scadrial, and you've seen little kind of hints at it on Nalthis, but not quite. And so-- But it's possible for it to happen anywhere. Seons and spren are basically the same thing with different powers-- powers kind of pushing them in different-- growth out of them-- That said, the non-sapient spren, so the spren that are not quite as-- They're not going to stand up and talk to you. Those all existed-- not all, but most of them existed on Roshar before the Shattering of Adonalsium.
Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave to the ten foreign kings? Or where they put there by Leras--
Oh, good question… No one's asked me that before, I don't believe. Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave-- No, he found the lerasium. It was existent before his Ascension.
Can I ask if it was placed there intentionally by Leras or did it sort of grow similar to how atium--
The Lord Ruler-- It was not placed for him, he had to-- he had to get it.
What was the reasoning behind there being many, many years between different stories in the different parts the cosmere, like the huge gap between… Warbreaker and Way of Kings. Like why is--
Yeah, why are there some huge gaps in the length of the cosmere. There's-- I want the cosmere to be more than just a little blip of time. The concept for the cosmere was never something, to me, like the Avengers for instance. Which a lot of people kind of view it that way, particularly because the Marvel movies have been so big, and that's good. But it's not like all these concurrent stories with the same characters converging. That's not how I have ever planned it. Now there are certain people who are functionally immortal or close to it that will be involved in things across time, but this is-- I'm telling an epic story, right? And I knew we needed thousands of years between some of the events. For instance, Roshar, we start in the Prelude at 4500 years or whatever before the book starts. It's like, if I didn't have some big gaps, then what are all the stories that are happening in between? It feels illogical and false to me to have all the stories happen in a short time period. Now as certain part of the magic allow more communication and connection, then we will have to, by nature, kind of accelerate some of those things. But I feel like if I spent, you know, ten thousand years or whatever, and only had all the stories happen in the last 50, it would feel really weird. So that’s why.
So I noticed in Mistborn Era 1, there-- the head guard of the Venture House was a man named Felt.
Yes. Well… yeah.
He was in the guards.
Yeah.
There's also a character in Words of Radiance--
Yes!
--a scout called Felt. Is that the same person?
It is the same person. *audience murmurs/laughs*
You didn't repeat that one.
Is the Felt from Mistborn the same as the Felt from Stormlight. Yes it is.
That's one of the two things I can remember surprising Peter. Which was, when he's like, "This name is kind of interesting. It's kind of different. You sure you want to use this? Shouldn't he have more of a Vorin name?" I'm like, "Go read back in Mistborn." He's like "OH!" *laughter* I'm always happy when I surprise Peter, because-- The other big one that surprised Peter was when I put Vasher into Stormlight, right? He's like, "Huh... Vasher-- Vasher is in Stormlight?" And I'm like, "Go read Way of Kings Prime." Which he had read, which is the Way of Kings I wrote in 2002, where lo and behold Kaladin's swordmaster is Vasher, named Vasher at that point. He hadn't realized that I had written Warbreaker after as a exploration of this character who'd already been in The Stormlight Archive. Those are the two things I can remember Peter not catching about the cosmere. He gets most everything but those two surprised him.
When a Parshendi changes forms, are they taking different spren into their gemhearts?
When a Parshendi changes forms, they are carefully entering into a symbiotic relationship with a new spren.
But-- *audience laughter*
That's the answer you're going to get. That's a RAFO.
What happens to the spren the Parshendi bond when they switch form? So say if they're in soldier form, and they switch over to mate, what happens to that spren?
The spren is released.
So when they took on void, they didn't kill their previous spren?
No, they don't kill when they-- No. That's a good question. Nope.
Do those spren evolve in any way into something else?
Those spren that they are bonding with are generally what we call non-sapient spren, and so, no, and also the spren are barely aware that they-- they're bonded--- those spren, the non-voidspren, right? Like when they're bonding, generally what's happening is how... It's a symbiotic relationship, right? And the spren that gets bonded to them, it's just kind of like, "Oh, this is my life now! This is just normal. This is what's happened." The same thing happens with spren involved in greatshells and things like this. This is a natural part of the natural cycle for those spren.
