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| + | All the theories on this page have been moved to the appropriate character/location/concept theory pages. |
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| − | {{cleanup}} |
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| + | {{Nav-Season4Theories}} |
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| − | ==Sayid's Flashforward== |
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| + | [[es:The Economist/Theories]] |
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| − | *[[Ben]] wants Sayid to kill all the remaining [[DHARMA]] members, or those who associate with [[Matthew Abaddon]]. |
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| + | [[pt:The Economist/Theories]] |
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| − | *"Your friends" that Ben refers to Sayid could be either the remaining survivors on the Island or the [[Oceanic 6]]. |
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| − | *[[Italian man|Mr. Avellino]] or the Italian man seemed scared or nervous when he realized that Sayid is one of the [[Oceanic 6]], this supports the theory that Sayid is killing the remaining DHARMA employees or those who are associated with Matthew Abaddon for Ben. |
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| − | * Elsa's employer prefers using an older pager. This means "The Economist" isn't ready for newer technology quite possibly implying that Elsa is working for Jacob. |
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| − | **Jacob doesn't even like flashlights/torches, which were around long before pagers. |
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| − | ***His fear of flashlights is much more likely to be light-related. |
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| − | ****Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that his cabin has only been visible at night thus far. |
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| − | **Elsa's employer may prefer to use a pager because they are more reliable than cell phones, e.g. why doctors still use pagers. |
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| − | ***Is Elsa working for Christian Sheppard? As a doctor, he might favour a pager, and he seems to potentially still be alive (sitting in Jacob's cabin/Seen (himself or the monster in disguise). The fact that they took care to point out the pager must be a clue. |
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| − | ****People other than Christian Shepard use pagers. |
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| − | **Elsa is somehow connected to [[Matthew Abaddon]]. The use of a pager is a sly reference to [[Lance Reddick]]'s role in "The Wire," specifically season one. |
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| − | **The English translation of her German telephone call is: "Hi! What are you doing?You were supposed to call me at 10:30 not at 10:00." In the subtitles the "not at 10:00" was removed. Obviously the intention of the authors was that the pager rang 30 minutes too early, not as mentioned by several people too late. |
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| − | ***Could the call coming 30 minutes to early have to do with the 30 minute time difference from the island? If the call was from the island, the callers time might be 31 minutes ahead of actual time? |
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| − | ****But the time difference does not affect electronic communications, note how the freighter-four and the people still on the freighter have real-time communications. The time difference only affects physical objects. |
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| − | *****The time difference could effect electronic communication - Just because an individual on the island is talking to an individual off of the island, it does not mean that different lengths of time have not passed for them. If time moves more slowly on the island, well, Daniel could be calling Regina at noon island time, and maybe it is 5pm Freighter time. We do not know, it is never specified. Just because they can communicate in real-time does not mean they are in the same time. And considering that their conversations are short, and also that they never talk over one another, it is possible for the small time difference to be happening. (If the clocks are right, they seem to posit that the ratio of island time:real-world time is 10:12, approximately. What takes Regina 12 seconds to say it takes Daniel 10 seconds to hear. This would not be all that noticeable. |
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| − | ******If it is the case that Regina in the past is talking to Daniel in the future, even with a not-very-noticeable time delay...why does it take 30 minutes for Elsa's boss to page her? Unless the time lag has grown considerably, it shouldn't have that much effect on the communication time. My theory: the original script had a plothole, delivered in the German, and the PTB patched it up by leaving the "not at 10:00" out of the subtitles in post-production. |
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| − | ***She was also on the verge of getting information out of [[Sayid]] maybe her plan was to have the information out of him by 10:30 thus the early call threw off her timing. |
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| − | * At the end of the episode, Ben is seen stitching [[Sayid]] up. He scolds him by asking, "Need I remind you what they did the last time you thought with your heart and not with your gun?" hinting at an incident that caused Sayid to turn to Ben for help. One possible scenario that this "incident" could refer to could occur after Sayid gets off the island. Upon returning to the real world, Sayid eventually finds [[Nadia]], ending his long search for her. [[Dharma]] or [[The Maxwell Group]] or The Widmore Corporation (not really sure, but it will be the same people [[Matthew Abbadon]] is working for) finds Sayid while he is with Nadia and tries to kill him. During this altercation, Sayid survives but Nadia is killed. This causes Sayid to want to seek revenge, being a perfect "soldier" to be recruited by [[Ben]] to try and eliminate those responsible for Nadia's death, presumably one of the three companies mentioned above. |
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| − | **This - at this point in time - is most likely referring to events that will be set in motion due to do Sayid getting aboard the frieghter as a spy. Sayid used diplomacy to extract Charlotte and not brute force and gun fire. He also did this after having some - for lack of a better word - epiphany over the body of Naomi, leading to the reference of thinking with his heart. |
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| − | **Maybe he's referring to when he found [[Hurley]] in the closet and believed that he was left behind rather than suspecting him of lying. |
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| − | ***Why would Sayid regret believing Hurley? Sayid still got what he wanted, to bring back Charlotte and get to the freighter. |
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| − | ****Because he tricked him. There was an opportunity as well: They were locked in the same room. Ben recruited him then. |
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| − | **It is referring to a previous episode, when Shannon was shot. |
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| − | ***Only problem with this theory is that Sayid never really had an opportunity to stop Shannon from being shot. |
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| − | **It is referring to [[Sayid]]'s decision to bring [[Naomi]] back to the boat. Possibly that the freighter people perform an autopsy and easily identify that Naomi has wounds in the back and abdomen which has grave consequences for the Survivors. |
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| − | ***[[Kate]] told [[Miles]] directly what happened - it's likely that the people on the boat suspect the survivors based on the code [[Naomi]] spoke. It makes sense to suspect that [[Ben]]'s statement sets up a future plot point rather than refer to anything that has come to pass. |
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| − | ***Frank mentioned in [[Confirmed Dead]] that the helicopter is low on fuel and can't carry unnecessary weight. [[Naomi]]'s body causes the helicopter to be heavier, burn more fuel, and thus prevent it from reaching the freighter. Maybe it crashes? |
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| − | ****As the group (Frank, Sayid, Desmond, Naomi's body) was preparing to board the helicopter to leave, Sayid stated that Frank said there was "room for one more." This accounted for Naomi as Charlotte and Daniel both elected to stay, the helicopter was NOT overloaded with weight. |
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| − | *****But that was with Frank's original estimate of how far and how long it would take to fly back to the freighter. If the island is somehow shifted in time or space, the helicopter may run out of fuel before it can land. |
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| − | *The incident (see above) will be the denouement[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/denouement] (SAT word) to this segment of Season 4, in which most of the Losties will be killed. Sayid will betray [[Desmond]] on the [[Freighter]], swayed to the Freighties' side by some connection between Naomi and Nadia that the bracelet suggests to him. This will lead to Desmond's death, and the purge of [[Locke's group]], minus [[Hurley]] and Sawyer. Sayid's deep guilt will move him to Ben's side. |
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| − | **Why does the bracelet suggest any connection at all between Naomi and Nadia? Because both of their names begin with N? |
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| − | ***And because the bracelet obviously had an impact on Sayid. |
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| − | **** Damon and Carlton just said in an interview that Sayid was just reminded of Naomi, and that there is no further connection between the two. |
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| − | *****Naomi looks like [[Nadia]] |
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| − | ******Naomi doesn't look anything like Nadia. |
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| − | ** [[Desmond]] (and his relationship with [[Penny]]) have been established too heavily for him to be killed off at this stage. |
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| − | ***Lost often kills off major characters -- but thinking that any significant number of them will be killed off this season is just ridiculous. |
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| − | ** Lost would lose a lot of appeal by killing off so many main characters. |
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| − | *** With the time-travel element well established, plus the recurring theme of [[Fate_versus_free_will]], those deaths would not necessarily be permanent. |
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| − | ****While TPTB have stated the Losties may not have been on the island as long as they think they have, time-travel has NOT been well-established. The time-distillation experiment could have potentially passed through a portal, travelling longer than the freighties and Daniel thought. After all, the beacon still showed that it was at the reception point even though it took much longer to reach the island. Also, wouldn't the Losties be able to count 100 sunrises? Finally, the TPTB have stated "DEAD ON THE ISLAND IS DEAD." |
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| − | **Maybe something notable, Sayid said "the day he trusts that man (Ben) is the day he would sell his soul". |
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| − | ** Just because he works for him (probably under some sort of duress) doesn't mean he "trusts" him. But in terms of storyline, it is certainly foreshadowing. |
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| − | * So now Ben, who didn't seem to know much about surgery in past seasons, knows how to remove a bullet from Sayid's chest. |
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| − | ** Maybe it's not Ben - it's a look-alike. |
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| − | **It wouldn't take too much training to learn how to deal with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. He wasn't performing spinal surgery. It seemed as if he was likely using veterinary tools. If Dharma experimented on animals, then he might have had some training. |
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| − | **If the voice he used before he was seen onscreen was indeed [[Christian Shepherd]]'s, it might explain why Ben is able to complete surgery. |
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| − | ***It was not Christian's voice, simply a slight distortion of Ben's natural voice to throw off viewers. |
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| − | *[[Sayid]] in the flash forward is the devil's bounty hunter. When he offered to bring Charlotte back in exchange for a flight off the island, he was making a deal with the devil. Sayid's boss in the future, [[Ben]], the devil. Note that while on the island, when he is negotiating to get Charlotte from [[Locke]], Sayid says of Ben, "Forgive me, but the day I start trusting him is the day I would have sold my soul." The irony, of course, being that he right then and there is making his Faustian bargain; the freighter employees are Satan's minions, sent to the island the retrieve the souls and take them to Hell. Sayid gets off the island and returns to Earth, but under the control of the devil. The list of which Ben speaks is the list of damned souls that Sayid is sent to capture and bring to hell. The island is "The Island of Lost Souls," where the passengers of Oceanic 815 ended up when the plane crashed. It's caught between heaven and hell, with the devil (Ben) and God each trying to pull the lost souls to hell and heaven, respectively. This symbolic pull is manifested literally in the magnetic disturbance and the light not "scattering" properly. There are four places these people can go: they can stay on the island (in limbo), go to heaven, go to hell or make a deal with the devil to return to Earth. When he goes to Ben to have the bullet removed, it's in a veterinarian's office, with all kinds of dogs barking; these are the "hounds of hell." |
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| − | **Ben is Satan and the Freighter people Satan's minions? Have you noticed that they seem to be mortal enemies? Not to mention that TPTB have said that our people are not dead. Nice idea, but you need to rethink it. |
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| − | **We saw Ben's birth and childhoood. Unlikely that he is also Satan. |
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| − | **Perhaps Ben is a escaped demon from hell and is trying to protect the islands souls from going to hell, especially Jacob? |
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| − | **Doesn't this directly contradict the producer's comments that the island is not purgatory? |
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| − | ***No, he's a guy from Oregon. And see post directly below. |
