why did the tooth filling explode

[james_sawyer]

this  person who had his tooth exploded through his brain how can it happen ...he was in hostile territory at that time .... as horace says speaking on phone , he tells if it was  due to electromagnetic radiation then we need to know ..is he referring to this person 

[Thomas]

We learned in this episode that the swan station is in Hostile territory.   The dead guy was working on the Swan Construction.   We know that the swan is a source of great electomagnetic power...so great that it will need to be discharged every 108 minutes.    The magnetism pulled the filling up through his brain...the tooth didn't explode.    He must have gotten too close. 

[Jas0n]

Hmm, that is a little confusing don't ya think?  He was standing upright(I assume) digging a hole and a filling in his mouth shoots out the TOP of his head, which would mean that the magnet is pushing instead of pulling? In the hatch the magnet definetly pulled right? I am confused, but not enough to really care LOL.

Welcome to the board Mr. Sawyer.

[SQUIRT199]

Hmm, that is a little confusing don't ya think?  He was standing upright(I assume) digging a hole and a filling in his mouth shoots out the TOP of his head, which would mean that the magnet is pushing instead of pulling? In the hatch the magnet definetly pulled right? I am confused, but not enough to really care LOL.

Welcome to the board Mr. Sawyer.

I wondered this myself why the force was pushing instead of pulling like JAcks Key on  his neck,

Then I thought about it and when you are digging a hole you are bent over,  The key on jacks neck migrated towards the wall not the floor,  so if he were upright it woud have blown through the front of his mouth possibly smashing his teeth.  Since he was bent over with his head down, it came thruogh his skull instead.

[WhatThe]

The "filling exploding like a bullet" story reminded me of the "don't put metal in the time machine whatchimacallit" thing in the Orchid, when Ben did just that and it exploded a hole in the back of the wall. That's why I kept wondering if, somehow, this guy was actually at the Orchid station when it happened...

Because if the Swan electromagnetism is THAT strong to yank a filling out of the guy's mouth and essentially turn it into a bullet, wouldh't it have had one hell of an effect on the shovels and other metal objects that were being used to build the Swan?

[Maxor127]

Remember in season 2, when it was attracting one of the character's necklaces?  I think it was Jack or Sayid.  And that was with a thick concrete wall in the way, plus once the button stopped being pressed, it attracted pretty much everything metal inside the hatch.  I'm still not sure if the hatch actually exploded or if its metal hull just got torn to pieces and left a hole there.

[Novashannon]

Fillings are made out of nonmagnetic metal.  No matter how strong the electromagnetic pull, it would not affect the fillings.  (And yet I still believe people can travel in time, lol)

[james_sawyer]

Welcome to the board Mr. Sawyer.

i like this site a lott..thanks for replying everyone .. jason thank you for ur msg , just ..i'm miss not mister just happen to like sawyer a lott hence the name

[Jungle Otter]

Fillings are made out of nonmagnetic metal.  No matter how strong the electromagnetic pull, it would not affect the fillings.  (And yet I still believe people can travel in time, lol)

perhaps they used a different metal 


what if the electromagnetic force repelled rather than attracted - the incident occurred when it reversed.....

[BrianIsLost2]

Fillings are made out of nonmagnetic metal.  No matter how strong the electromagnetic pull, it would not affect the fillings.  (And yet I still believe people can travel in time, lol)

I know fillings don't use metal now, but I thought they did back in the 70s.  I could be wrong though.  I'm not exactly a fillings expert.

[golfstrom]

Fillings are made out of nonmagnetic metal.  No matter how strong the electromagnetic pull, it would not affect the fillings.  (And yet I still believe people can travel in time, lol)

I know fillings don't use metal now, but I thought they did back in the 70s.  I could be wrong though.  I'm not exactly a fillings expert.

Well, there is a something called diamagnetism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism

and it occurs only in a strong magnetic field and it pushes rather than pulls. And it includes metals otherwise nonmagnetic.

NB:
"Materials that are said to be diamagnetic are those that are usually considered by non-physicists to be "non-magnetic", and include water, wood, most organic compounds such as petroleum and some plastics, and many metals including copper, particularly the heavy ones with many core electrons, such as mercury, gold and bismuth."
Funnily enough this term was created by Michael Faraday.

But as I mentioned elsewhere - I am not an expert.

[Novashannon]

That is interesting and plausible under the circumstances.

[WhatThe]

I still don't see how the Swan could effect this guy's toof but NOT the metal in the equipment and shovels and what not that were being used to create the Swan. Not to mention the van Miles and Hurley drove up in lol.

[Maxor127]

we don't know how far he was digging... and i'll assume they're using some special non-magnetic alloys or something for tools

[WhatThe]

we don't know how far he was digging... and i'll assume they're using some special non-magnetic alloys or something for tools

So then the magnetic pull is specifically centralized and located to a small area, you mean?

Maybe the guy "falling in a ditch" meant he really DID fall in a ditch, and at the bottom of the ditch was where the pull of the electromagnetic "whatever" was centralized and at it's most powerful...or something, maybe lol.