Is the reason Dalinar rejects the Thrill because he has a connection to Honor through his visions from the Stormfather?
…Is the reason that Dalinar rejects the Thrill because he has a connection to the Stormfather through his visions?
Yes.
The answer is yes, this is parti-- this is in play. Though you could say the two of them have a si-- The reason he has a connection to the Stormfather also influences the reason that he rejects the Thrill, so it may be more correlation than causation, but there's at least a little causation as well.
As of Secret History, are the Ire aware of Feruchemical chromium?
As of Secret History, are the Ire aware of chromium. Not as fully aware-- They don't know everything.
…The Spiritual Feruchemical metals, where we obviously have Invesiture, Identity, Connection and Fortune. Are all four of those cosmere-wide things?
So a lot of things-- The short answer is yes. The long answer is, there are certain things such as Investiture or whatnot, that when we write the books we translate different words as the same word because they're the same meaning, right? So what you're getting it is when they use the word "fortune", do they mean exactly what the Feruchemical-- and the answer is no. But it is a very similar concept.
I have a question in regards to the soulstamps… When Shai is creating it she blows flakes off of it. Are those flakes able to be enchanted and do they have any power?
Do the flakes that Shai blows off the front of the soulstamp have any hidden power? The answer is, no. I'm sorry, nice theory. The blowing off is actually just related directly to my experience. Soulstamps come from--
I lived in Korea for two years as a Mormon missionary, and then I went back to Taiwan to visit because there's a huge Brandon Sanderson fan base in Taiwan. For those who don't know, what happened is the publisher who got The Emperor's Sou-- No, no, the publisher who got Mistborn in Taiwan, published it the same month or so that Hunger Games came out, and everyone who was looking for-- read The Hunger Games wanted something like it ended up buying Mistborn. So actually-- *laughter* It's one of those things over here, like The Maze Runner or one of these other YA dystopians are what took off in the kind of halo of The Hunger Games. Over there, Mistborn was in the halo of The Hunger Games. It actually sold about as well in Taiwan which is-- So we just sold tons of copies in Taiwan. So I went back and it was really fun-- by the way you can go to my timeline on Facebook and whatever, and here, people like to ask questions. A lot of the superfans like to have a question and things like that. There, the superfans like to get pictures. And so there are like 5,000 pictures of me and teenage schoolgirls *laughter over Brandon* just all over Facebook from that period. But I went and visited the palace museum.
And anyway, I remembered a time in Korea where I'd seen someone carving these and he would do a little of this and blow it off, do a little bit and blow it off. Kind of the old-school carver. Now most days it's actually-- they're actually made by machines. You load in a design, you lock in your little tojong into the machine, and it goes and it will carve it out to look like the little computer design. But you see occasionally old school people carving them hand-- That's why I made it do that, because I'd actually seen someone carving one. There is not supposed to be any hidden magical meaning, other than the fact the stone that they're using is a traditional type of stone, which may or may not have Invested properties.
Okay, so I'm contractually obligated to ask about time bubbles one more time.
Yes.
So what's up with frame of reference for time bubbles; in that obviously if you make a bubble and it's still it's not really still, like time moves differently but--
We deal with that a little bit in Era 2 Book 2 [Shadows of Self], where we talk about the fact that you know-- obviously the bubble is moving with the planet. So they're not-- the frame of reference is not absolute.
Yeah.
And so we talk about sorta' the idea of mass and momentum and time bubbles and things like that.
Okay.
For instance you can make a time bubble on a train.
Oh and it stays on the train?!
Yes, but when you start catching stuff off of the train, it's gonna' jar each time, and it's probably going to ruin your time bubble, right?
So does it get it's "anchor" from-- it's asking all the things that are within it what they think "still" is?
Yes. That's a good way of looking at it. Frame of reference for the Cognitive things around. Make sense?
Okay, the things around or the things within it, specifically?
The things that it's cutting into, specifically, but yeah.