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| − | ****This is an excellent analysis from a literary/metaphorical point of view. The producers have said that it is "not purgatory" and the outside world does exist, but the show does employ the island as a metaphor for purgatory. |
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| − | ***In literature, it is possible for an object/person to be one thing and symbolize another. Just because the island could potentially serve as a metaphorical purgatory for redemption, does not mean it actually is purgatory. |
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| − | * Sayid has not turned "bad" or doing anything wrong. Ben said, in an earlier episode, in reference to the "Others," that "they are the good guys." If Hanso's Dharma project has been taken over by Mittelwerk, and he is using the island and it's special powers to let's say, try to take over the world, then Ben knows this. That could be why he joined the others at some point, to protect the island and prevent anyone from misusing the special powers of the island. In the future, off the island, He and Sayid are trying to stop the "real" bad guys from finishing their mission. And they are really protecting those who stayed on the island. Good/bad are relative. We accept literary characters like James Bond who lies and kills, yet he is working for the "good guys." |
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| − | **Possible. We have only seen one DHARMA flashback, and have no idea why Ben set off to purge the island. It could be possible that while we believe DHARMA to be a philanthropic foundation, it will turn out to be exactly the opposite, and the 40+ deaths, while not entirely positive, may turn out to be at least defensible. |
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| − | * Only the first scene is a flash forward. The remainder of the off-island scenes are flashbacks. Aside from the first scene, there are no real time identifiers. (Elsa appears to recognize Sayid, but he nevers tells how she does; we just assume it's because of the Oceanic 6 connection.) Sayid has had a relationship with Ben for years before the crash, and both of them chose to keep everyone else ignorant of that fact. |
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| − | **While in bed, [[Elsa]] says something along the lines of "Besides the plane crash, what else should I know?". This implies - unless [[Sayid]] has been on a crash previous to Oceanic 815 - that he met Elsa ''after'' the 815 crash, which renders all other scene's with her flashforwards. |
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| − | ***She does say "crash," but not "plane crash." (Admittedly, the implication is strong, though.) |
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| − | ** [[Flashforwards]] and [[Flashbacks]] will not be mixed within single episodes. That would get ''way'' too confusing. |
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| − | **In the scene where he makes a call and says that he "made contact", he is using what looks like a rather modern (post-crash) RAZR phone. |
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| − | ***RAZRs were out in 2004. Flashforwards and flashbacks could certainly be mixed within episodes, especially if the point is to display time's utter lack of linearity with regards to the island. |
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| − | *Sayid made a deal with Ben while imprisoned with him in the Others' game room, which included Sayid finding his lost love Nadia (following his heart). However, it's obvious that in his FF that he is not with Nadia (as he falls for Elsa). Sometime after leaving the island, Nadia is killed by the frieghter people (or by whichever organization they work for), and this is what leads Sayid to work for Ben, to get revenge. |
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| − | *Sayid works for Ben even before the plane crash. While imprisoned with him in the Other's camp Sayid says to him "What do you know about friendship" and Ben replies "I know it's no use having friends you can't trust" while looking at him with one of his ambiguous gestures. Maybe it's an indication of his intentions -to bring him to his side in any way- but it's possible that that stare hides a much longer -and complicated- relationship between them. With this, the theory of Sayid being the man in the freighter is more relevant. |
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| − | *The final flashforward was on [[the Island]]. Ben seems to like, if not love, the Island, there is no evidence for it NOT being the Island, and the Island would be an excellent hiding spot for Ben from his enemies (such as the Economist). |
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| − | ** Although the Island is a great hiding place would Sayid really travel all the way back to the Island to get a bullet taken from his shoulder? I think Ben would be sensible enough to realise that being that far away would be a nuisance and surely there would be someone in Germany Ben could get to remove the bullet if he were on the Island. |
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| − | ** There is some German text visible on the wall of the veterinary room. |
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| − | *** The Text is "Die Gesundheit Ihrer Familie Bedrohen" (".. threatening the health of your family"). The start of the sentence is blurred. It has 2 spelling mistakes (two words must start lower case). Correct would be "die Gesundheit Ihrer Familie bedrohen." |
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| − | *Sayid is helping Ben kidnap people for further island research and was not intending to kill anyone. First, Sayid never admits to Elsa that he kills anyone on the list. Second, he accuses Ben of using her to recruit him into killing. |
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| − | ** He shot Mr Avellino. There's no reason to believe he wouldn't kill others as well. Avellino seemed to be made out as a nice guy which made it more shocking that Sayid killed him. |
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| − | *Sayid is responsible for the death of the man in the obituary Jack reads prior to attempting to jump off the bridge. |
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| − | **We now know Frank is from New York, as is the man in the obituary. Michael is another character from NY, but the man being Frank makes more sense. |
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| − | *At the end of the episode, when Ben replies to Sayid saying 'good', he was in fact stating the name of Sayid's next target: Good (or Goode). |
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| − | **Unlikely, the close-captioning said "Good". |
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| − | ***However, the CC has been wrong in the past. |
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| − | * The person Elsa (probably native German or Austrian) talked to on the phone in German is Thomas Mittelwerk. He is - excluding Elsa - the ONLY other German speaking character on the show, in fact he is from Austria. It makes perfect sense for them to talk to each other in German. Sayid was in Berlin to assassinate Mittelwerk, Ben's arch enemy and secret head of the freighter people (his business partners/sponsors include Mr. Paik, Mr. Widmore, Mr. Avellino). |
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| − | * Do the people who think Sayid worked for Ben before the crash not remember Henry Gale? How would any of that make sense, especially the parts where they were in the armory alone together with no one listening but the viewers? |
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| − | ==The Economist== |
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| − | See [[Economist %28person%29/Theories]] |
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| − | |||
| − | ==Jacob's Cabin== |
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| − | *When Ben took Locke to see 'Jacob', there was a definite tension within Ben. However, after the Jacob character appeared to Locke in the cabin, Ben was seen shaking the chair that Jacob was in telling Jacob that that was enough...you have had enough fun. For a man who fears Jacob so much, Ben's actions here shows less of a man before a god and more of a god before a God, almost as if in Ben's own words...he had done what he always does...exploit the situation. Jacob is trapped within the ash circle probably via Ben and through that Ben has gained certain information about the island and those beings existing on the island before DHARMA. These are only suggestions and time and episodes will tell. |
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| − | *Jacob's cabins is merely an apparition, like Mr. Eko's brother, the horse, Christian Shepard, etc. |
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| − | *Jacob's cabin only appears when he summons someone, which is why Locke and his group do not see the cabin. |
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| − | **In [[The Man Behind The Curtain]] neither Locke nor Ben were summoned, yet the cabin was still visible. |
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| − | ***Ben could have been told to take Locke to the Cabin, since that Ben lies a lot. |
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| − | ***Jacob's "Help me" to Locke suggests that he wanted to see him, so Locke was "summoned" in a way. |
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| − | **Hurley did not appear to have been summoned by Jacob, yet his cabin appeared to him as well. |
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| − | ***It could be argued that Hurley may have been summoned as indicated by the arm (Jacob's?) beckoning to him from the open door of the cabin. |
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| − | ***"Summon" does not imply a spoken command. Simply the apperance of the cabin could be a sufficient indication that Jacob wants to see someone. |
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| − | *It only appears at night. |
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| − | **Good theory, because Ben was not at all surprised or disturbed that it was not there. |
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| − | **Also supported by the fact that Jacob doesn't like light. |
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| − | ***Maybe the cabin exists in a different timeline, and jacob and the cabin both only appear when the cabin in that timeline's earth approximates the location of where the cabin should be in our timeline, so it only appears at night. or something. |
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| − | * "Jacob" moves the cabin at will. Ben had managed to nail it down to that spot, enclosing the perimeter with ash, but Locke's interaction somehow freed it to move around. |
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| − | ** This is why Hurley saw the cabin elsewhere. |
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| − | ** Hurley easily saw the cabin. Could he be the one the Others were waiting for? Wouldn't that be ironic if he left the island? |
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| − | **The only people who have seen the cabin are Hurley (who is certifiably insane) Locke (who has so much faith in a higher power, he will believe and do anything) and Ben (who could be compared to a cult leader). Ben has made up Jacob as a God, to keep his sheep from straying. |
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| − | * It has previously been suggested that when [[Hurley]] disturbed the ashes when he was running / stumbling away, he "freed" [[Jacob]] (and his cabin) from the imprisonment. This is why he saw it again in front of him and why it wasn't there when they returned. |
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| − | **Hurley saw the cabin in a different location -- it wasn't where Locke saw it. |
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| − | ** This is a point of contention with [[The Beginning of the End]]. Did Hurley find the cabin in the same location Ben originally showed Locke? If so, it would seem that Locke would have made a big deal about finding Hurley so close to it, and he wouldn't have been surprised later at Hurley's revelation of having seen the cabin. If he saw it in a different location, clearly it can't have been Hurley that freed Jacob. Still, all such points are debatable. |
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| − | *** In [[Confirmed Dead]] Hurley claimed that the cabin was "back that way". This seems to indicate that he saw it somewhere different from where Locke was taking them. |
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| − | *** Yeah and then Locke got really awkward and passive aggressive. |
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| − | *Ashes are used in some hoodoo rituals to keep evil spirits imprisoned, so if Hurley did disturb the ash then Jacob is free to move about the island. |
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| − | *There is little or no evidence supporting the theory that Jacob is being imprisoned by Ben. |
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| − | **Except for Jacob saying "help me" to Locke. |
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| − | **And I recall reading that if you watch [[The Man Behind The Curtain]] with commentary on, they specifically state that Ben used the ash to contain Jacob. |
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| − | **There is a possible "Circle of Protection" around the cabin, as well. Neither confirms with certainty that he is being held captive, but there is evidence to suggest it is a possibility. |
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| − | *Perhaps the cabin can only be seen when you are inside the ring of sand. |
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| − | **In [[The Man Behind the Curtain]], we already see the cabin before Ben and Locke enter the ring. |
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| − | *Perhaps there are several rings of ash around the island, only one of which contains the Cabin |
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| − | **Possible but not likely because Locke knew exactly where to look for it. |
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| − | *The ring of ash may simply be a somewhat discreet marker for the usual location of the cabin when Jacob summons Ben, but Jacob may be able to make the cabin appear anywhere. |
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| − | ** The ring was made by Ben so that he would remember where the cabin was. The cabin phases between dimensions or time periods within the same dimension, and Ben needed a way to mark the location in order to relocate the spot when he needed to. |
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| − | ***Unlikely, since that Ben lived on the island most of his life. He wouldn't forget where Jacob is... since it plays an important role in his life. |
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| − | ***Unlikely also because a circle of ash would be a poor marker in a jungle environment where everything grows lightning-fast. |
