Wednesday, August 1. 2007
The Casimir Effect
Having a background in physics, when this new Orchid Station Video came out, I knew I'd heard the term before. Sure enough, the "Casimir effect" is a real electromagnetic phenomenon.
The short version, in an example, would be two conductive (but still uncharged!) metal plates places close together in the absence of an electric field. The Casimir effect produces a small increase in the "vacuum energy" between the two plates. In reality the effect is so small as to be difficult to measure. It wasn't actually measured until 2001.
The part, though that might relate to the show is that theoretically, from a quantum mechanics point of view, the Casimir effect could be used to stabilize a worm hole (from the Wikipedia article, with references.)
And, also from the Wikipedia article, (and this is the part I originally thought it might be relevant to), it holds a similar analogy to the Hawking effect at the event horizon of a black hole, where the vacuum energy sometimes results in particle pair production, and the spitting out of matter from a black hole.
So, what the hell could this possibly have to do with LOST or this new orientation film. Well, lets start with the rabbits, and a bit of artistic license.
If the vacuum energy is increased in the region of the Casimir effect (the island) and you put them at the edge of a black hole (The Swan station? also the island...) the rabbit could split off into a rabbit and (cue spooky music) an anti-rabbit! (hey I said there was some artistic license involved...run with it.) So when Hollowax starts freaking out about not letting the rabbits near each other, he's trying to prevent the two from annihilating each other in the classic matter/anti-matter reaction....
OK. So maybe the analogy gets taken a bit far in that the rabbit gets duplicated. But what else could get duplicated? People? People nearing the edge of a black hole? Just as its energy is built up tremendously in some strange cataclysmic event?
See where I'm going with this?
What if (a big what if) Michael and Walt did make it off the island. And they didn't. All at the same time.
What if (another big what if) Naomi was actually telling the truth about the other plane where everyone died? If the plane was in a region of increased energy (remember?) it could have been split into two, where one crashed on the island and the other into the Marianas trench.
And, I suppose this provides an further explanation for the Swan station. It's was the mechanism by which the "natural Casimir effect" was kept in check, black hole or no black hole.
But what of the "White Rabbit" station? Just a coincidence its named that, given the experimental animal of choice? Is it far enough out to sea that it could be on the "edge" of this energy field, and could have a similar effect? Does this mean we haven't really seen the end of Charlie? What's up with Ben's affinity for the number 8 rabbit?
Hopefully some of this will be explained, if we ever actually see "The Orchid" on the show. But who knows?
(And I can't wait to get a translation of this little gem the Tail Section got their hands on. If its not just a hoax.)
I'll also try to pull those brief flashes of what looks like frames from the "Karl Film" that were cut into "The Orchid" film....
Technorati Tags: LOST.The Orchid, Casimir Effect, Dr. Edgar Hollowax, quantum mechanics, black holes,
The short version, in an example, would be two conductive (but still uncharged!) metal plates places close together in the absence of an electric field. The Casimir effect produces a small increase in the "vacuum energy" between the two plates. In reality the effect is so small as to be difficult to measure. It wasn't actually measured until 2001.
The part, though that might relate to the show is that theoretically, from a quantum mechanics point of view, the Casimir effect could be used to stabilize a worm hole (from the Wikipedia article, with references.)
And, also from the Wikipedia article, (and this is the part I originally thought it might be relevant to), it holds a similar analogy to the Hawking effect at the event horizon of a black hole, where the vacuum energy sometimes results in particle pair production, and the spitting out of matter from a black hole.
So, what the hell could this possibly have to do with LOST or this new orientation film. Well, lets start with the rabbits, and a bit of artistic license.
If the vacuum energy is increased in the region of the Casimir effect (the island) and you put them at the edge of a black hole (The Swan station? also the island...) the rabbit could split off into a rabbit and (cue spooky music) an anti-rabbit! (hey I said there was some artistic license involved...run with it.) So when Hollowax starts freaking out about not letting the rabbits near each other, he's trying to prevent the two from annihilating each other in the classic matter/anti-matter reaction....
OK. So maybe the analogy gets taken a bit far in that the rabbit gets duplicated. But what else could get duplicated? People? People nearing the edge of a black hole? Just as its energy is built up tremendously in some strange cataclysmic event?
See where I'm going with this?
What if (a big what if) Michael and Walt did make it off the island. And they didn't. All at the same time.
What if (another big what if) Naomi was actually telling the truth about the other plane where everyone died? If the plane was in a region of increased energy (remember?) it could have been split into two, where one crashed on the island and the other into the Marianas trench.
And, I suppose this provides an further explanation for the Swan station. It's was the mechanism by which the "natural Casimir effect" was kept in check, black hole or no black hole.
But what of the "White Rabbit" station? Just a coincidence its named that, given the experimental animal of choice? Is it far enough out to sea that it could be on the "edge" of this energy field, and could have a similar effect? Does this mean we haven't really seen the end of Charlie? What's up with Ben's affinity for the number 8 rabbit?
Hopefully some of this will be explained, if we ever actually see "The Orchid" on the show. But who knows?
(And I can't wait to get a translation of this little gem the Tail Section got their hands on. If its not just a hoax.)
I'll also try to pull those brief flashes of what looks like frames from the "Karl Film" that were cut into "The Orchid" film....
Technorati Tags: LOST.The Orchid, Casimir Effect, Dr. Edgar Hollowax, quantum mechanics, black holes,
Don't wormholes allow for the possibility of time travel?
How does this and Des's mutliple time lines work together?
Multiple timelines and parallel universes????
Is there some correlation to this Casimir like effect (I believe that is what he said) and entangled particles which in theory allow for teleportation? But also require the destruction of the original material.
It is a weird story in relation to the casimir effect.
Follow this rabbit hole and you will see where they will take the plot.
"uncharged metal plates"...
"without any external electromagnetic field"
2nd sentence in the wikipedia description... Not even getting that right completly destroyed my motivation to read on...
Man, how could nobody have smacked me around on that one until now. Here's what happened, if I remember right:
1) Watched Orchid video, recalled mention of Casimir effect from somewhere
2) Nearest correlation was it had something to do with capacitors, started having images of plates and electric fields (following?)
3) Looked it up, and 2) stuck in my head. And apparently made it through to the keyboard.
Article edited. Natch. Consider me smacked. Didn't change the outcome of the rest of the article though.