Friday, February 15, 2008

"Fave Scene 4.03"

OK, now were getting somewhere, TPTB!

Maybe after all the math is done by the more studious viewers in Lost Land, I'll post the ramifications of the calculations here, if a final consensus can be achieved. Then the larger questions will be, what did the missile have to travel through to get to Dan at the designated target, and why did the instruments on the ship see it arriving at the LZ before it actually got there?

TPTB also leave us to continue guessing about what kind of possible lensing or shielding effect is surrounding the island....an electrical shield?...a magnetic lens?...both combined?...or the ominous wormhole?...that caused the time differential. And, why did Dan the quizzical scientist think that the outcome was a bad thing, and not an interesting scientific condition? He was very specific with Frank about where to fly to get away from the island and back to the ship, as if it would be dangerous to diverge from the coordinates. TBD as usual!

Update: Over at Fishbiscuitland there is a mention of Time Dilation. I found a simple video of that on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHjpBjgIMVk

In a nutshell: A ship-to-ship laser pulse seems to take a certain amount of time to bounce back, as seen from the two ships. From the view of an asteroid that the ships are passing, the distance is longer, due to the distance traveled by the ships that bounce the pulse. Maybe this is why the missile took longer to get to Dan? This should please those who like to think that the island is moving somehow, so do I. Although you'd think that the ship-to-island path on the show would represent the ship-to-ship path in the video, so I still can't get my brain to understand it completely. Unless the moving island and the stationary ship are the two separate vantage points. Ah well, that's all I've gotten so far. Can anyone elaborate?


Also, Morelosthanu posted on The Lost Community blog (after Ellen found a science thread to a donut-space/Moebius strip thought), that a surrounding Moebius area of space could explain the one "flat" spot for escape via the critical coordinates that Dan stressed to Frank upon leaving the island, and that Ben gave to Michael. This could make getting into the island gravity-well a bit less tricky than getting out. Insertion into the Moebius ring might just involve getting swept into the space/time/gravity "current", but could still be "tricky" (turbulent?) as it was explained to Juliet. Though getting out of it would be more difficult, as in, veering off course could send you circling the island in the Moebius loop "walls" until you fell back into the island-space, like Dez did. So....how does this relate to the Dilation theory?? Further discussion is pending.

12 comments:

memphish said...

This has me so confused! It still felt to me like Dan and Regina both expected Dan to see the payload within 30 seconds of her launching it. And I'm confused as to how long it really took, and I'm still confused as to whether those are measuring time of day or elapsed time. What's more, what does that mean? I hope you figure it all out Capcom, and tell us.

Capcom said...

Me too! I will be on the lookout for anyone smarter than me who has got the chops to figure these numbers out for us.

lost2010 said...

If it's elapsed time, you get:

196 minutes elapsed off island to 165 minutes on island.

So 100 days would be what? 118 days roughly?

That doesn't seem like that big a thing. But it would build up pretty significantly the longer it took.

But if you figure that they expected to see it within 30 seconds and instead saw it within 30 minutes (if that's what Dan was mumbling about when he said 30 something minutes). Then you've a much bigger impact.

If 30 seconds = 30 minutes; Then you've got 180 seconds to 30 seconds is what? Like a 6 to one ratio? Then you could have one year pass in island time while 6 years passed in the outside world - which would line up with the 6 season angle.

Capcom said...

Good ideas, Lost2010. I'm open for anything at this point, and searching for what it's supposed to mean, if TPTB have indeed given us enough to figure something out. If not, we just have to wait for more fodder for the formulas next time. :-(

And I hope that Dan soon explains why it is such a bad thing. Unless it's a rogue wormhole or something like that, what would be so bad about a force field/shield?? If that's all it is.

High Power Rocketry said...

Hey man, as you know I am a big lost fan (I am guessing that is how you found my blog).

I loved this last episode because it got very sci fi on us, which is great.

I am pretty certain that it is normal time as in min., and that the rocket spent those min. in some other place before getting to the island.

Just a quick note - while rockets can go that fast (about 5km per sec) - they cant then slow down and make a soft landing like that. 5km per sec would make this rocket a huge and dangerous projectile. It would have destroyed the chopper and probably killed the people around it. :) But thats ok.

memphish said...

I heard this question on the Dharmalars and I thought I'd stick it here for you Capcom. If the Island is slower than the real world, is Sayid Ben's man on the boat?

Capcom said...

Hey R2K, thanks! And I'm guessing that you saw my question on your blog? :-) So....where is that "other place" where the rocket spent time??? I really like thinking of it like that. And yes, I was expecting something to blow up when the rocket came in for a landing too. I also expected Dan's hands to get a little toasty handling it after it augered in, but like you said, that's OK. Maybe the fuel burnt out amd it cooled off before it got close.

Oh wow Memphish, you think the greatest things! Time is just looping all over the place here! :-)

maven said...

I, too, am so confused as to what that experiment of Dan's showed (beside confirming to us that time moves differently on the island). All of you math and science wizards better give us some answers! LOL

I'm still playing with the crazy theory that The Economist is actually Ben in another time line. I warned you that it was crazy!

Capcom said...

How could it be any crazier than anything else we've seen so far? Like, two Bunny-15s! And three Dr. Candlewaxwicks. Why not two Bens too?

pgtbeauregard said...

Memphish,

I love the idea of Sayid being Ben's man on the boat. A lot of folks have said it could be Michael, but I don't see him having the savvy to be Ben's lackey.

Good post Capcom, I definitely must read it again!

lost2010 said...

So according to the time dilation, the island would practically be in the past, wouldn't it? Or am I reading it wrong?

I'm thinking more and more that there was no time dilation as long as they pushed the button. But the button pushing has reinstated the islands temporal anomaly. If only Data or Carter were here to explain it to me.

Capcom said...

Tx PGT!

Yeah, I still can't process the dilation thing to match the ship-to-island experiment in my head, Lost2010. But whatever happened with the DI containment apparatus, and the purpling with the key, I think, like you, that the island might be back to it's natural anomalous state before it got messed with. So back to square one more or less, in figuring out what that is all about (i.e., natural Casimir effect, etc.)