Long time lurker here....

I couldn't resist any more!

I haven't seen anyone propose any theories relating the "single entry/exit vector" property of the the island to the graphical representation of a dipole field.

Check out wikipedia for a better, in-depth explanation than I can provide off the cuff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_dipole).

Even if you don't feel like reading the article I think this is a perfect example of where a picture (or two) is worth 1,000 words.

You should immediately see that in a dipole field there is only a single, straight field vector, which necessarily passes through the point that bi-sects the two poles (+ & -) at a normal (perpendicular) angle.

Now there are several different types of dipole fields but the most common are magnetic and electric.

We've already been introduced to the fact that the island possesses significant magnetic properties/anomalies. For extra credit I could see this idea also meshing with the symbolism that was heaped on from the first episodes - polarity. Not talking about polar bears here but polar opposites - good-evil, black-white (still waiting for that S01 backgammon foreshadowing to pay off), positive-negative.

I've said enough for now. Time to sit back and watch all your reactions to my zany theory.

Time dilation. Very impressive, ohnono. That actually explains alot. There is no "wrong" time, to each group, their time is correct. If you want to see a graphic how this works go to:

http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/sr/time.html

Remember when Coleen died on Jack's table? Jack looks up and says, "time of death..." But there's no clock so he can't call it. There's no clock because there's no time, at least not relative to the rest of the world.

Think of the island as a black hole. The edge of a black hole is called the event horizon, cross that line and you begin to feel the magnetic effects of the island - like a black hole. 815, The Black Rock, Desmond's boat, Henry Gale's balloon, etc.

Sorry, gotta go.

I have been reading your theories and find it very interesting indeed. I think an answer to the time delay could be something to do with the theories of time dilation. The problem that has been occurring is the communication between the ship and the phones in real time. But what I ask is that maybe this is possible, even with time dilation. The GPS satellites, because they are at a higher altitude (further away from a body with a significant gravitational field), go out of sync with the timers on earth and have to be adjusted accordingly. However, our communications with these satellites is near instant (I think) and does not make a difference about the difference in time.

Maybe, I'm not sure but this may explain it - I am doing A-Level physics and would love to be told by an actual physicist my mistakes!

dilates time can be explained by the Minokoski diagram that describes a shear ...

speed of light to be the same constant ... " Referring to a Minkowski diagram, "For observer A.. all events happening simultaneously "

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/605527/lost_in_time.html

Great video on visualization of what it means (highly urge to watch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2VMO7pcWhg

the bleach:

I don't necessarily understand about time only being synched on that one heading, i.e. how that is scientifically possible, but if that is true then it does make sense that anything that does go out in all directions, like the Numbers transmission, will find it's way real time down whatever corridor that heading signifies and get delayed or lost everywhere else.

Casino:

Good thought. I never thought about that possibility. Rare to hear a new idea.

I don't think that is happening though. The best idea I have heard so far as to why they can communicate in real time is that the radio signals go out in all directions. Therefore, they have to go out on the bearing that gets you out safely.

The cool thing is that Sayid, as we type, is flying to the freighter. Hopefully that means some answers are coming.

I didn't know that the date on that paper was 04/05/2007.

Lost ED: Darn! I knew there would be nothing in it!! I forgot about Jack's paper. lol :)

Nattie G:

The date on the newspaper in Jack's FF end of last season was 4/5/07. So they have to be off the island prior to 1/08. Yes?

I am also confused by the need to use the rocket instead of just checking it against a clock on the ship. The one explanation that I can come up with is that the freighter is on the same side of the time bubble as the Island, and the rocket is being launched from a remote vessel outside the time bubble. Thus the reason that the rocket experiences a time delay but Faraday can talk to the freighter in real time. Regina, or whoever it was on the freighter, seems to think that there will be about a 25 second delay between the time that she launches the rocket until the time it reaches the target. Needless to say, it takes much longer than that. Maybe this is because of a delay between the time she sent the message to the time it was received by the rocket launcher outside the time bubble. Maybe the travel time wasn't extended at all. Maybe the rocket was fired at, say, 2:45 inside time, the signal got there "immediately", but because of the time warp it wasn't received until 3:15 OUTSIDE BUBBLE TIME, and then it only took the predicted 25 seconds or so to travel to the Island once it was fired.