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| − | ****I don't know. Maybe this is why ash is a good marker: because it stops things from growing and will therefore stay in place. Remember in [[The Man Behind The Curtain]], Locke tasted the ash. Maybe it has some amount of salt in it. Remember in [[?]] when Locke and Eko find the question mark? It's made of salt so that it will stay there. Maybe the ash is a similar thing. |
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| − | *Jacob didn't want so many people seeing him or his cabin. |
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| − | *The ash circle may have been placed by the black smoke. |
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| − | **The black smoke might be controlled by Jacob to move the cabin wherever he wants. |
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| − | *Jacob or the Island wasn't ready to give Locke the next set of orders, he/it wants Locke to stand on his on two feet and take over, not be a child that needs constant coddling. This is something Ben expected since Locke is "the one" the others were waiting for. |
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| − | ==Daniel's Experiment== |
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| − | [[Image:Daniels_experiment_diagram.JPG|thumb|right|Diagram showing a possible explanation for the results of Daniel's experiment]] |
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| − | *This diagram posits they were clocks and not stopwatches. We do not have confirmation, and if they are stopwatches it changes things. |
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| − | **1. I used the term "clock" to stay consistent w/ the language used in the main article. 2. I would argue a stopwatch is a clock. 3. I do not see how a "clock" vs. a stopwatch would have any bearing on my analysis. Any timepiece would be affected in the same way; it would continue to log time while between timelines. The only benefit of using a stopwatch would be to ensure that the starting time was synchronized. You may assume that two different clocks would be a few second or even minutes off from each other, but over thirty minutes is well outside the normal margin of error. 4. You'll also note I labeled the times w/ tildes to acknowledge the approximate time values, since we have no way of being sure of the exact time. For instance, how many seconds did it take for Daniel to remove the clock and compare it to the other one? That alone would probably remove 30 seconds or so from the difference. |
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| − | ***The reason I bring this up is because your theory implies that time is running at the same time for both the island and the real world, and the reason for the time difference is due to the fact that the island is in a different space/time timeline than the rest of the world. If the timepieces are in fact stopwatches, while not disproving your theory, it might instead point toward other theories about time moving at different speeds on and off the island. |
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| − | ****This theory over-complicates things. If they are stopwatches and both started at 0:00:00, then you need TWO theories. One that explains why it is so late, and another that explains why there is a time difference. When he receives the "clock", he first compares it to his watch. If he simply wanted to know how late it was, he would have checked his watch as soon as he heard/saw the rocket. This suggests that it is a clock, not a stopwatch. This requires only one explanation (just the time delay). That could be explained by some kind of wormhole, with one end near the ship and the other on the island, but 31 minutes into the future. This would also explain why the helicopter must fly back the exact same path - it must go through the same wormhole. The person on the ship may not have been actually tracking the rocket, but simply estimating how close it would be based on how fast it travels. However, radio communications should also be going through this wormhole, which would cause the rocket to arrive instantly, so there must be something else (perhaps something that only affects electromagnetic waves) causing the communications to take place in "real" time. -- |
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| − | *****Exactly. The problem isn't one of just time, but also space. I felt that my explanation was the simplest in explaining the results as we witnessed them. It requires the least assumptions on our part. Likewise, the explanation I would put forth to explain why the helicopter and rocket were affected, yet not telecommunications, is also rather simple: Mass. The helicopter and people and the rocket all have mass; radio waves don't. The wormhole or whatever is at the event horizon must accelerate or transport whatever is transversing it. The more mass involved, the bigger the delay. Telecommunications would be nearly real-time, as they are simply being conducted across the event horizon. And just like the helicopter and boat requiring a specific bearing, telecommunications would require they be tuned and aimed correctly to cross the event horizon. |
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| − | ******How do we know the helicopter is affected? It had technical difficulties, but no time related issues, or space related issues. The technical difficulties could have been a result of the storm, or the magnetism, I did not see anything to suggest that the helicopter experience a time/spacial relation issue. |
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| − | *******Like in the theory of relativity a traveler who goes near the speed of light the time will pass more slowly for him in is ship compare to the non moving world. It means 1000 years can pass in the outside world but to the perspective of the people in the ship maybe it's only 30 min. The ship will only use 30 min of fuel, people will age of 30 min etc. Similar time distortion here. In the perspective of the Rocket/Helicopter the trip took a normal amount of time. People inside the helicopter experienced a normal amount of time for the trip. But to people in the Ilsand or in the boat the time passed at a different speed. |
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| − | *They simply cannot be stopwatches. A rocket of that size cannot maintain momentum for more than a minute. To suggest it was in flight for over 3 hours is simply ridiculous. All the producers were trying to show is either that the island is out of sync with the rest of the world, OR communications are out of sync. Relativistic effects are impossible since the required velocity/gravity would have crushed the rocket. |
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| − | **One of the "clues" on the [[Channel 7]] website showed the turning of the failsafe key in the hatch for a few seconds. This suggests that a magnetic anomaly is the culprit, and this would only affect communications. |
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| − | *The times on the clock are definately times of day, and NOT stop watch time. Daniel said nothing about starting a stop watch. Daniel checks his wrist watch when the paylaod arrives, appears shocked and checks the other clock to confirm. |
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| − | ** The watch on Daniels wrist shows 7.15 (pm I guess). That's quite a bit off the watch that he placed next to his equipment and suggests that they're stop watches cos otherwise these two watches should show the same time. Furthermore, Juliet leaves just before the launch and comes back just after the landing - and the walk is supposed to take "a couple of hours" which is pretty much 2-3 hrs |
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| − | *Were the time shown in the clock the times of day, such as 3:16:22pm and 2:45:04 pm, or were they stopwatches, synchronized at the moment of launch? While either way they posit a 31 minute 18 second difference, there is a distinction to be made between these two things. |
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| − | **We do not know the passage of time between when Daniel conducted the experiment and when the payload landed. Considering Juliette said it would be a few hours to hike back to the beach, and the rocket lands right before Juliette and Desmond re-emerge, it supports the possibility that these are indeed stopwatches, and it took 2 hours and 45 minutes (on island) for Juliette to go and get Desmond and then return. |
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| − | ***Juliette left before this experiment. This does not disprove the above, since she said it might take "a few hours" to go get Desmond. Her trip could have been 4 hours, for all we know. |
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| − | **If they are in fact stop watches, and not clocks, it also means the potential constant (if it exists) between island time and real time is greater. The rocket should have taken about 1 minute from launch to landing. If these are stopwatches, it in fact took 3 hours and 16 minutes to land. That means, the ratio, for Island time:real-world time would be approximately 1:196. |
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| − | ***If this is true, then considering they have been on the island for 100 island days, that is the equivalent of 19600 real-world days, or 50+ years. This seems so radically unlikely that it disproves this theory. Unless my math is wrong... |
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| − | ****There is a discrepancy here, with this math. Assuming they are stopwatches, what does that information tell us. 1>It should have taken about 1 minute from time of launch until landing. Instead it took 3 hours and 16 minutes. 2>During the 3+ hours the rocket was traveling, only 2 hours and 45 minutes passed on the island. The above equation only take <1> into account, but ignored <2>. It is the wrong math problem. I dont know the right one, but its not that. |
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| − | *This proves the theory that time runs differently on the island. |
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| − | **It doesn't. Regina's equipment told her that the missile arrived, 31 minutes before it actually arrived. It suggests that the island is somehow at a point 31 minutes behind the real world in the time-line. The subjective experience of time on or off the island is a totally different thing. |
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| − | ***<b>Someone should look into the episode where Desmond looks through the system logs of the computer to determine that he caused the plane crash. Certainly the time displacement theory would have had an effect on the timing that surrounds those events.</b> |
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| − | ****How? The computer/printout only showed us the times that the numbers were successfully entered into the computer in the Swan. And the way Daniel was acting-it would seem that they already knew about the time displacement possibility. If the initial almost-explosion did create a "time bubble", Would that "time bubble" not be destroyed or further warped by the real explosion? Also, if this electromagnetic explosion had the possibility of creating a rip in time/space, thus distorting time, how will the computer's data correlate that distortion in time? |
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| − | *The difference between the two clocks was 31 minutes (15 and 16) |
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| − | ** A simple difference of 31 minutes could not be constant, for one the voice calls are in real time, and for two, time running at a different pace would result in a different period of lag at all times, instead of a constant 31 minutes. |
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| − | ***The fact that the voice calls are in real time doesn't prove anything; Daniel could be making the call at 12:00 Island time and Regina could be receiving it at 12:30 freighter time; without asking each other what time it is they wouldn't know that the call "existed" at different times for them. |
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| − | ** It could be that the ratio is constant (rather than 31 minutes), that time moves 84% as fast on the island as off. |
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| − | *** There is a continuous slow down of time from the freighter to the island (though maybe not linear). Its not an abrupt change. However, the speed of light remains constant, therefore radio comms can still occur in real-time from the perspective of each participant in the conversation. Its like passing a stationary train platform while standing on a train that is moving at 50 miles per hour and yelling at the person on the platform the moment you pass them. They will hear you even though your velocity is faster than their velocity (implying a dilation of time between the two frames of reference--see einstein relativity theories below). |
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| − | ***A similar time device can be seen in C.S. Lewis's Narnia books - a few seconds in our world might equal days or weeks in Narnia. Coincidentally, we have just been introduced a character named C.S. Lewis (Charlotte). |
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| − | **** This is a good point - and in the Narnia books, the time difference is not constant either, it's different everytime one travels between Earth and Narnia. |
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| − | ** At one moment (using pause) we can see booth clocks on the same image; the clock in the rocket marks 03:16:22 the one on the island marks 02:45:04 that's exactly 31 m 18 sec difference. That rocket could probably not fly for an extra 30 min so in the perspective of the rocket it left at 03:15:22 and arrived 1 minute later at 03:16:22 but according to the island clock it's 02:45:04. To have those results the rocket must have traveled 31 minutes 18 seconds into the past. Therefore when Faraday spoke in the radio he was talking to the future, that's why the rocket arrived late; It was only sent around 30 minutes later. |
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| − | *** The rocket (and anything else sent along that bearing), ''is'' somehow suspended in time. This accounts for the rough/aborted landings, the need for Juliet to be drugged to make the trip and the rocket making a re-entrance like appearance when it is seen by the islanders. |
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| − | *** Wouldn't Daniel actually have requested the rocket around 02:14 ? The rocket would have been sent at 03:15 and arrived at 03:16 for the 1 minute travel time, but went back in time to arrive relative to the island at 02:45 ? |
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| − | **** If we assume that there are 2 timelines, island time (IT) and freighter time (FT), then all we know is this: at some unknown point in IT daniel makes a call to the freighter where it is about 3:15 FT. The object arrives at 3:16 FT and 2:45 IT. We don't know how much time passed in IT between the phone call and the arrival so we also don't know which time it was in IT at the phone call. |
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| − | **** The phone could be the key as it allows calls to the outside "future" in non-island time. |
