Wednesday, February 14. 2007
LOST Time, Black Holes, and Other Light Reading
Well, after reading some other posts out there, it would seem that our friendly guard Aldo (remember the Wookiee Prisoner Gag?) was reading about black holes from the layman's guide to astrophysics, Stephen Hawkings "A Brief History of Time."
Also of interest is the anagrammatical nature of the name of the "Mittelos" Bioscience corporation... LOST TIME.
Now, what the hell does any of this have to do with anything, you ask. Well before we delve any deeper, lets make one brave assumption.
Assumption: The "source" of the electro-magnetic disturbance inside the "Swan" hatch was in fact a fairly mild black hole.
(Interesting trivia bit: The first recorded black hole was named Cygnus X-1... Cygnus being the name for the constellation of... the swan.)
So. With that assumption, what should be happening on the island?
Time would slow down in the presence of a strong gravitational field. If we are to read anything into the "lost time" anagram. We would have to assume something's going on here.
To the people on the island, time would carry on as normal. They wouldn't be aware of any slowdown or anything peculiar at all. However, outside of the black hole's affected area there would be no gravitational effects, and much more time would have passed.
How much? That's impossible to say. Days on the island could be weeks, months, or years on the outside.
Until we revisit Penny and the arctic station, we won't know the answer, if indeed that's what's going on.
This could also explain a couple of other things, namely the way the island seems to "attract" things that get too close.... Oceanic 815, Desmond's sailboat, and Yemi's airplane.
It would also "red-shift" or suck energy away from outbound radio signals, and theoretically it would also "blue-shift" incoming signals, AND oh, I dunno, things like sunlight.... (Like the sky turning purple maybe?) But it should be doing this all the time I would think.
However, it leaves a few things that just don't make sense. The DHARMA supply air-drops. The ability of the Others to receive incoming transmissions (like the '04 World Series.) But maybe we shouldn't nitpick details like this? :) Yeah, right! What else are we going to do?!
Could be that the "magic button" was keeping the black hole in check? And when it wasn't pushed it started going out of control?
There would also be increased amounts of other types of radiation, such as x-rays. Now I suppose you could say this might be what's keeping Rose's cancer in check. But why then is it not affecting Ben's, considering he's been there all his life? And it's not making anyone else sick? BUT, it could explain the hinted at fertility problems of the "others", now couldn't it?
Funny then that Aldo was reading the chapter on the aptly named Hawking Radiation. (hence "Black Holes Ain't So Black") In quantum theory, in a vacuum, there are constantly generating pairs of particles and anti-particles, which are almost instantly re-annihilated. However, quantum physics being what it is, periodically one of those anti-particles being generated at the event horizon escapes. (I'm free!) And over time this "evaporation" will destroy the black hole, and its what keeps them from more-or-less instantaneously destroying the universe as we know it. (Could Michael and Walt be a metaphor for this? Ouch! Stretched that a little too far! Get a doctor!)
Go back up the page a bit. If the button was keeping the black hole in check, and it went way out of bounds when Locke destroyed it. Only Desmond's failsafe key saved the day. So what did that do? Destroy the black hole? Permanently "disable" it? Are things back to "normal" all across the board now?
And this little fact could bring some light onto his newfound precognitive abilities. If he somehow travelled forward in time and then back again due to the black hole weirdness, or developed some other time-related supernatural abilities due to his proximity.... Wow. We're delving into some sci-fi fantasy stuff there that just doesn't have an explanation in reality.
...
Alright, so I started rambling in places. I was going all "stream of consciousness" there. But I didn't start it! Thanks TailSection!
With that knowledge in-hand, what relevance does black holes,
time dilation, and hawking radiation have on our castaways' dilemma?
Damned if I know.
What we do know is that the "lost time"
anagram is somehow supposed to relate back to the skeletons found in
the cave, back in what, the first season? This straight from the
mouths of Lindelof and Cuse.
I guess we won't know what that's supposed to mean until it happens.
Technorati Tags: LOST, theories, spoilers, black hole, time, relativity
Also of interest is the anagrammatical nature of the name of the "Mittelos" Bioscience corporation... LOST TIME.