Just a thought.

thinking about this gap in time reminded me of one of the trailors for series 4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ou7cWOTXJs

It states the date of the crash - 22 Sep 2004, and states that the losties are rescued on 31st Jan 2008.

When I watched it I assumed it was just to do with air dates: the first episode of Lost ever aired, and the air date for 4x01. However I'm now wondering if there's more to it than that?

I know it is totally far fetched to think that a clue like this would be presented in a trailor, BUT you never know with this show!!!

Any of the calculations already put forward match up to the 3-and-a-bit years difference between these dates? My maths, like my Lost theories, is totally rubbish :)

It may explain how Ben could zoom in on tiny details in the supposed outside world such as the dates on a newspaper, it was not live, it was a recording.

Of course it's a clock and NOT a timer.

Think about it this way:

They spent about 15 seconds going through the kilometer countdown. If they expected the payload to arrive in less than a minute, and if those were timers instead of clocks, wouldn't they go by increments of MINUTES:SECONDS:MILLISECONDS instead of HOURS:MINUTES:SECONDS?

For all that scientific equipment, it's just preposterous to have instruments that don't measure very specifically (unless they are clocks, in which case they aren't being primarily used as timers).

Ok, it's not a clock-it's a timer, first of all. No scientist would do an experiment relying on a clock unless the experiment was regarding that clock. Secondly, time travels SLOWER on the island, not faster. So, if you calculated, for example, 15 minutes on island would be 30 minutes off island. Walt left the island and grew older by a few YEARS while the Losties thought only months had gone by(if we can rely on Walt's growth as an example). That does not mean Ben can see the future. It means that when you are on the island, you move slower, but when you leave, you simply step into a faster time pace.

I think the explanation for the rocket coming from the opposite direction can be found in light refraction. I also think the island IS in the middle of the ocean so it's a little harder to find than being somewhere obvious, like offshore Florida or something.

Doug-That's right, my bad. I wasn't thinking correctly. I was thinking of Sound waves, but typed radio waves. I think I was just in a confrontational mood. Anyway. Why don't you drop some serious knowledge on us?? You might just be the smartest guy in the room.

could this time delay also be an explanation as to why the guy Miles was calling was unavailable?? maybe he was only expecting the fantastic 4 to be contacting him in about half an hour from now... er /then er... - and is just not ready for the call? ???

(That made perfect sense in my head btw...)

sledge, I think you hit it on the head. The bearing is KEY. The transmission of course raidiates out in all directs, including that one bearing that is in constant time. I think we need to take a leap of faith that the phone can hop a satilite in the proper bearing to have real-time communication...but than the ship is in a different location in respect to the losties, so when the missle is coming in it will be delayed due to the "time bubble". I think Dan knew something something along the lines of "Continue on that bearing NO MATTER WHAT". Also, here's a prediction knowing the little I do about physics, is that when that helicopter travels off the island, it will almost certianly appear to the people on the ship that the helicopter just left or was only gone for a very short time.

I feel that there is something important people havent noticed... The phones that they have been using could be "extra special", the new "freighter" people seem very prominent about not letting them use the phone... THey seem to only let them talk on it if at all... The phones mAY Have a way of communicating through this time "bubble"
Just a thought...

Did you notice?
The missile send from ship to Dan, was arrived from opposite direction than he expect it !!! What it mean ???

"Has anyone else noticed all the physicist/mathematician names being used. Faraday as in Michael Faraday, a legend in the study of magnetism. The helicopter pilot at one point mentions Minkowski. As in Hermann Minkowski, the mathematician whose methods helped solve problems in relativity theory (e.g., Minkowski space, etc). I think I noticed some others in the names of these new visitors but can't recall now.
Yes, I am a physicist."

Charlotte Staples Lewis...

Clive Staples Lewis (C.S. Lewis). British theologian and author.

i don't know if this has been mentioned, but the numbers on both timers add up to 14.

I think this whole time shift eventss only started after they failed to push the button... it's related to Demond's time travel

A Bubble would be a continuous barrier, I think of is as more of a swirling vortex or Magnetic Field shape. There is clearly a corridor you can safely pass through to escape the Island or reach the Island unaffected.