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| − | *The experiment demonstrates conclusively that time on the island moves slower than 'real time' (off the island.) While the difference is a constant ratio, the purpose of the Swan Station was to regulate this time shift and keep the island nearly synchronized with 'real-time'. Since the turning of the fail-safe key, the island's time has returned to its natural state; slower than 'real-time'. The ratio can be determined by relating the amount of time [[Daniel]] has been on the island to the time differential demonstrated by the two clocks. Assuming that Daniel has been on the island since midnight at the beginning of Day 94, we can estimate that he has been on the island for 15 hours by the time the rocket lands. If he's lost 31minutes 18 seconds over the course of only 15 hours, the ratio of 'apparent island time' to 'deviation from real time' is 1:28.66242. If we apply that ratio to the 27 days that have passed for the losties since the key was turned, day 94 (Dec. 24, 2004 in 'apparent island time') becomes February 5, 2007. That would be approximately 2 months before Jack reads the death notice in [[Through The Looking Glass]]. If Daniel arrived on the island sooner than midnight, Dec. 24 (Day 94) the ratio would be reduced and the 'real-time' date would be a bit prior to Feb. 5, 2007. I suspect this is likely but am unable to be any more precise given current data. |
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| − | **I think this idea is great, but I think the ratio has been miscalculated. If Daniel has been on the island for 15 hours, and in that time has fallen behind 1/2 hour than the ratio is is more like 14.5:15 not 1:28. |
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| − | ***Actually, the ratio is "time on the island":"deviation from real-time" as the amount of the deviation is proportional to the time spent on the island. |
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| − | ****Yes, the ammount of deviation is proportional to the time spent on the island, but how you apply that ratio is critical. It is incorrect to say "Daniel has lost 30 minutes in 15 hours, thus every day on the island is 30 days in the real world." Every 15 hours, the island falls 30 minutes behind thus, 15 real world hours is = to 14.5 island hours. If you want to split hairs, you can look at it as Daniel has spent 15 hours on island and 15.5 hours have passed on the freighter. The difference is practicly negligible. |
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| − | *****It sounds like you are assuming that the difference is constant, 31 minutes 18 seconds behind; like having a watch that is set 15 minutes slow. But the gap continually increases. If we are in a footrace and I run slower, you are going to get further and further ahead. The ratio is not 'time elapsed on the island' to 'time elapsed in the real world'; it is 'time elapsed on the island' to 'time lost in the real world'. |
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| − | ******That is not what I mean. If we use your foot race example, I run 100 yards in the first minute and you run 95. In the next minute I run 100 again, and you run 95 again, and so on. Every minute you fall 5 yards farther behind. Try applying the 28:1 ratio against the 15 hours Daniel has been on the boat. Then you get the boat at 420 hours, which doesn't make sense. Does anyone see what I am saying? |
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| − | *******I agree. It doesn't matter what the ratio is: 1) Let's try "time elapsed on the island":"time elapsed off the island". It's 29:30. 27 days divided to this ratio is roughly 28 days (which gives you the time elapsed off the island according to the same ratio). 2) "time elapsed on the island":"time lost". It's 115:4. 27 days divided by this ratio is roughly 1 day (which gives you the time lost on the island according to the same ratio), and that says 27+1 days elapsed off the island. |
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| − | ********Thank You! I feel like Hurley, when Roussaeu tells him that she also beleives the numbers are cursed. |
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| − | ::::The calculation was worked out using seconds. There some minor errors in the original so, here is the corrected math: |
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| − | ::::elapsed island time : time lost |
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| − | ::::15hrs = 54000s : 31m 18s = 1878s |
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| − | ::::54000s : 1878s |
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| − | ::::28.752994 : 1 |
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| − | ::::If applied to the entire 94 days spent by the losties and the date falls sometime out in the next decade. Given that Jack seems to be back before April 2007, [[Through The Looking Glass]], it may be postulated that the time shift has only been in full effect since the turning of the failsafe key on day 67. That leaves approx 27 days. |
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| − | |||
| − | ::::Factored into 27 days (2332800s) |
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| − | ::::2332800s / 28.752994 = 776.33083 days |
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| − | ::::That's 2 years, 46 days (and 4 hours or something. The remainder was dropped to simplify the calculation.) |
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| − | ::::Add that to the perceived date of Dec. 24 2004 and that puts the date at Feb 8, 2007. Tweak it a little more with the assumption that The Freighter folks landed prior to midnight and you may well end up with the 'real-time' date falling on Feb. 7; one year to the day prior to the airdate of [[Confirmed Dead]]. |
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| − | :::::Actually That would put it at Feb 7, 2007 which is the exact air date of "Not In Portland". |
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| − | ::::::*First of all 2332800s / 28.752994 = 0.9 days, which is exactly my point above, it says that the difference is just one day. What you've done is multiplying it by 28.752994 or rather, dividing it to 1/28.752994 which makes no sense. The ratio "time elapsed on island":"time lost" says, "if 15 hours elapsed on the island, we have lost half an hour". The same ratio applies to the 27 days problem (which is "if 27 days elapsed, how much time have we lost?"). To find that, you assume that the unknown is x, right? The solution is 27*(1/2) = 15x => 13.5 / 15 = x => x = 0.9. This is the solution: We have lost 0.9 days. |
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| − | |||
| − | :::::Yet, if "the purpose of the Swan Station was to regulate this time shift and keep the island nearly synchronized with 'real-time'" (something I also hypothesized in [[The_Economist/Theories#The_Island_Jupiter]]) you have to take away the days on which Desmond pushed the button regularly, from your calculations. |
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| − | ::::::This is why the date is calculated from the time the failsafe key was turned (27 days have passed.) |
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| − | :::::::There something else to be accounted for, though: the clock onboard the rocket goes through the same time dilation suffered by Daniel's clock, although for a shorter period of time. |
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| − | :::::::That is to say, if another clock satyed on the boat, it would show a greater time difference. |
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| − | :::::::Unfortunately there is no way to know at which distance from beacon the rocket entered the time dilation zone. |
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| − | :::::::She calls every 5Km every 2.5seconds or so (1.668 between 5Km and impact and 3.629 between 10Km and 5Km are the maximum and minimum, yet you have to take into account Regina's lag and mine too), making the rocket speed about 2000m/s that is 7200Km/h. |
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| − | :::::::The flight lasts for about 28 seconds; if they are spent entirely in the time dilated zone, outside this would equal to |
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| − | :::::::28*28.752994 = 805.083832 seconds = 13 minutes and 25 seconds |
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| − | :::::::this would increase the time dilation to 15 hours in 1878+805 and drop the rate to |
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| − | :::::::54000s : 2683s |
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| − | :::::::20,126724 : 1 |
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| − | :::::::Now we should repeat the passage above, using a time dilation of 20 to calculate the rocket's 28 seconds time dilation until we find a balance point in the two equations. |
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| − | :::::::It seems to stop increasing at 21.7 or so |
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| − | :::::::We don't exactly know how much time both Daniel and the rocket have spent on the island, the ratio is certainly between 1:28 and 1:21, but this "scissor" moves the day considerably. |
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| − | ::::::::This theory does not involve 'time dilation' or such influences during the passage to the island. It simply assigns all of the lost time to the effect of ''being on the island''. |
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| − | :::::::::The rocket has been on the island for about 28 seconds before Daniel retrieves its internal clock, so you have to take that into account. Those 28 seconds run at 1:28 ratio as well as the 54000 seconds in which Daniel has been on the island. This IS a [[wikipedia:Time dilation|time dilation]] and the calculation above never assumes it is due to the passage to the island, rather it assumes the rocket has been under the influence of the time dilating "field" of the island for the whole flight, something we can't say for sure. |
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| − | ::::::::::Regardless, the slight effect of the field on the short time of the rocket's flight is negligible, is it not? |
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| − | * Has it occurred to anyone that if the clock on Daniel's equipment AND the clock inside the rocket are stopwatches, then the right most position on the display is for 100th's of a second. After all, this is suppose to be scientific equipment. So Daniel's stopwatch is reading 2 minutes, 45 seconds and 3 hundred's of a second. |
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| − | |||
| − | ==The "Joop Effect"== |
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| − | |||
| − | **Joop could confirm this. If Joop was born in 1900 (presumably on the Island) and lived on the Island after that, he would have aged 3-5 years before the Swan station became active in the 1970's. If time passed "normally" after the Swan activation (or Joop was taken from the island during Dharma's presence), Joop would have aged another 30-35 years until his "105th" birthday in 2004. Therefore, Joop is technically 105 years old, but has only experienced ~35 years, so his biological age is consistent with the life expectancy of an orangutan. |
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| − | *** This also could tie in with the identity of the Hostiles, who were on the island before the Dharma Initiative. They were the original crew of the Black Rock; their aging was slowed by the "Joop Effect." |
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| − | ****This explain Richard Alpert's lack of aging between his first meeting with Ben and the current time. Young Ben, at their first meeting, was new to the island and the "Joop Effect" had not yet taken hold of him; that's why he continued to grow to maturity. |
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| − | ****This could also explain the problem with getting pregnant on the island; the "Joop effect" causes the woman to, in effect, carry the baby for much longer than a human body was ever designed for. Perhaps the woman's body shields the fetus from the "Joop effect," and therefore the fetus and the mother are effectively experiencing different timestreams. For the mother, the pregnancy seems like nine months, while for the fetus, the gestational period could be several years (!!!) When the baby emerges, it is far too large for the exit canal, resulting in the mother's death. |
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| − | *****This could also explain the x-ray of the "old womb" that Juliette was shown in Oregon. |
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| − | ** Perhaps someone could perform an audio analysis of the voices of the people we hear over the radio, who are speaking to us from the freighter. Is there a way to tell if their voices seem ever-so-slightly speeded up? Not enough to sound chipmunk-stype, of course, but enough to be detectable upon analysis. |
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| − | ***I believe if this was the case, it would have been noticed by the Freightees immediately. |
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| − | |||
| − | == Relativity == |
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| − | |||
| − | *Because the island is "lost in time" the actual physical location of the island is not a straight path from point A to point B but rather a curved or changing path. (This also explains Daniels warning for piloting the helicopter.) |
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| − | **This is why the Island is nearly impossible to find. |
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| − | **This would also explain the directions Ben gave Michael in [[Live Together, Die Alone]] of a [[bearing of 325]]. |
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| − | |||
| − | *The time dilation is a result of some sort of Relativist Effect (Einstein's Special Relativity). The time difference (approx. 165 minutes compared to 196 minutes) would be the result of one frame traveling approximately 362,204,004 miles/hour, which is a little more than half the speed of light. |
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| − | ** This assumes the time difference is linear. |
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| − | *** If time dilation is due to a gravitational gradient then the amount would vary the closer the rocket got to the gravitational source (assuming it on the island). |
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| − | ** The problem with that is that if the frames are moving relative to each other, they cannot remain the same distance from each other. I dont know how you get a Relativistic effect while the two frames maintain a constant distance between them. |
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| − | ***Daniel emphasizes to Frank that he must follow the same bearing they used for entrance. Perhaps all matter/waves must enter the island through this single entrance. This would explain the time delay if the missile had to travel around a snowglobe/barrier and enter this specific gateway to reach the spot Daniel set up. |
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| − | **** There could be a magnetic field surrounding the island preventing signals from getting in/out. If they formed a "sphere" around the island, the Brouwer "Hairy Ball" theorem would demand that there be at least one point where the field went to zero, allowing signals in through that one point. If the ship is anchored near that spot, signals would reach them directly. |
