Wow. Some of you guys really, REALLY have some eyes, and some trivia knowledge.

I never would have caught this one.

In season 3 episode 8, Charlie's street sign has his name listed as
Charlie Hieronymus Pace. It is most likely a reference to the famous
Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch who died in 1516. 15 & 16.

Link: 4 8 15 16 23 42 - The LOST Numbers Reference Guide

Technorati Tags: lost, 15, 16, heironymous, charlie, flashes before your eyes, numbers

Wow.  Again.

This was a particularly curious episode, for a few reasons.  1)  Nearly all of the show took place inside Desmond's "flashback."  This somewhat deviates from the "standard format" of the show.  2)  It wasn't exactly a "flashback" now, was it?  and 3) It was just odd.  GREAT, but odd.

There's no other way to approach this one, except to do it in the order it happened.  Normally I try to break each "story" out individually, but since there really is only one today....

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

From various sources, including SciFi and ABC MediaNet....

Disney-ABC Television Group announced that ABC.com will debut the first installment of 60 backstory videos related to the four main characters of its SF series Lost
on Valentine's Day. The videosâ??featuring the characters of Jack
(Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and
Locke (Terry O'Quinn)â??were created to provide viewers with insight into
the lives of the characters.

Apparently they've spliced up the flashbacks from various characters into little stories of their own.  Makes sense really.  Nothing new, though from what I understand.

Link: SCI FI Wire | The News Service of the SCI FI Channel

Technorati Tags: lost, tv, backstory, video

I was thinking about the title of tonight's episode, and started down that whole "stream of consciousness", er, stream you know.  And this little bit popped into my head.

I recall back in my college days doing a paper on the history and future of nuclear fusion reactors (hey, so I'm a BS Eng. Physics!)   I specifically remember writing something about the Soviets' experiments in this regard, and how they had performed experiments with human subjects exposing them to ultra-strong magnetic fields.  Fields you might experience if you were in close proximity to a working tokamak superconducting magnet array for example.

Again, if I remember, the subjects reported a lot of strange things.  One of which was strange visual symptoms, including seeing "flashes" and "lights" where there shouldn't be.  Hence the connection to the title.  And the hatch.

Now, I'm just rattling this off the top of my head, so I don't have any references or anything.  I'm not even sure it means anything.  But like so many things with this show, there just aren't very many pure "coincidences" are there?

Technorati Tags: lost, flashes before your eyes, magnetism, fusion, reactor, theories

The good doctor espouses some more wisdom in his latest article.

Your 10-word tease from Damon Lindelof is:

''Riddle me this â?? When is a flashback not a flashback?''

Whoa! Keep that in mind whilst watching tonight I guess!  Could we be seeing a flash-forward or even a "flash-present?"  Where we see what's going on in Desmonds other life off the island? (*cough* Penny *cough*)

IF IT WALKS LIKE A BLACK HOLE, AND TALKS LIKE A BLACK HOLE â?? IT MUST BE A BLACK HOLE!

Quite honestly I've been trying to reconcile this whole "black hole" business, and I find more wrong with it than I do right with it.  Sure there are a lot of similarities and parallels you could make, but I'm starting to wonder if it's not a red herring (four-toed statue anyone?), or at best another "metaphor" like the whole purgatory thing?  Maybe Aldo just has a passing interest in the lay-person's guide to astrophysics known as "A Brief History of Time?"

I've been trying to write a piece that explains what's wrong with the black hole theory, but it keeps coming out a total bit of jibberish.  Like the Doc says, there's a lot that it could explain, but there is also a lot that it doesn't, and furthermore a lot that should be happening if it were true that just isn't.

He also mentions his latest "theory du jour", the "HEMA" theory, and while I have yet to read it (not sure I will, actually) it sounds pretty out there, and a bit too "Star Trek" for me.  Lets try not to get too literal with things, folks.  I think we should've learned that by now.

Link: Hawking a 'Lost' Theory | Lost (Season 3) | Doc Jensen | TV | Entertainment Weekly

Technorati Tags: lost, tv, television, theories, black holes, hema, flashes before your eyes

Aha! I knew it!  Why I can't hear this in my recording is odd, unless (like I thought) it was only present in the 5.1 audio, or downmixed so low into the 2-channel as to be inaudible...

...But there it is, assuming this is true and not added as a hoax.  Really I have no idea.

"Only fools are enslaved by time and space."

(For my 2-channel copy of this segment in reverse, check my post on the subject here....)

Link: Video Newbrain - darkufo, lost - Dailymotion Share Your Videos

Awesome reading this one.  Learned a couple bits of trivia, one in particular I can use for my 'Jacob' post that I'm working on! :)  And of course, stuff like this....

The names have meanings. Ah, tuberinos, this truly is a golden age for nerdery. We learn in this episode that Juliet's last name is Burke, which is the latest entry in the show's philosopher's name sweepstakes, and follows in the hallowed footsteps of Locke, Rousseau, Hume and Carlyle. Edmund Burke, for the record, is best-known for his book Reflections on the Revolution in France. And if you can explain what that means in the context of the show, I will give you a cookie.

Link: E! - Kristin's Blog - Lost Redux: Scoop on the Latest Epâ??and Five Q's with Big, Bad Ben -

Technorati Tags: LOST, ben, characters, theories, answers, michael emerson

At EW, this interesting 5-page piece...

''I feel like we're playing a chess game,'' analogizes Lindelof, ''and in the first six moves, we've lost our queen and two bishops, and the audience is saying 'They are the worst chess players in the world!' What they don't realize is that we're nine moves away from checkmating you. If we lose, we lose. But that's the play, and we're standing by it.''

Check out that picture.  Was this a staged PR photo or is there something else with respect to Ben that we have yet to see?

They talk a bit about the root causes of the recent "disillusionment" of (some, not this one!) viewers with the show.

Also of note is O'Quinn's reaction to AAA's leaving... on the second page of the article.  And this...

Get used to this, folks: ''None of the big questions are going to be answered until the end of the series,'' says Cuse, adding that according to the master plan, the Lost story has just passed its midpoint.

Doh! Guess the best is still to come!


Link: EW.com - 'Lost' and Found

Technorati Tags: LOST, spoilers, answers, tv

Is it due to the new time slot or have people really lost (ha!) the love?

ABC's SF drama Lost returned from a two-month hiatus to a new 10 p.m. Wednesday timeslot on Feb. 7 and won the hour among adults, drawing 14.7 million viewers and a 6.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But CBS' CSI: NY prevailed among total viewers, with 15.8 million and a 4.9 rating, the trade paper reported.

CSI: NY I think has the virtue of being the "incumbent" in that slot, but we'll see what happens.

Link: SCI FI Wire | The News Service of the SCI FI Channel

Technorati Tags: lost, tv, ratings, television