Problems with calculating this out:

We don't know if the island itself is experiencing slower time, or just a bubble around the island that the rocket flew through. If it is the island itself, it's hard to account for how Dan and Regina communicate in real time. Of course, it would also be difficult if there was a bubble around the island slowing down the signal too, but perhaps the radio waves are too small to be effected. If the island itself is running slow, Dan would just be able to ask Regina what time she has, or they could sync their watches, and and judge it from there. Of course, as I just said, that would make their direct communication seem impossible. If they both experience a 30 second conversation, how would it be possible that one is significantly shorter? The "bubble" theory may also be supported by the need to enter and leave the island on a specific bearing. Perhaps if you enter on the wrong bearing, you come out in the future or past. Which may be interesting, because perhaps you can use this "bubble" as sort of a time machine. Perhaps going out one way at a certain speed will let you go into the past, while going out another direction at a different speed lets you go into the future? Might this explain the Polar Bear in Tunisia? Did it swim away, and get caught in the bubble, coming out into the real world thousands of years in the past?

oops, sorry, my bad, its been a while since i had to deal with numbers. The factor would be actually approximately 70. Not as cabalistic, and maybe just plain wrong. Just multiply everything by 10 in the last post.

Well, I can´t argue with Shivy´s math.
But to me, it seems that, if we know 31 min 19 secs equals 1879 seconds, then it´s a matter of simple division by the real time the rocket took to arrive: that is, ~27 seconds. So 1879/27=~7. That´s the time delay factor on the island, I believe.
Then:
1 sec on the island = 7 secs real
1 day = 7 days
100 days = 700 days

Doug, you just blew my mind. Are you really a physicist? If so, you gotta help us out. But please peruse some of the old posts from past seasons. The writers of the show always seem to use the names of historical figures, mostly philosophers and scientist. Please read the site it listed a few posts down. I'd love the opinion of a physicist.

To BobBX542: I don't feel qualified to comment too much on the article. I need a translator myself. However, he is definetly NOT saying that the island is or is on a mirror image of our moon. It is a much smaller body made of mirror matter orbiting within our planet around the center gravitational pull of our planet. Because it is made of mirror matter (aka anti-matter) it can slip through our earth unseen and unnoticed. It comes near the surface at regular intervals and this is when our world and the mirror world sometimes come in some kind of contact. I urge anyone reading this to read MikeNY's article for yourself and see what you make of it.

1st post ever! :-D

walts name has been bounced around and his "age confliction" with the continuity of the show. has anyone thought of the Richard (H)Alpert angle?

we've seen Richard (Ben's lacky or vice versa perhaps), not show aging in Bens childhood backstory and in juliets backstory during the mittelos bioscience pitch.

is this also something to consider with the recurring major them of "time"

By the way, that little rocket would only have enough fuel to fly around for a few minutes.

BobBX542 said:
"nikarro-radio waves don't travel at the speed of light."

Actually, radio waves, like all forms of electro-magnetic radiation, do by definition travel the speed of light.

Has anyone else noticed all the physicist/mathematician names being used. Faraday as in Michael Faraday, a legend in the study of magnetism. The helicopter pilot at one point mentions Minkowski. As in Hermann Minkowski, the mathematician whose methods helped solve problems in relativity theory (e.g., Minkowski space, etc). I think I noticed some others in the names of these new visitors but can't recall now.
Yes, I am a physicist.

The Others, are actively keeping the Phenomena out of the hands of anyone else. Their purpose may simply be just that, to retain control of such a powerful Phenomena in order to learn to utilize it to the maximum.

The hitch I do have is the realtime radio communication between the ship and the Island. Only thing I can think of is such a Phenomena as a wormhole or black hole would also emit gravitational and perhaps electromagnetic waves, modulating the handsets frequency until it matches the waves emitted from the Phenomena might accelerate the signal and sort of ride the waves back into sync with outside time.

and maybe this is why Ben is so calm- he already knows he's not going to get killed

i agree kgav, that would explain alot. except for one thing- why are the others doing it? what is the purpose- why do they want the losties there and what is their ultimate goal with the island?