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| − | *****That could also explain how it was possible to jam signals from the looking glass. If signals can only exit at one point, they can be jammed. |
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| − | ** Similar dilations could occur for General Relativistic effects, which would require the island to have a tremendous amount of energy. |
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| − | *** More likely it would be due to a large local gravitational field, such as a mini black hole or wormhole. This would also hint about why the exact courses off of the island are important, because of the necessity of following a path that didn’t interact with a singularity or exotic matter in a wormhole. |
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| − | ** A relativistic effect would also effect the voice communication. |
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| − | *** The voice communication would be through electromagnetic waves, which travel at the speed of light, and are unaffected by Special Relativistic effects. |
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| − | **** True, but relativistic effects would require two frames of references moving at different rates thus getting further apart. |
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| − | ****This would explain why [[Danielle|Danielle's]] transmission has not been detected for 16 years. |
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| − | *****It has already been proven in [[Through the Looking Glass]] that the reason Danielle's transmission was not heard by anyone was because [[The Others]] were using the looking glass to jam all signals to/from the island. |
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| − | ** Perhaps it is M-theory. If the universe is 10 or 11 dimensional, as suggested by superstring theory, then maybe the island is moving close to the speed of light along a dimension that is not perceptible to human senses. This speed along an invisible dimension could alter time around the island in the same way relativity explains how time dilates when x, y or z increase close to the speed of light. |
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| − | ***But the extra dimensions called for in M-theory aren't just "invisible." They're curled up to an incredibly small size; objects existing in 3-dimensional space can't move through them. |
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| − | ***If the calculation above is correct and time flows at about 1/20 of the normal speed, this would mean that given 1/20 = sqrt{1- v^2/c^2) the island should be moving at about 99.75% of the speed of light (see also [[wikipedia:Twin paradox|The Twin Paradox]]) |
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| − | |||
| − | *The argument about the timing discrepancy in the "radio" versus the "payload" could be argued that the sat phones, if the conversations are based on satelite and not wave broadcasts, send their signals UP, whereas the payload was delivered on a lateral trajectoy. |
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| − | ** Also, Penny's artic watch station could be relying on satelite obtained information. |
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| − | |||
| − | **Something to also be noted here is that at the end of the conversation before they see the payload flying through the sky, Jack says "I can't believe its been 100 days since I've seen a game." At that point, either Frank didn't catch his statement to counter comment, or there was not a counter comment needed? |
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| − | ***These four new characters are obviously hiding a lot and when Daniel completes his experiment, he does not tell Jack anything about it. He does not ask Jack any questions relating to time either. If Frank catches Jack's comment, it is unlikely that he would choose to point it out. |
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| − | ** There "is" a reason this was mentioned right before Daniel's payload was delivered, but was it to make the above point or to throw us off? |
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| − | ** If time moves at 1/30th the speed of the outside world, then it may actually be 2011 where the freighter is and 2004 where the island is. That means that Frank would be talking about a world series that happened 4 years ago rather than remembering off the top of his head that the Red Sox won in 2004 also during the year the plane crashed. |
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| − | *** Btw, i figured 1/30th this way...if the projectile took 1 minute from the freighter's perspective to impact the island and 31 minutes from the island's perspective, then the ratio between the two time velocities is about 1:30. |
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| − | ****The problem with this is that Daniel's clock would start experiencing the relativistic effect from the moment he entered the island's "temporal boundary." If he's been on the island for 12 - 16 hours, the 31 minute difference would equate to time on the island moving at about 95% the speed of real time. |
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| − | *****The clocks are not acting as a stopwatch, it is supposed to be actual time of day. Therefore Daniel's clock (to him) has been his time since flying to the island and jumping out. If time changes on the island, it would have to change then. When they show both clocks, they should continue to remain the same difference apart because both clocks are now in the same time. If another clock were sent immediately after, it would be only slightly in the future, as stated above. |
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| − | ******This was a serious, technologically advanced physics experiment. As such, a twenty-four hour clock should have been used if the intention was to record the actual time of day. Additionally, no clocks in the world tick at identical speeds - even atomic clocks are differentiated by a few nano-seconds - and subsequently to make the experiment more reliable, both clocks would be synchronized at the time of launch, and the purpose of the equipment used by Daniel might have been to achieve synchronization. Thus it was a stopwatch. |
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| − | *******If it was a serious, technologically advanced physics experiment they would use UTC not the local time. Then it could be 03:16:22 UTC and 02:45:04 UTC on the clocks and still daylight on the island. Additionally there would be more error introduced from synchronization than would accumulate from the difference in tick times and tick times would affect both a stopwatch and clock. |
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| − | *** This ratio may actually be higher. Frank definitely seems like he's been out of the airline business for a long time given that he appears to already be retired to the Bahamas in his own little cottage by the sea. |
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| − | **** This creates a weird situation with the Black Rock. Assuming that the swan or other station didn't tamper with the island's temporal properties--the black rock was lost in 1881, which is 123 years before the Losties crashed. If the world's time has been moving at 30 times the speed as the islands time, that means that from the point of view of the island, the black rock has been on the island for only 4.1 years. It also implies that DHARMA had been conducting its business on the island within the past 12 months before the Losties arrived, but they seem to have been there much longer. |
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| − | *****The electromagnetic "event" at the end of Season Two that alerted Penny to their presence may have altered the temporal qualities of the island from that point forward. |
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| − | ******Or the island naturally moves forward in time faster than the rest of the world, but the swan was an experiment to equalize the time frames. When the swan was destroyed, the island reverted to its natural state. |
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| − | *Daniel's experiment proves that the speed of light leaves and enters the island at the same velocity (no latency for radio communication) however physical matter entering the Island (proven by the experiment) is delayed. This makes absolutely no sense in the physical world as there should be no discrimination in maximum velocity between light and matter per Special Relativity. The writers cannot completely disregard the laws of the observable universe, there must be another trickery for what we've been shown regarding time and space or they just don't care. |
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| − | **They certainly can disregard natural law. A cloud of black smoke that can pick up a man and throw him? A child who can make things appear just by thinking about them? A man who was killed by a sonic fence, woke up, got killed by a spear to the heart, and woke up again? I expect the writers to disregard the laws of the observable universe. |
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| − | ***No they can't. Whilst these things seem magical or impossible, they clearly make sense within the logic set up by the story. Telekinesis and accelerated healing are or will be explained according to the island's unique properties, and the writers have explicitly stated that they will adhere to natural law in so far as the Lostie's adventures will not turn out to be a dream or a spell in purgatory. If the storyline of Lost totally ignored the boundaries of reason, it would be ''Heroes''. |
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| − | **Light can of course be affected by the island's relativistic properties. Even if it were to move at only 1% of its normal 186,000 miles per second, a trip between the island and a freighter only about 40 miles away would still seem instantaneous. |
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| − | *It might also be possible that time moves slower and slower as you get farther from the island to a certain point and not at a constant 31 minutes. The ship at 25 miles away delays objects 31 minutes (15+16) while any objects farther away build on the numbers progression somehow. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 receiving a larger and larger time delay as the farther they go out to a certain boundary. Michael & Walt are expected to return to the show and will certainly (Walt at least) be several years older, while only having been gone a couple months from the island. This could be used to explain Walt's age progression. |
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| − | ** This is interesting because it could tie into the vile vortices theory where the distances tie into wave theory that describe interference minima and maximas (if the numbers represent frequencies or wavelengths). The maxs and mins somehow coincide with the locations on the earth of the vortices. My mathematics is a bit rusty when it comes to wave theory, but someone might want to chase this rabbit down the hole. |
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| − | *** What about those who comprise the Oceanic Six? They don't seem to show any signs of dramatic aging in the flash forwards. Of course...the flash forwards could always be a sort of alternate future reality. |
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| − | **** Because, you are the age you are at the time you come to the island or leave the island... and so on. |
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| − | *It seems interesting that a rocket fired from a big boat somewhere in the ocean approaches the island like a meteorite might (i was thinking Daniel would burn his hands touching it) from the sky. Either this thing is launched like a projectile, or perhaps it was launched straight down (into the water) and the island is in a giant bubble (snowglobe) which is actually underwater. Can't explain how they get any light down there or clouds in the sky though with this idea. |
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| − | *If they wanted to show that Island time and Real time are different, Daniel could call the freighter and say "Hey, what time have you got there?" The Experiment was to illustrate that there's a portal of some sort that must be traveled through to arrive on the island. Apparently, there's some time distortion experienced by the item or presumably person during the trip. A lag so to speak. |
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| − | *The time on the island is behind the rest of the world. This explains (maybe) a lot of plot points. On the island, Locke has not broken his back yet, Rose does not have cancer yet, Jack's dad appears alive on the island, Walt has been off the island, and he is now older and taller when he returns, Dharma knew about this time anomaly, and doing their research on this island would allow them to possibly find the answers to saving the world BEFORE the end happened. |
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| − | **But Claire for example was still pregnant. |
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| − | *** The producers said publicly that major revelations will explain many plot points, but that there would be plot points that will never have an explanation and must be just accepted as part of the story. One would expect that when an "answer" given to us by the writers seems to clear up multiple questions (but maybe not all), then it would be reasonable to accept that answer as new canon. I think we have been given an answer - that the island moves in a slower time reality than the rest of the world - and this solves many of the major plot arcs that we have seen. |
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| − | ****OK, just so I understand your theory, it is that: (1) The date on the island is an earlier date than in the rest of the world, and (2) as soon as you arrive on the island, you revert to the state you were on that earlier date. Is that right? If so, then indeed Claire would have reverted to her un-pregnant state. Plus, everybody would suddenly be several years younger, their hairstyles would change, etc. Maybe this wouldn't be noticeable among the adults, but it would certainly be a big change for Walt. Plus, it seems likely that when we next see Walt, he will be much older than the last time we saw him; if your theory is correct, he would revert to the age he was when he left the island. It's one thing for a theory to leave some questions unanswered; it's another for it to directly contradict facts the show has established. |
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| − | *Anyway, the experiment explains a lot of things, such as why Richard Alpert does not age, while Ben does. Since Ben has surely been traveling a lot, as seen from his passports, he aged off the island. It also explains why Walt seems older to Locke. |
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| − | *Ben's man on the boat could have started the timer earlier, or could have programmed it to count faster, to confuse the [[Freighter]] people. |