Would a parshman who received multiple breaths, or any other type of Investiture, be able to gain sentence or become more like listener-- Kind of like mistwraith/kandra?
That would require some Identity changes and transformations.
So it's not just a dump of--
It's not just a dump. It's a biological thing for them, they've adapted. So they've evolved to the point where this sort of thing-- It would be like trying to power DC with AC current or the wrong voltage or something like that... I mean once you figure it out it could be an easy hack but finding out that hack it's like-- You know it's like going back to people in the 1800's and being like "Why don't you guys have electricity?" *laughter*
Could a Feruchemist manipulate their identity such that they could make a metalmind that anyone could tap?
Ah... RAFO.
Okay; could they manipulate their identity such that they could pull Breaths out of something that somebody else Awakened?
Ah... ahahah, Awakened, oh yeah... That one's going to be harder, but you're thinking along-- You're thinking with portals. *smiles* Do you know what that means.
Yes, I know what it means--
You're starting to think with portals.
I'm thinking with portals, okay, thank you.
Yes. In other words you're wrapping your head around the way that the magic system is working, so.
That's so excellent.
Are there power modifiers for Soulstamps like there are for AonDor?
Yes.
Yes... Does Shai know them-- Or any of them?
Um... Hehehehehe...
Not "has she used them", I'm not going to go there, but does she know any of them?
She knows more than she thinks she does.
Is there- have you come up with a Realmatic explanation for why light isn't affected by time bubbles besides handwavium "please don't burn people with microwaves"?
Peter's got one for us. 'Cause we were going to do redshift: like the actual original writing for it had redshifts; Peter's like "Dude, you will microwave everybody" I'm like "Oh man". So the handwavium of that: there is a real- there is an actual explanation, but it...
*they move to outside the store*
What's the middle of this question?
Middle of the question was you were thinking about explaining the Realmatics behind light for time bubbles.
Oh right, right right right right. I can't because it spoils future books; like that's spoiler for Mistborn... 10?
*laughter*
So... if you count the four Alloys, so really gotta stay away from stuff like that.
That's fair/fine.
Did people on Roshar have half-Shards before-- like many years ago say before the Recreance?
That is a new invention.
New in years, or new in hundreds of years?
Those have not existed before.
So you've said that healing is like the Spiritual wants to heal and then it filters through the Cognitive, but how's that work with healing wounds to the soul like Hemalurgy or Shardblades? What do you refer to to heal the soul at that point?
You need to make a patch on the soul with Investiture.
So how's the Investiture know where to go, what to look like?
Well your soul is an ideal. So if you can get it up there, there are ways to do-- to recreate that with um... See I'm getting into stuff for later books.
No, that's okay.
So when Hemalurgy rips something off the soul, is that the ideal soul or some sub-soul?
That is off of your soul, and it can be healed; but what it's going to be doing is creating a patch of new soul. So it will not be your original soul. Does that make sense?
Okay, that- well, not completely, but I think that's your intention.
Yes.
If you do that, is that like Frankenstein's monster, or is it like a graft that's absorb--
Less horrifying- Less horrifying than Frankenstein's monster, but it is a graft that is like-- It is not your original soul.
Yeah, but in modern medicine stuff like that is absorbed-
Yeah, in this you will always have a scar on your soul that something else has patched over.
So Kaladin shouldn't just keep getting his arm chopped?
*ignoring/not-hearing Kurkistan just now* But that is what happens with most forms of Investiture in the first place.
In terms of timeline-- So The Way of Kings and The Stormlight Archive takes place 1173-74 right now, how far ago, approximately, was the Recreance?
So you-- Let's see-- Heralds leave at what, 4500?
That's what it says.
So the Heralds leave at 4500 and we're at 11--
So we are at 5500 years after--
Yeah. So Recreance is more recent than late.
So... In the thousands--
I'm going to have to pull out the timeline.
But it's not like three hundred years ago.
It's not like three hundred years ago, but it's also not like 4000 years ago.