If there is some sort of wormhole/black hole on the Island then the "Others" the Dharma people have examined it. The Movie De Ja Vue might give a bit of insight as to what Ben has been doing with this Phenomena. Perhaps the Others figured out a way to remote view past events in real time anywhere in the world. By gathering the crash survivors name's the others were then able to remote view the recent lives of the survivors and learn the things they needed to know.

They may have even used it to yank Locke's father to the Island from where ever he was.

westy185, I haven't finished the article yet, but is this person saying that the island is actually on a "mirror image" of the moon that orbits the planet Earth??

My apologies if this link has come up somewhere on this site before, but MikeNY offers the following explanation for Lost - he thinks he's solved it - on this blog:

http://mirrormattermoon.blogspot.com/

It's a possible spoiler - MikeNY could be right.

But there's a lot on the nature of time in this article.

maybe the clock went all the way round once. and started again from 00:00:00 before stopping so it could of been ages.

I have been thinking about this time thing: My head is going to explode but I have to get some ideas down.

The "island time" clock in the picture has been with Daniel since he left the freighter.

The "Rocket Time" clock has been on the freighter until it was fired at the island.

The difference in the two clocks = 31 minutes. This number needs to be compared to how long Daniel has been on the island to make some kind of sense.

If Faraday has been there 6 hours let say. THen for every 6 hours on the island, you lose 31 minutes.

This would mean that 100 days = 108.6 days. This goes against my previous comment about Walt. Is my math right. I cannot recalculate for fear of severe migrains.

What I was thinkin was that Ben knows how to retrieve information from the future. Thus the man he has on the boat is Sayid.
Or am i thinking way too much into this.

nikarro-radio waves don't travel at the speed of light.

Light! Maybe light is the secret, maybe light and radio waves and other means of light travel on and off the island instantly, hence the phone call, but any other matter not travelling at the speed of light is slowed somehow. Maybe this is why he mentioned the light looked strange!

Ok. Settle down people. Just because the Rocket took 31 minutes to travel 27 seconds, does not mean that that is the relationship of island time to "real" time. That is simply the relationship of time for getting TO the island.

My best guess:

Time on the island is for sure going more slowly than time off the island. If there is no other explanation for this, then Walt should make it clear. That is why they had to get him off of the island.

I think the gap has to be longer than 5 days but shorter than 2 years. There has to be justification for Walts aging.

ha, so each day in the real world = 31 days on the island

ok, so bear with me. i did a lil math. if someone wants to check, please do:

real time = 27 seconds
island time = 31 minutes

inrements of 27 second in a minute = 2.22

increments of 27 seconds in a day (1440 min in a day x 2.22) = 3,200

Incremet of 27 seconds in an island day (31 minutes * 3200) = 99,200

Island minutes in a day (99,200 / 2.22) = 44,640

Total days in one island day = 31 days

Total days on island = 100 days p/ Jack

Total real days on island = 3,100 days

Total years on island = 8.5 years

This might explain why Charlotte looks older than 24 (1979-2004). The plane might have crashed in the real world 8 years ago and they've been putting this mission together for a long time.

See? See?? The time/bubble/parallel/continum theory is ALIVE!!!!

Does this new insight regarding time on the island relate to the discrepancies in the log files that were found at the Pearl?

L. Ron Hubbard wrote his last epic science fiction (no not Dianetics! :) about an Imperial City that was within an event horizon of a black hole that was embedded in a nearby mountain.

This caused the city to exist always 30 (or somesuch) minutes into the future, thereby making it non-existent in the present and impossible to attack. Time remained constant inside and outside the city, but the city always existed in the future. People inside couldn't see out, and outside couldn't see in.

One other point was that the light inside the city was "a bit off".

I say that Lindelof has been reading Mission Earth! What's the title of this ep?

I remember hearing recently that there were going to be clues in these first episodes pointing to why things are as they are on the island.

It seems to be a recreation to the experiments done the in the 1970s. Scientists synchronized 2 atomic clocks then placed one on commercial airplanes and flew it around the world. The two clocks went out of sync by approximately 300 billionths of a second. But this experiment proved an aspect of Einstein's theory of relativity. As you approach the speed of light time slows down.

To me this means the Island is caught within the event horizon of either a wormhole, or a black hole. As you approach the Island you are pulled into event horizon a place when space time has been warped. Therefore the is bent to a slower state on the Island.