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| − | *The island (or, more accurately, the space surrounding and including the island) is "unhinged" in some fashion from the rest of the world. As the Earth rotates at a one speed, the island area revolves around the Earth's core at a slightly different speed, probably along the wave lines of the vile vortices (hence explaining the beechcraft and the polar bear in Tunisia). Faraday is not surprised by the results of his experiment; he's only surprised by the degree of difference. |
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| − | |||
| − | *Daniel's experiment is nonsense. If there was a time difference between the outside world and the island (or a difference in the rate time passes), it would have affected Daniel's watch as much as the rocket's clock. So why not just call Regina and ask her what the time is on the freighter, and compare that with his own watch? It can't be explained by the time dilation in Special Relativity, because that states moving clocks run slow - so less time should have elapsed on the rocket's clock (it should have been behind Daniel's clock). It could be explained by General Relativity (time passes slower within an intense gravitational field). But does the island have intense gravity? And again, why not just phone Regina and compare her time with yours? My suggestion is that Daniel wanted precise measurements of what happens to objects entering/leaving the island, to make sure the helicopter doesn't get back to the freighter before it left. |
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| − | |||
| − | *Regina wants to boycott Daniel's experiments for some reason, so she fires the projectile 30 minutes late in order to confuse him. |
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| − | |||
| − | ====Red Sox==== |
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| − | |||
| − | *When Jack asks about the Red Sox World Series victory, Frank is instead referencing the 2007 Series, not the 2004 Series video that Jack was shown by Ben. |
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| − | * '''DEBUNKED''' -- LINDELOF: We wrote the Sayid episode before the Boston Red Sox won the World Series a second time. So when Jack said to Frank Lapidus, ''Did the Red Sox really win the World Series?'' and Lapidus says, ''Please don't remind me,'' certain subsets of the Lost audience began asking, ''Is it possible Lapidus is actually from 2008?!'' But you have to understand: we are not writing the show for now. We are writing the show so that when you put it in your DVD player 20 years from now, you don't have to understand the nuances of the Red Sox winning the World Series, only they hadn't won it in a long time. [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20179125_2,00.html Source] |
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| − | |||
| − | ===Spacial distortion=== |
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| − | Daniel's experiment may show that the "distortion" around the island is one of space, rather than time. In other words, there is a lot more ocean around the island than there would appear. Instead of the freighter being 40 km offshore, it may in fact be much further. If we estimate the speed of the test missile at 2.5 km/hr (Regina was counting off 5 km every other second), than it may be that the missile traveled not 40 km, but 4690 km. (2.5 * 60 * 31 + 40). This would make it almost impossible for a boat or plane to get to the island. Of course, there may be one spot that is not distorted as such -- the bearing that Daniel tells Frank to take no matter what. This may also be the bearing that Michael and Walt take as well, assuming Ben was telling the truth (which he probably wasn't.) |
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| − | *It's 80 km, or about 40 miles. |
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| − | **80k is more like 50mi |
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| − | **Regina counts down from 40km which is 25 miles |
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| − | ***Also Regina was counting 5km every 3 seconds, which means the projectile was traveling at 1.66km/second which is 5976km/h, not 2.5km/h. |
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| − | ****Regina calls 5Km of distance travelled every 2.5 seconds or so, making the rocket's speed about 2000m/s or 7200Km/h. Below you can see the different callings of distance from beacon with a timestamp I grabbed using VirtualDub's internal timer (bear in mind that Regina might have called the various distance with a short delay and that I surely introduced a further, yet constant, delay in stopping the timer at each calling) |
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| − | ::::19:12.068 launch |
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| − | ::::19:19.575 40Km |
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| − | ::::19:21.994 35Km |
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| − | ::::19:24.580 30Km |
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| − | ::::19:26.791 25Km |
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| − | ::::19:29.293 20Km |
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| − | ::::19:31.962 15Km |
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| − | ::::19:34.590 10Km |
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| − | ::::19:38.219 5Km |
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| − | ::::19:39.887 impact |
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| − | |||
| − | *This could explain why Frank burned up so much fuel on the way in. |
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| − | **A helicopter of that size could not possibly travel that far under even the best circumstances. |
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| − | ***The UH-1D has a range of 351mi/510km. |
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| − | **Rockets travel in ballistic trajectories. If the "spatial distortion" theory was true, then the rocket would have been aimed at a spot in the ocean, and splashed down there. It would not have been able to re-aim itself to fly several hundred more miles than it originally was aimed for. |
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| − | * If the experiment showed only a spatial distortion, the clocks would have been in sync. There's a 31 minute difference...but only on the Island. Off the Island, the rocket traveled as far and as fast as Regina expected. There may well be a spatial distortion, but it's part of a Minkowski distortion -- three dimensions of space, one of time. |
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| − | **The experiment actually shows two separate effects. When the payload arrives, Faraday say, "It's finally here," indicating some significant amount of time has passed. So, for the sake of argument, let's say he expected it at 2:15. In a normal situation, the payload would arrive and its clock would say 2:15 as well. If it arrived right away, when expected, and said 2:46, that would be one effect. If it didn't arrive until 31 minutes later (i.e. was "somewhere" for 31 minutes even though the freighter's instruments indicated it was at the target), but said 2:46, this would be something else. But we see both effects: its arrival is delayed AND it's clock shows EXTRA elapsed time. This would imply that distortions of both space AND time occur in the vicinity of the island. |
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| − | *Daniel is worried that the time-space distortion around the island is not UNIFORM. That is why he warns Frank to take the exact same bearing back. He is worried that the effect is highly sensitive to initial conditions -- a slight variation could lead to a large difference in space and/or time. This is why the rocket clock does not correspond to his watch, even though both came from the freighter -- they did not follow the exact same path. |
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| − | *The island exists in a "snowglobe". There is one point in the "snow globe" which will deliver objects back to the rest of the world, and through which objects can travel to the island. Let's say that portal is big enough for the black rock to pass through, but not much bigger, thus in the course of history only a few planes, ships, balloons, ect, from the real world have passed through it by chance, or fate, if your into that. You can look at this as a spacial relation, because a huge island and its surrounding water are squeezed into a much smaller area. However, this is not the cause for the 31 min difference. They surely would have relized that when they flew the 40 km on a helicopter. |
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| − | * The timers indicate that the journey to the island from the boat which should take less than a minute actually takes between 31 and 196 minutes from the point of view of the traveller. If human beings perceived this amount of time passing, surely one of them would have commented on it. Therefore it is likely that the perceived amount of time taken to make the journey is less than the actual amount. |
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| − | ** There is wormhole between the island and the rest of the world which bridges a vast distance in three dimensional space. Time is somehow distorted inside the wormhole so although the stopwatch records a travelling duration of 2 hours and 45 minutes, to an observer travelling through the wormhole it appears to take less than a minute. Due to the effect of time dilation, an observer on the island will see the same journey taking 3 hours and 16 minutes. |
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| − | ***The wormhole connects the same point in two parallel universes. |
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| − | |||
| − | ===Time Distortion and "Superpowers"=== |
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| − | |||
| − | *Time distortion seems to be essential to understanding Miles and Desmond's special powers. When Miles talks to the dead he is actually distorting time and talking to them when they were still alive. Similarly, when Desmond sees the future he, like the island, is distorting time. |
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| − | * If the helicopter burned up more fuel due to some sort of time distortion on the island, this why Rose hasn't died from her Cancer. Also if the helicopter took longer to get to the island, as did the beacon, then how does Penny speak to Charlie while in the looking glass, at the same time (without any time distortion), how does the plane crash at the same time as the pearls records state the time of the system failure? Also this time distortion might explain why it took so long for people to start looking for the Losties. Also the hostiles don't age so maybe the time distortion affects them more. |
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| − | **Again, just because Charlie can talk to Penny doesn't prove there is not distortion in time; the conversation could be taking place at 12:00 for Charlie and 12:30 for Penny; they wouldn't know she was in the future or vice versa. |
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| − | ***It is important to differentiate between the rate of time and the absolute time. Time could be passing at the same rate on- and off-the island, but simply off-shifted by 31 minutes. Or, time could be flowing at a proportionally different rate on and off the island. |
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| − | |||
| − | ===Changing Fate === |
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| − | |||
| − | *The ability of the island, and some people, to distort time is related to what seems to be the overall theme of Lost -- the attempt (probably futile) to change fate. The Dharma Initiative was trying to change fate by altering the Vanzetti Equation using the powers of the island, but they failed. All of the Oceanic 6 return to their fate when they leave the island. Hurley returns to the insane asylum. Jack returns to his trajectory of becoming an alcoholic doctor, like his father. Kate returns to being a prisoner, so to speak, of some man to whom she must return. And Sayid returns to being a killer and torturer for others. |
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| − | |||
| − | ===Real Time=== |
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| − | *In episode "One of us", Ben showed Juliet her sister. That date was supposed to be that day's calendar date. |
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| − | **This date shows 9/22/2004, which was before the failsafe event, which may have "un-synced" the timelines. |
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| − | **Similarly, if Island time moves more slowly than real world time (despite the Swan Station's operation), then Ben could easily have had Richard record the video on 9/22/04 real-world-time, and waited to show it to Juliet until 9/22/04 Island-time. |
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| − | *It might have started after the hatch imploded. |
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| − | *The newspaper in the video of Rachel and her son may very well be false, as Ben has been shown many times to lie. |
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| − | **If time moves slower on the Island the newspaper would not be fake at all Richard could just have got one from a few weeks earlier. |
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| − | *But Juliet knew how long she had been on the island, and how old her nephew would be, so even if the date on the paper was wrong, the age of her nephew seems right. |
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| − | **The age of her nephew and the newspaper would line up, just not with Juliette. Making up a random constant between island time and real-world time, for the sake of argument - if island time moves at half the speed of real world time, then Juliette has been on island for three years, but six years have passed in the real world. But the possibility of Ben taping footage of Juliette's sister and nephew every year, and editing in a fake newspaper in the beginning when he shows the video to her showing her the date she expects, does not seem like something i would put past him. he knew she was restless and wanted to leave and wanted to see her sister and nephew. This would explain how he knew he could "cure" her sisters cancer, too. By the time he told her about the cancer, it had already gone back into remission... |
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| − | ***This doesn't explain why Ben was genuinely surprised that his own cancer wasn't cured by the island. |
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| − | |||
| − | === Time and/or Space Vortex === |
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| − | *The island is in the middle of a time and/or space vortex. The rocket took so long to get there because it couldn't go "straight" to the beacon, but was forced to take a round about curve, either in time, in space, or in both. This explains why you need to follow a certain vector to leave the island. Like any vortex, attack the line too sharply and you lose all "forward" momentum. Attack the line too thinly, and you remain in the vortex. Follow the precise line and you will get there, though it will take more time/space to travel out of the vortex. |
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| − | **This explains why Desmond couldn't leave the island, why Ben instructed Michael to follow a certain course, and why Richard (Ethan?) told Juliet that the last part of the trip on the sub could be bumpy. It also explains why the helicopters had a hard time approaching the island. |
