Snow angels

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Many love to attribute this feat to magic and mysticism and the alteration of quantum auras (gotta use the word quantum to give it that new science smell), but it's simply physics.

Any mention of auras deserves a reply from me.

Originally Posted by alatar

Anyway, so even if the elves had hot feet, not sure if this heat would more than wilt the grass tips. But that's conjecture.

Oh now I'm really confused. There's a product called "Hot Foot" for roof tops and buttresses, etc, designed to keep pigeons away. I believe it is filled with chili powder, which, when stepped on by said avians, results in high stepping birds who lite out of the place quickly.

Originally Posted by Thenamir

I think there must be some other mechanism by which the elves negated the effects of their weight on snow or grass.

Thinking about chili in "Hot Foot" made me reconsider this comment by Thenamir. What exactly happens to grass when it is stepped on or bent? Could it not be possible for elven healing arts to be able to reverse almost simultaneously the damage made by stepping on grass? Their feet could possibly be coated with some sort of healing herb that would, um, reforge the broken blades. If King's Foil heals people, perhaps there is a similar herb* to heal plants.

*Or possibly the same effect could be achieved by the delicate nature of elven foot sweat. Elves eat lembas. Perhaps some of the extraordinary qualities of the lembas are exuded in elven sweat?

EDIT: Given elven sensibilities, anyone offended by the use of the word "sweat" could substitute for it the word "perspiration."

[Rumil]

Surely Orcs sweat, Dwarves perspire, Elves glow !!

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Rumil

Surely Orcs sweat, Dwarves perspire, Elves glow !!

You may be on to something, Rumil. If elves don't have this physiological air conditioning system in their body, they are indeed very hot properties. No wonder their fëa gradually burns away their hröa. And here I thought, after reading Dickens, that it was only extreme alcoholic consumption that could cause self-immolation.

[alatar]

Getting back to the somewhat original issue, I may have figured out how Legolas successfully walked over the snow without leaving a print.

What if the souls of his slippers weren't as small as we tend to think? Someone in the Fellowship noted that Legolas wore slippers. To me, these are light duty shoes that barely cover the feet. The area of these shoes would be no larger than anyone would think odd.

So we've been working diligently trying to figure out how to decrease the pressure Legolas exerts on the snow, where pressure = weight (force)/area, and thinking that the shoes were normal size, tried to reduce the elf's weight.

But what if the slippers had an area three to five times that which is expected? Think snowshoes. The pressure on the snow would decrease linearly as the area increased. If Leggy weighed in at 150 pounds, increasing the area of his slippers 3-5 fold drops his virtual weight to 50-30 pounds.

But you're saying, "Come on, alatar, the Fellowship may have been snowblind, but they weren't totally blind. Surely someone would have noticed that large slippers..."

Would they? What if Legolas (and all other elves) carried snowshoes made of Aerogel? Would anyone see what Legolas had on his feet in the snow? If the soles were given some type of pattern that looked natural, would even a tracker know that an elf walked that way?

We truly live in a magical world, and this is only 2007. What wonders will our children see?

[alatar]

We had rain a day or two ago, which is only unusual because the temperature has been in the single digits (Fahrenheit). It had warmed up enough to pour, though even the hard rain couldn't wash away the snow that has been falling, off and on, for what seems like months.

Thankfully, yesterday, the temperature dropped back down to where it belongs, that is, in the mid-teens.

So, while waiting for the bus to arrive this morning, the kids occupied themselves with running across the snow, which they were amazed that they could do. Yesterday, they sunk to the ankles; today (due to the subzero temperature and rain-induced frozen crust) they barely left foot prints on the snow.

[Rumil]

Nice one Alatar - or do you have elvish kids?

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by alatar

Getting back to the somewhat original issue, I may have figured out how Legolas successfully walked over the snow without leaving a print.

What if the souls of his slippers weren't as small as we tend to think? Someone in the Fellowship noted that Legolas wore slippers. To me, these are light duty shoes that barely cover the feet. The area of these shoes would be no larger than anyone would think odd.

So we've been working diligently trying to figure out how to decrease the pressure Legolas exerts on the snow, where pressure = weight (force)/area, and thinking that the shoes were normal size, tried to reduce the elf's weight.

But what if the slippers had an area three to five times that which is expected? Think snowshoes. The pressure on the snow would decrease linearly as the area increased. If Leggy weighed in at 150 pounds, increasing the area of his slippers 3-5 fold drops his virtual weight to 50-30 pounds.

But you're saying, "Come on, alatar, the Fellowship may have been snowblind, but they weren't totally blind. Surely someone would have noticed that large slippers..."

Would they? What if Legolas (and all other elves) carried snowshoes made of Aerogel? Would anyone see what Legolas had on his feet in the snow? If the soles were given some type of pattern that looked natural, would even a tracker know that an elf walked that way?

We truly live in a magical world, and this is only 2007. What wonders will our children see?

Another point to consider is that we may be thinking from a somewhat too modern persepective with regard to what "slippers" is defined as. If we assume that ME clothing technology is roughly Dark/Middle Ages, then the slippers would not be all that similar to any sort of shoe we were familiar with. Back then slippers were heel-less, in fact in a certain sense they were usually sole-less (that is they often had no seperate piece of material added onto the bottom to thicken and re-enforce it) Slippers at that time would have been less like shoes as we understand them, but more along the lines of thick cloth/leather socks or foot gloves, whose "sole" was often created by he wearer, out of whatever dirt and junk they would walk on as they wore them (this is why slippers were usually inside wear for the well off, the comparitively smooth stone and wood floors were pretty much the only place you could wear slippers and not shred them to bits) so Legolas's steps would be less like those of someone walking on snow in boots and more like someone walking on snow in socks/barefoot. Usually your bare foot is a lot better at weight distribution than your shod one since the hard rigid sole usually confines the force to a smaller area (it's sort of a lesser version of the same force equasions that explain why a woman wearing stilletto heels can suddenly start leaving hammer holes in a wood floor whereever she walks if she is not careful) This would not explain all of it (even a barefoot person would leave tracks in the snow) but it might explain some of it.