I don't believe that this time difference is a constant. Remember that Daniel Faraday told Frank Lapidus when he flies back to make sure he uses the same bearing that he used the first time, "No matter what". If there is a time distortion it probably changes depending on how you approach the island. If he approaches on a different bearing he may take months or years "Island Time" to get back.

This also leaves the possibility open that Michael and Walt may be back. Ben promised to give them a boat and send them home. He never said “when” he was going to send them.

At first I thought that whatever happened to the rocket en route is probably the reason Juliet had to be knocked out before the 'bumpy ride' over to the island, but the other freighter people didn't notice anything other than mechanical differences so I'm interested to see where this is going.

One other note: I hope production of the show isn't in trouble! I have Dan's island clock on the dashboard of my car because my car's clock display quit - and I bought it at a local dollar store! Big spenders, these producers! :)

Follow up to Lost Dave's comments.

Regardless of watches or timers, Faraday mumbled "31 minutes." So a time differential of 31 minutes has been established.

A flight that should have taken approximately 25 seconds, took 31 minutes.

Everything we need to know about time passage on this island has been given to us here.

They have been on the island for 100 days according to Jack's comment.

I timed the rocket, from the time Regina said it left, till she said zero. = 27 seconds (appr).

Time difference 31:19 minutes, to wit Faraday says "this is not good."

So...27 (appr) seconds island time is 31 minutes real time.

From there, my brain freezes....

I'm not sure these are clocks showing the time of day. Rather they may be timers that started at zero when the rocket was launched.

In other words 2 hours and 45 minutes of time may have passed on the island since Dan had Regina launch the rocket, and when it finally landed. But where ever the rocket was for that period, it experienced 3 hours and 16 minutes of time.

Of course there's no way we can be certain what these chronometers represent. Where they clocks that were once in synch when Dan was still on the ship, or timers that each started when Regina launched the rocket? And what's the difference? Well one difference would be that if they were clocks, then the difference would have been affected by both Dan's crossing to the island and the rocket's crossing. But if they were timers synchronized at launch, then the time difference was entirely from the rocket's crossing. Not sure right now what other differences could be implied.

The only reason I'm leaning toward thinking they were timers, is that I think for scientific research they would be using 24-hour clocks. Less chance of confusion between AM and PM. Also there is no PM showing on either chronometer, and it obviously wasn't 2 or 3 in the morning when this was happening.

Though I suppose it was also possible they were set to something like GMT.

There must not be much of a difference overall. When Jack was asking about the Red Sox, he said to Lapidus "I can't believe it's been 100 days" or something like that. If time were significantly different, I'm thinking Lapidus would have said something (unless, of course, he knew and just kept his mouth shut...but Daniel didn't seem to feel it necessary to keep time differences secret).

So if there is a difference in time, it isn't huge (like, 20 years haven't passed, but maybe it's really 120 days).

How far AHEAD they are, I think is the right way to phrase that, Joe.

If you requested a next day package and it arrived 2 days later that means the package was sent out late.

ALTERNATE ARGUMENT:

Time travels slower on the island. While the clocks were synchronized on the freighter, lets say at midnight, that means 14:45 has passed on the island and 15:16 has passed on the boat. Is this applicable to the islanders and compound? Does that mean their 100 days is actually about 105 days? (according to my rather crude and probably incorrect math)

HOWEVER, I never have been able to wrap my head around Einstein relativity. The communication from Faraday and friend via the radio was instantaneous. If this is the case just asking the boat what time they had would have provided the same effect as the rocket (but less dramatically)

PERSONALLY: I'm for the first explanation. It's not an exponential thing, just a simple delay.

Was that the voice of Zoe Bell he spoke to on the radio to launch the load? Best stunt woman ever.

i got that much - i meant total.

like say its a minimum of 31:19 an hour for X amount of days?

DirtyMaggie, I think what prompted him to do the experiment was that he noticed something was off with the island...remember when he said there was something strange about the light? I don't know the first thing about physics, but I'll bet they have something to do with each other. Maybe someone smarter than me can expound on what I'm trying to say. :)

31 minutes 19 seconds.

anyone want to do the math to see how far behind they are?

i'm bad at math.

What prompted him to do this experiment anyway?