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| − | * This doesn't explain why the person on the freighter thought the rocket had reached it's target point. If the rocket had to detour, she would have read that and not indicated to Daniel that the rocket had arrived at the beacon. |
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| − | :* Often in rocketry a missile is not "tracked" when it is launched, but is plotted. If you know the velocity and you know the trajectory, you can predict exactly where the rocket will be at any given moment. This is actually a more accurate way of tracking since it does not rely on radar or other things that could be distorted. Therefore, Regina calls out the reading based on the computer's plotting of the rocket, not based on an actual "visual" of the rocket. But because physics obviously work differently here (for whatever reason) then the laws of rocketry are also affected. |
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| − | :** It does if the distortion warps time as well as space. |
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| − | :** The rocket is following a linear path through curved spacetime. The nearest analogy is a ship sailing across the curved surface of the ocean. |
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| − | *The time/space distortion has events on the island occur long after they occur on the outside world. This is how Desmond's not pushing the button first caused Oceanic 815's instruments to lead them off course, and then when the plane was physically over the island, the same event simultaneously caused the plane to break apart. |
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| − | *We know that only a few months have passed 'on island' yet in OUR world years have passed. So perhaps to make it easier to understand for the viewers they will have island time travel slowly while off island time will travel at our rate. So off island the date is Feb 2008. |
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| − | * A non-linear spacetime, which seems odd, is causing a 31 minute difference between an observer seeing the rocket hit the island and the rocket actually hitting the island.. doesnt effect radio signals. Afterall radio (like light) have to travel through space-time and would effected just as much as rockets. Regardless of whether the clocks were clocks or stopwatches... Daniel received a radio message saying the rocket had arrived sometime before it actually did. To my mind both the radio message and the rocket should have arrived at the same time. I think the writers may be taking some liberties with science to avoid giving too much away. Maybe the only thing we can say is there is some kind of temporal/spacial anomoly in the best traditions of Star Trek. Perhaps an inverse tachion pulse would work? |
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| − | :* Radio waves travel much faster than rockets, so even if the radio waves were "slowed down" by a ratio of 1/30 (or had to travel 30x as far), they would still be traveling at 9,993,081 m/s, which is fast enough to not cause any discernible delay in radio communication. |
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| − | :* Good point, assuming the rocket travelled at say 1000mph the extra half hour flight time would equate to travelling an extra 500miles. This would have negligable effect on radio comms |
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| − | *The single route on and off the Island (possibly the same as the heading Ben gave Michael, possibly [http://www.docarzt.com/lost-theories/time-and-the-island.php intentionally different]) can be expected to deliver travelers safely within the same relative time frame, whereas a deviation from that route will cause measurable distortion. The satphones react in realtime because they are not interacting, as would normally be the case, with an orbital satellite. Rather, the Freighter is transmitting the signal along the proper heading, reflecting said signal off another theorized feature of the Island, an ionized atmospheric barrier that is responsible for Daniel's observation that light scatters differently on the Island. The satphones respond in the same way, bouncing a signal off the barrier, along the heading, and back to the Freighter. In the flashforward, Elsa expects the call to be relayed in a similar manner: from Island to sea vessel then via satellite to the outside world. Unbeknownst to her, something has happened to the relay vessel. Her boss discovers its absence quickly and makes a call directly via satellite, but because it is not transmitted through the proper heading, the thirty-minute time distortion occurs. |
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| − | |||
| − | === The Island ''Jupiter'' === |
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| − | *The Island is encapsuled in a "time bubble" where time flows slower than outside. |
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| − | This means that while the rocket from the ship was to arrive in 20 seconds or so, it took 31 minutes due to time dilation. |
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| − | At the same time, while some 100 days have passed on the island (something Jack remembered just a few seconds before the rocket landed), months if not years are passing outside. |
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| − | This would be similar to what happens in the Japanese anime [[wikipedia:Rahxephon|Rahxephon]] where Tokyo is encapsuled in what is known as '''Tokyo Jupiter''', a bubble where time flows at abouth 1/6 of normal speed, and would explain things such |
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| − | ** the aging of Walt |
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| − | ** the light scattering in a strange way that Daniel noticed (different times => different light speed => different scattering) |
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| − | ** the time difference between the two clocks (and Daniel saying "this is not good" would mean that the difference was expected but not at this ratio) |
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| − | ** the show starting the day of the crash and probably ending the day when the losties finally leave the island despite only 120 or so days being passed on the island |
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| − | |||
| − | *This would be a reason for the need of someone to push the button every 108 minutes to keep island time aligned with rest of the world time. |
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| − | Which would lead to think that the incident that was refered to in the [[Swan Orientation film]] could be the reason for the time being altered on the island. |
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| − | *Realizing that changing the results of the [[Valenzetti equation]] was impossible, [[Dharma]] scientists simply tried to postpone the end of the world by altering the flow of time. |
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| − | * This would also explain why Desmond is apparently able to see the future: when turning the failsafe key he might have been at the same moment in two distinct time flows, the island one, and the outside world's one. |
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| − | *To state Occams Razor, the simplest explanation is that whoever "launched the payload" simply did so 31 minutes later to send the physicist on a wild goose chase, as directed by Ben, because the person who launched the payload is Bens spy, and is trying to occupy the group with things other than looking for Ben. |
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| − | **Daniel doesn't seem to be concerned in finding Ben. On the other hand, Miles, who is the one looking for Ben, doesn't seem to understand Physics. |
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| − | *This would also be consistent with theories seeing losties able to go back in time and "fix" their lives (including [[Desmond]] possibly travelling back in time and trying to fix his own past in [[Flashes before your eyes]] and getting warned by [[Ms. Hawking]] that this was impossible) since the final goal of the main Character in Rahxephon is to "tune the world", that is "create a new one where events of the story never took place" (either by travelling back in time or destroying and recreating the world; the exact meaning is never revealed) |
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| − | |||
| − | === World Line Theory in Minkowski Spacetime === |
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| − | We live in a four-dimensional world, with each individual occupying a specific time and space. For example, right now you are sitting right here reading your computer screen. In an hour you might be out in the yard. In two hours from now, you might be out grocery shopping. You can plot these points in a timeline from A to B to C. You’ll note that your own timeline remains constant and is measured in hours. |
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| − | |||
| − | Conveniently on Earth, time runs at approximately the same speed so that all of our timelines are fixed. Right now you are at your computer while your friend Steve is watching the game at his house. An hour from now you are in the yard while Steve is washing his car. And two hours from now you bump into Steve at the grocery store. You can chat about your days and say how funny it is that Steve was watching the game while you were at the computer. This would be called “simultaneity” and would be fairly accurate since both timelines are fixed, even if your places in space are not. |
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| − | |||
| − | But what if your places in time were not fixed either? For example, what if Steve went out to wash his car 45 minutes from now instead of an hour from now, but you still meet up two hours from now. However – and this is the crucial part – it still seems like an hour from now to Steve that he washes his car. His timeline of ABC is still measured in hours, just like yours, but when you compare the two timelines side-by-side, the points do not necessarily match up. This is called relativity of simultaneity. |
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| − | |||
| − | Now imagine a longer time line with points A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. You can get some pretty funky things happening, as shown in the graph below. |
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| − | |||
| − | [[Image:Timeline1.jpg]] |
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| − | |||
| − | From Steve’s perspective, point B on your timeline takes longer than an hour to reach, point C less than an hour from that point, and so on. |
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| − | |||
| − | In this example, we see that both Point A and Point H align. It is not too difficult now to envision that you might actually meet up with Steve at Point G in your timeline, but somewhere between Point G and Point H in his. |
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| − | |||
| − | One way that you would be able to measure this time difference is through the use of clocks. If you checked the time when you met at the grocery store at Point G in your timeline, your watch would say 7:00pm, whereas Steve’s watch may say 7:31pm. |
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| − | |||
| − | Another assumption that we are working under is that distance between two points in space is constant. That is, your house is the same distance from Steve’s house at all points along the timeline, and both houses are the same distance from the grocery store at all times. However if relative distance is constantly changing as well, we move into some very mind-blowing territory – especially if you take into consideration that it still seems like the exact same distance to each person travelling it. |
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| − | |||
| − | All of this would seem quite odd, unless you were familiar with world lines within a Minkowski spacetime. Both your timeline and that of Steve’s in this example can be considered a world line, a fairly linear line through an ever-moving time and space. This very phenomenon may be happening to us right now, but again because we are all on Earth, our world lines are the same. Time and space remain relatively (which in this case means exactly) constant. |
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| − | |||
| − | Under this theory, I propose that in the LOST universe, the island is somehow on a different world line. Therefore, time and space are moving along a very different trajectory. |
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| − | |||
| − | This would explain what is happening during Daniel Faraday’s experiment. Daniel talks to Regina, setting up Point A in both their timelines. Both assume that they are still physically separated by 40 km, and that their timelines are moving at the same rate. |
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| − | |||
| − | However since time and space are constantly moving relative to each other, this is not the case. In Regina’s timeline, the payload reaches the beacon in about 10 seconds. We know that this is not the case along Daniel’s timeline (though we don’t know exactly how much time has passed). |
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| − | |||
| − | The explanation is that the rocket must travel between these two world lines from Point A in world line 1 to Point B in world line 2 through both time and space. During the rocket’s trip, both time and distance diverge between the freighter and the beacon. The timelines are also moving at different relative speeds. So not only does the rocket arrive at a different relative time, but also at a different point along the timeline. That explains why it takes the rocket longer to reach the beacon than it should, ''and'' why the two clocks are different. |
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| − | |||
| − | It is important to note here too that the distance from the perspective of the rocket is still 40km, which is why it couldn’t run out of fuel (and why Daniel is not worried about the helicopter running out of fuel when he realizes what is happening). Again, distance is relative between two world lines, but needs to be constant in terms of an object travelling between two points. |
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| − | |||
| − | A good visual representation of this phenomenon is found under the description of the Lorentz transformations in Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_transformations (scroll down to the moving image on the right side). |
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| − | |||
| − | Now although the two world lines are acting independently of each other, they may be moving roughly parallel. It is even possible that they are not acting independently at all, but that there is an algorithm that can exactly predict the coordinates of time, space and distance in one world line based on coordinates of the other world line. That is why Daniel tells Frank it is important to keep the same bearing, since following a different bearing might put him in a different time or place. As we see from the rocket, this would likely only be a matter of minutes or hours since the two world lines are so close to each other. But the possibility exists that following a different bearing could place him in a wildly different spacetime. |