Okay, so from the middle--
The Hierocracy happened after and the Hierocracy was a couple hundred years ago. It's longer than that even, it's like five or six hundred years ago I think.
Are the chasmfiends that we have seen the last stage of their life-cycle?
Yes, you have seen the last stage of their lifecycle.
But that's--
You've seen the second and third stages mostly.
Are you counting the cocoons?
Cocoons are a stage, yes.
You've said that the the laws of physics in the cosmere are ours except where they're messed with by the Spiritual... But are the laws of physics actually in the Physical Realm all the time, or are they in the Spiritual Realm doing their stuff on a Spiritual level that's trickling down to the Physical as a matter of course?
The three are more closely aligned than-- *Breaks off to focus on the books he's signing, the speaking was distracting him*
So you were saying that physics-- laws of physics-- that the Realms are a lot more closely bound and the laws of physics are not just tied to one of them?
Yeah.
We've noticed that each world, or most worlds, seem to have something that Invesiture likes to stick to. So on Nalthis it's life, on Roshar it's gems, metal on Scadrial... Do you have a term for those things?
I do not have one yet. But I probably should.
So for Soulcasting—-I talked a lot about those ideals that a lot of things are based on—-is that also like there's an ideal of stone that when you Soulcast stone if you don't do anything special, it just defaults as that?
Yes, there will be a default of all of them.
And that's the same exact thing as spren and why the Lord Ruler dies of old age and all that stuff?
That is-- Yes, that's the same sort of concept. Yes.
Can a Shard and its holder be separated without the holder dying?
Yes.
Why does Awakening need to drain color, and what determines the amount of color that's drained?
I'm going to RAFO Awakening because I'm going to write another book and I-- Mostly it's a RAFO because I don't want to canonize things until I've got the book in hand.
At one point Syl turns into a hammer when Kaladin fights Szeth. Are there any actual advantages to a Shardhammer over a Shardblade or knife?
Very minimal. It has mostly to do with a-- How much thrust or swing or things you can get to it. The impact of blade or weapon against armor is not going to be-- The hammer could in some ways get more leverage. But it's not that the impact is going to do--
So it didn't help against Szeth.
Yeah.
It was like the flow of the fight was-- Syl turned--
Yes.
So time bubbles... How much control does a bubbler have over the bubble before and after it's cast? Can they just grow and shrink it or...
Not very much.
So Wayne could flare his metals make time go faster--
Yes.
But if he'd stopped flaring--
Yeah, but-- they have a bit of control over the speed of it, but once it's up moving it or anything like that, not much. The flaring of it and things like that, yes they can-- it's mostly set when they start.
But they have some discretion when they start it.
They do have some discretion, yes.
Back in, I think, Words of Radiance I asked you-- Somebody asked the question that had to do with the number 10 on Roshar and I didn't get the question on the recording--which was horrible--but your answer talked about Honor's purposes. Is what you said, and you mentioned 10 of them and that is why the number 10 is so sacred. Could you say something so I have something on the record? So we know what you said about that?
Honor's purposes...
Or Shard's purposes... Like what is that all about?
That will become-- I said it vaguely on purpose.
Is there-- Can you explain the relationship between Spiritual DNA, Spiritual aspects, and the spiritweb, or are they all just terms for the same thing?
They are all similar terms for the similar stuff, yeah.
Okay. So it's not like the core is Spiritual DNA then things as you spread out is all Spiritual aspect?
No.
I know at the end of Words of Radiance Syl shows she can turn into different forms, not just a sword. Why do they not... Or why do none of the other past Radiants really show that they have done that. Because normally in the flashbacks they are shown just being swords.
So the Shardblades came from spren seeing the Honorblades, which were created for mankind, and being like "I can do that". That is what they were imitating.
So that's what they wanted...
No, that's how they see themselves and how they are seen. They can change into other things...
They just never...
But when you let go of one it's going to become a sword again.
Oh, I just meant in all the visions they were always portrayed as swords. Was that just for...
That's cultural, like this is... One thing that is interesting is you are going to see that the new Radiants don't have... I mean the Radiants you have seen almost all of them are after thousands of years of Radiants and Orders and you have certain things that you do.