Now, what the hell does any of this have to do with anything, you ask. Well before we delve any deeper, lets make one brave assumption.
Assumption: The "source" of the electro-magnetic disturbance inside the "Swan" hatch was in fact a fairly mild black hole.
(Interesting trivia bit: The first recorded black hole was named Cygnus X-1... Cygnus being the name for the constellation of... the swan.)
So. With that assumption, what should be happening on the island?
Time would slow down in the presence of a strong gravitational field. If we are to read anything into the "lost time" anagram. We would have to assume something's going on here.
To the people on the island, time would carry on as normal. They wouldn't be aware of any slowdown or anything peculiar at all. However, outside of the black hole's affected area there would be no gravitational effects, and much more time would have passed.
How much? That's impossible to say. Days on the island could be weeks, months, or years on the outside.
Until we revisit Penny and the arctic station, we won't know the answer, if indeed that's what's going on.
This could also explain a couple of other things, namely the way the island seems to "attract" things that get too close.... Oceanic 815, Desmond's sailboat, and Yemi's airplane.
It would also "red-shift" or suck energy away from outbound radio signals, and theoretically it would also "blue-shift" incoming signals, AND oh, I dunno, things like sunlight.... (Like the sky turning purple maybe?) But it should be doing this all the time I would think.
However, it leaves a few things that just don't make sense. The DHARMA supply air-drops. The ability of the Others to receive incoming transmissions (like the '04 World Series.) But maybe we shouldn't nitpick details like this? :) Yeah, right! What else are we going to do?!
Could be that the "magic button" was keeping the black hole in check? And when it wasn't pushed it started going out of control?
There would also be increased amounts of other types of radiation, such as x-rays. Now I suppose you could say this might be what's keeping Rose's cancer in check. But why then is it not affecting Ben's, considering he's been there all his life? And it's not making anyone else sick? BUT, it could explain the hinted at fertility problems of the "others", now couldn't it?
Funny then that Aldo was reading the chapter on the aptly named Hawking Radiation. (hence "Black Holes Ain't So Black") In quantum theory, in a vacuum, there are constantly generating pairs of particles and anti-particles, which are almost instantly re-annihilated. However, quantum physics being what it is, periodically one of those anti-particles being generated at the event horizon escapes. (I'm free!) And over time this "evaporation" will destroy the black hole, and its what keeps them from more-or-less instantaneously destroying the universe as we know it. (Could Michael and Walt be a metaphor for this? Ouch! Stretched that a little too far! Get a doctor!)
Go back up the page a bit. If the button was keeping the black hole in check, and it went way out of bounds when Locke destroyed it. Only Desmond's failsafe key saved the day. So what did that do? Destroy the black hole? Permanently "disable" it? Are things back to "normal" all across the board now?
And this little fact could bring some light onto his newfound precognitive abilities. If he somehow travelled forward in time and then back again due to the black hole weirdness, or developed some other time-related supernatural abilities due to his proximity.... Wow. We're delving into some sci-fi fantasy stuff there that just doesn't have an explanation in reality.
...
Alright, so I started rambling in places. I was going all "stream of consciousness" there. But I didn't start it! Thanks TailSection!
With that knowledge in-hand, what relevance does black holes,
time dilation, and hawking radiation have on our castaways' dilemma?
Damned if I know.
What we do know is that the "lost time"
anagram is somehow supposed to relate back to the skeletons found in
the cave, back in what, the first season? This straight from the
mouths of Lindelof and Cuse.
I guess we won't know what that's supposed to mean until it happens.
Technorati Tags: LOST, theories, spoilers, black hole, time, relativity
Huig de Groot aka Hugo Grotius was a 16th Century pioneering natural rights theorists. De Groot/Grotius defined natural law as a perceptive judgement in which things are good or bad by their own nature. The following link gives a detailed synopsis of his life and work, as well as a woodcut portrait, which looks a lot like Gerald de Groot!
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/grotius.html
Thanks,
Noblegrace