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| − | |||
| − | So where’s the literary proof in this theory? If we assume that the producers are trying to tell us something based on names, then the name [[wikipedia:Minkowski|Minkowski]] automatically points to [[wikipedia:Minkowski spacetime|Minkowski spacetime]], a theory in physics used to explain Einstein’s [[wikipedia:theory of special relativity|theory of special relativity]]. This uses [[wikipedia:Lorentz transformations|Lorentz transformations]] to predict that time is relative (called [[wikipedia:time dilation|time dilation]]). From this we get the concept of [[wikipedia:world lines|world lines]], which plots time and space along a linear line in Minkowski spacetime. But, due to special relativity, two world lines may have much different paths. Therefore, we can never assume that a point on one world line is the same as a point on another world line the ([[wikipedia:Relativity_of_simultaneity|Relativity_of_simultaneity]]). |
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| − | |||
| − | A similar idea describing the different passages of time (and obviously place) is also put forward in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series – and now we have a character named Charlotte Staples Lewis. |
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| − | |||
| − | Interestingly, Lorentz transformations are also used in electromagnetic theory, which is described using Maxwell’s equations (note the introduction of the Maxwell Group in the most recent ARG). In turn, this is connected to the work of Michael Faraday. |
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| − | |||
| − | Finally, the producers have basically stated that time does not work the same way on the island, so obviously there is something going on. This theory explains Daniel’s experiment and holds true to everything we know so far. |
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| − | *What s/he said. |
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| − | |||
| − | **The problem with time flowing like that is the fact that Daniel, and everybody else, was able to communicate with the boat in real time. In a point to point time flow like this, you wouldn't be able to do that, as the radio signal to and from the boat would follow like your examples, and almost never be in sync. You could argue that they used the radio at just the right times so that there was no relativistic distorition, but thats kind of a stretch. |
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| − | |||
| − | Also, if you want to argue that time is distorting rather than moving in hops and skips, the distortive effect should've affected the radio signal. The boat communicator should've sounded like a bass singer, do to the slowing of the signal as it passed into the Islands time rate, and the people on the Island would've sounded like hyperactive chipmunks. |
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| − | |||
| − | :::*Time isn't distorting, it is simply moving at different rates along different world lines. And it is possible that the radio waves are being affected. My explanation for this is that since radio waves travel at the speed of light, they either (a) are not affected since the speed of light is a constant (which gets into some funky physics that is beyond me) or (b) they are affected, but since they travel so quickly, delays in communication are not noticeable. Again, a key part of this theory is that the two world lines are very close to one another, so that although time moves differently along both it is possible travel between the two world lines and stay relatively close. Theoretically, if there is an algorithm that can measure the relative simultaneity at any given moment, you could move between the two world lines as if there were no changes at all. Perhaps this was part of the Dharma Initiative's experiements at the Orchid. |
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| − | |||
| − | ==Ben's man on the boat== |
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| − | *The "man on the boat" is Charlotte. |
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| − | **Charlotte looks extremely peeved when Ben relates all of her information, showing that he does in fact know who they are and why they're there. |
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| − | * [[Sayid]]. Ben was planning ahead all along. |
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| − | ** Except he has already been in contact with them, as Sayid has no knowledge of Charlotte's history. |
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| − | ** If it is true that time moves slower on the island than off, i presume Sayid is Ben's inside man. He is heading to the freighter and as we saw in the end of 'The Economist', he is working for Ben. |
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| − | *The spy on the boat is Michael. The boat Ben gave him and Walt wouldn't have had enough gas to reach some sort of main land, so they needed a stopoff. The coordinates that Ben gave him was to the freighter that Ben already knew was out there (he has access to all kinds of information, so the idea that he'd know of a freighter not far off the coast of the Island isn't far-fetched). Micheal has been working on the ship this whole time feeding information back to Ben as a last condition of their agreement. The producers have already said that Micheal will be returning this season, so what would be more shocking than for him to come back to the show as a freighter person? |
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| − | **Additionally, Ben's words to Sayid at the end of the episode foreshadow how Ben recruited Michael to help him - telling him it is how he could "save his friends". Michael feels guilty and needs to redeem himself for betraying them. |
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| − | ** Michael also knew the correct bearing to escape the island "snow globe." When Frank is leaving, Dan cautions him to use the exact bearing in order to get off. The freighter people could know the bearing because Michael told it to them. |
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| − | ==Charlotte== |
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| − | *Charlotte is Ben's inside man. Thats why he knows so much about her, and why he shot her, because he knew she would have a vest on. And it's why Charlotte didn't tell the others that she had seen Ben, or that Ben had a 'man on the boat'. |
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| − | **Presumably Ben knew as much about the other people but because Charlotte was there he went into detail about her so Locke etc. saw her reaction. It would be a nice twist but I can't help but think the man is Michael, Annie or someone unseen |
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| − | ** I hadn't thought about it, but I guess that Charlotte didn't tell the other freighter members that she saw Ben Linus, which would be rather odd, if it is true that their only goal is to find Ben. Also, in [[Confirmed Dead]], Charlotte didn't seem surprised, excited, or ''anything'' when she saw Ben for the first time, nor did she seem particularly nervous when Ben revealed he had the man on the boat. This also makes it significant that Ben is with Sayid in the "jail" at the barracks, because now he knows that his spy is going back to the freighter. |
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| − | ***Not to mention that she acted surprised to see survivors from 815, when we know that she knew there would probably be some. She is deceptive. Very. |
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| − | **This makes sense because when [[Ben]] identified her to Locke's group, she looked more shocked, almost angry, than puzzled or surprised. This would be a more natural reaction if Ben was, in effect, outing her. |
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| − | * No one from the freighter had specifically said that their mission was to find/extract/kill/whatever Ben, besides Miles. Naomi nor Abbadon said anything about Ben in their meeting. We obviously didn't hear the entire conversation, but not one word was mentioned on Ben. Abbadon stated that each person in the group was chosen for a specific reason. It would seem that if the only objective were capturing one man, that Abbadon and the company he worked for would've sent in a military squad or something along those lines, instead of "a head case, a ghostbuster, an anthropologist and a drunk." Each of the 4 were chosen to work on a specific task, not seemingly just to capture Ben. Miles seems like the headstrong type that isn't afraid of confrontation, besides Naomi, so maybe they just told HIM to capture Ben, while they assigned Charlotte, Daniel and Frank separate tasks. This also goes along with what we have learned about this team, that they don't really know a lot about each other, i.e. Frank's comment about not hanging with Naomi because she was upper management, and therefore something else is going on with this mission that not even the Freighter people are aware of. |
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| − | **Miles wants to find Ben as a means, not an end. Given his ghostbusting skill set, Miles' job is to chat with Jacob. |
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| − | ***Excellent catch. Since Charlotte's degree is in Cultural Anthropology, she could likely give us some answers about the four toed statue. Her initials being C.S.Lewis also make me wonder about the passage of time on the island, and if it will be similar to the way time passes in the Chronicles of Narnia. |
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| − | ==The identity of R.G.== |
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| − | See [[R.G./Theories]]. |
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| − | == Clocks or Stopwatches? == |
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| − | *There has been a lot of confusion in this page about Daniel's clocks. in order for them to be stop watches, Daniel Faradaywould have to set his at the same time Regina does, which means he will have to tell her when he does. And since we heard the whole conversation and there was no mention of that, they must be clocks. |
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| − | **Unless, (like Doc Brown in ''Back To The Future'',) he set the stop watches before he left the freighter, knowing he would be conducting this experiment. Daniel easily could have synchronized two stop watches and left one loaded in the "payload" rocket and brought the other along with him. They could be on shorter, 12-hour timers, causing them to both appear to be under an hour yet, meaning that they just recently passed 12 hours and started again from "00:00:00". |
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| − | *** That would roughly match the 15 hrs that Daniel has been on the Island (mentioned somewhere above) for: 12hrs, then reset, then another 2:45hrs makes it 14:45hrs. |
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| − | *If they're clocks, and the theory is that the island is behind time by some ratio, then the 31mins is the cumulative time. So, for the 6hours-ish between entering the lost "dome" and receiving the rocket, 31mins was the total time lag. Or the equipment Daniel set up controlled some aspect of the test and set both clocks to the same time. If they were clocks he previously set up, all he really needed to do was ask for a rocket at his gps and have Regina launch it; that equipment must have done something, as he seemed too methodical in its set up. |
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| − | * Daniel's other watch (on the wrist) shows 7.15 (pm I guess) which doesn't match at all the time shown on the watch that he put next to the equipment, but they travelled together so they should show the same time. That suggests stop watches. Then again, why does he compare the rocket watch to the wrist watch? Wouldn't make sense. |
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| − | ** 7:15 on the watch has to be off or set to a different time zone, there is no way that it could be either 7:15AM or PM given how bright it is out and all the events that follow and proceed it. |
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| − | *** Assuming that the island is somewhere near Fiji, and using a Sunrise/Sunset calculator for December 24th, 2004, We see that Sunrise is at 5:34am, with Sunset at 6:46pm. I would say that 7:15 am, with 2 hours of daylight, would have enough light to match what is shown in the episode. In fact, given the events listed for December 24, [[Timeline:December_2004]], I'd say that it's feasible that only 2 hours had passed by the time that Daniel performs his experiment. |
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| − | ==Naomi== |
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| − | *[[Naomi]] is not really dead. She is currently dead but may revive when they arrive on the boat. They focused on her body too much. |
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| − | **She was the only dead character so far to have a flashback. |
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| − | ***That is why she is not totally dead, she may have the same spider venon on her that Paulo got. Sayid carried her body back, because Ben knew that the dead may revive out of the island, Ben instructed Sayid to do that, Naomi was Ben's man on board. That is why Ben didn't scream when wounded Naomi crawled away in front of him. |
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| − | ****Extremely unlikely because she was knifed in the back, she bled to death. |
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| − | **Interesting thought, however it appeared that Miles confirmed with her "dead body" that she was dead. |
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| − | ***The circumstances of her death would have been even easier to "confirm" if she isn't really dead. |
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| − | ***Miles sees no need to put her on the helicopter and states she is nothing more than flesh now |
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| − | ****Miles' refusal to let her be put on the helicopter suggests that she may be of some use on the island. |
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| − | **When Naomi says, "There's only so much I can do," (a line repeated in the "previously, on 'Lost'" segment), Abaddon replies with something along the lines of, "Your modesty is charming." This implies that there is much more to Naomi than meets the eye. However, if Miles truly can communicate with the dead, certainly he would have been more concerned for her body, knowing that she'd be needing it again shortly. |
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| − | **It seems quite unlikely that Naomi is alive, because Marsha Thomason isn't scheduled to guest star in any of the next four episodes, so unless she's gonna stay "dead" without even appearing as a corpse and then come to life four episodes later, she's dead. |
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Latest revision as of 22:35, 19 February 2010
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