So the writing reason was I didn't want to give away...
That's what I was going to ask.
There is a writing reason behind it. I didn't want to do that and give too much away. I already worried that having Syl shift shapes as often as she did through the first book was going to be a big clue to people and I wanted to hold off on giving away too much.
So the first one is Kaladin's backstory, the second is Shallan's backstory, who's next?
I actually haven't been able to decide yet. It's going to be one of the five for the first five books are Kaladin and Shallan and then Dalinar, Szeth, and Eshonai and I can't decide which one matches the next book best. And I'm going to have to write it...
What's the current list for the back five?
Current list for the back five... Jasnah, Lift, Ash, Renarin, and Taln.
In your talk earlier about character arcs do you have a character who surprised you the most in how they ended up developing?
Spook from the Mistborn books, he was not in the original outline having the role he did in the third book. But when I finished the second book I was like "Ennnh he's grown into something that needs more exploration".
And are there parts-- Are the cosmere novels chronological so far? So when you eventually go back to Warbreaker the effects of Vasher being on Roshar...
Oh, no, they are not all going to be chronological. Most of them have been chronological so far, but we are getting to the point where they're stopping to be because like Way of Kings was before Alloy but now we've gone back and done Words of Radiance which is a jump backward and then we are going to be jumping to the next Alloy which is a jump forward. I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.
Was Androl, from Wheel of Time, your own creation?
Yes. When I went into the trilogy I actually asked them "Is there a character I can have to just do whatever I want with?" and they looked through for one Robert Jordan had left no notes on and they gave me Androl. I went crazy.
I love his use of Gateways.
He was a little bit of a pressure valve, for me, being able to do the things I like to do in a novel, in The Wheel of Time, so I didn't then take over other characters too much. A bunch of me creeped into Perrin too but...
Are Shardblades made out of atium?
Shardblades are not but it is the same thing but from a different planet... It's made out of the god's body.
Oh.
See, you thought I was saying something really cool there but I wasn't.
In that world are we going to get more of her [Jasnah's] backstory?
Yeah, you'll get a lot more from her.
Are there differences in pronunciation between the different worlds in the cosmere?
Yes.
Do you have any record of that?
So, it depends on the culture and things like that, what it's going to be like. You can kind of bet in Mistborn it's going to be French, if it's from the Central Dominance. So they'll say "Kelsi-ay" and "De-MOH" but where Elend's from is a lot more Germanic so "EE-lend" "STRAHFF" and stuff like that. The other worlds are all going to have their different things. In Roshar you are going to get some of the "YAS-nah kHo-LIN" it's going to be a little more Semitic in its language family.
Since Chicago came up, will Atlanta have a special name as well?
Atlanta will have a special name, it's now a theme of the books.
Because Peter said "Hotlanta" and people think he's joking, like he usually does.
I'm not going to ruin one of Peter's jokes if it indeed is a joke. But I haven't written the book yet so he hasn't read-- I mean I've written parts of it but he hasn't read anything of the book.
Why didn't you have Vin talk to Hoid? She sort of saw him and then just ran off.
I have not answered that question yet. But that means you can have one of these [RAFO cards].
That doesn't come up very often but we got it twice.
Yeah, it's not that big of a thing.
You should take the hint.
You are going to have to wait a while to get that answer.
Now the Wit, does he have a spren, is he a Herald, is he one of the older people?
So, Wit is an immortal who travels between worlds. Who-- His magic is not from Roshar. He is in all the other books, if you look for him. So he's in Warbreaker, he's in all three Mistborn books, he's in-- yeah...
*points to Argent and Kurkistan* These guys can point you to everything, they're from the fansite and they've found out about all kinds of things about him. But he is popping up everywhere.
You have like tons of spren, right? And the the ones like rotspren, and you have your characters and some point will be able to harness those spren and be completely evil with them?
And be completely evil with them? *pause* There are-- There is an order of Knights Radiant that has to do with the breaking down of matter into smaller pieces.
