"So Time Is Like A Street"

Wayne Allen Sallee and I have been emailing about Season 5 discussing quite a bit about the Time "thing" of course. So I thought of this: I, and my 9 yr old nephew Ian, have been getting confused about why they keep saying that they can't change the past or future, but they still keep trying to change "something". But what if TPTB are getting really clinical with the details of that, and the characters are really only changing the "present" and that's somehow allowed? Because Dan really kind of changed Desmond's "present" by giving him a memory at that moment of their Swan encounter in the "past" when the island moved there (two minutes after Dan said that they couldn't change things!).

If you use Dan's analogy of walking up or down a street and not being able to change it, perhaps you can't change the buildings or permanent aspects, but maybe you can do something like put some flowers in a window, or paint a building (or, place a memory in someone's mind like Dan did), to change how the street will look (or how the mind will remember) in the present/future from then on since the alteration? I don't know how that could be viable in relation to everything else. I'm just trying to understand why some things can be "altered" or colored if you will, when we kept being told that it can't be done. There seems to be some detail of this that I just can't define yet.

"Hawking's Computer Calculations"

Here is a screenshot from DarkUFO of the image on Mrs.H's computer screen compared to the most popular graphic of the theoretical global Vile Vortices locations on the web. Her screen shows determined locations that we don't know much about yet, but that we speculate will be either places where the island can "move" to, or locations where windows could "open up" to allow travel back to the island. There are a lot more points on her graphic than in the true vortices map, so as with everything else we'll just have to wait on more info to narrow it down. I've marked where the close matches are. I guess the one big question is, which of these points is the singular event window mentioned on the screen that is their final chance to make it back and to put the universe back in order?

UPDATE: Below the vortices map is a compiled estimate of where Guam fits into the vortex idea. Although the difference in the maps makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly (Mrs.H's computer map has an odd curvature distortion, and the vortex map is a flattened globe), on the computer Guam is either in or very near the Australian Triangle and Flight 316 would just have to fly a bit off course to hit the coordinates of the vortex there; but on the Vortex map, Guam seems to fall near Sayidsgirl's Asian Devil's Triangle and the plane would veer in that direction. By the way, the official Guam website is titled "Official Portal for the Island of Guam". :-D http://www.guam.gov/

*Thanks to Brianne at TLC for helping with a correction! :-)

"Dan's The Man In This Season"

Early reports say that Professor Dan will be fairly prominent in the 2009 season, and the TV promo ads released so far certainly seem to show this, flashing images of Dan in various acts of exploration in mysterious places. I won't say anything more, for those who choose to shun spoiler details. But hopefully that means that we are going to get a lot of provocative and delicious scientific storyline via Dan's exploits. Which of course makes me very excited. "Joyyyyyyyy!" :-)

"Is Ajira Headed For A Vortex?"

In the Ajira Airlines ad on the Ajira webpage, it has been noted that the flight-attendant seems to be wearing a trefoil version of an ouroboros pin, similar to Mrs. Hawking's circular pin. It looks to me as if she is also wearing a vortex graphic in her scarf pattern (strategically placed in the center-front of her scarf twist). Perhaps the returning Losties-plus-Ben-plus-DeadLocke are going to be flying into one of the Vile Vortices that we've been talking about, probably since the TLE game, to get back to the island. At TLC's Lostargs blog, Sayid'sgirl reminded us of her theory about the Dragon's Triangle in the Pacific Ocean, which is one of the Vortices connected to Guam, our apparent destination on the Ajira flight. Be sure to book your seat, fasten your seatbelts, and drink all of your Magic Orangejuice! :-o

UPDATE: The scarf vortex also looks like the Paik logo reversed, so maybe Sun starts up her own airlines? Hmm.

"So Much For The Science"

Oh well. I began this blog in hopes that after the astounding finale to Season 4 and the rumors of a hiatus ARG, we would have lots of science mysteries to solve. When DHARMA started up again and the Cheng video was "leaked" it seemed like we were in for some juicy DI science to chew on. But it wasn't so. Unless Hoodlum is gearing up for something really big and surprising for us, we probably won't be talking about any more science until Season 5 begins. If Phase 1 of the DHARMA recruiting is any indication, any future phases of their ARG will be pretty tame. Maybe if Rachel Blake can steal Hans' secret folder with our information in it, something interesting might happen. :-(

"Present And Past Parallel"

The Season 4 promo poster may mean even more in Season 5.
At Comic Con TPTB told us that generally speaking, there would be no more bouncing around between flashbacks and flashforwards anymore. So what does this mean (besides that we might not get our promised Danielle FB)? Don Williams and Oscar Dahl from BuddyTV have an idea. "They plan to tell stories on the island, off the island, in the past and in the future." And, "When we last left our castaways, they were separated by both time and geography. The Oceanic 6, Ben and the corpse of John Locke...are off the island, about three years after they all left the island. Meanwhile, everyone else who stayed on the island, including the still alive John Locke, have been transported either to a different location, a different time, or both. Either the island people are still three years behind the Oceanic 6, or roughly two years and two months behind (depending on if they jumped in time exactly as far as Ben did)."

I like this idea a lot, as it fits in with the clues that we were given about the Kerr theory. Outer shell, inner shell...present, past...maybe connected by a wormhole(pinhole?). I am also glad that TPTB warmed us up for this dual-time scenario (intentionally or not) with the first four seasons of FBs and FFs. How these two worlds get back together again will be a fun event to look forward to.

And most importantly while they are apart and parallel, Locke is going to exist in a way that Doc Ray did momentarily, that is, alive and dead at the same time. I'm sure that Terry O'Q is up to the challenge.

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/lost/lost-a-comiccon-based-theory-o-21686.aspx

"Want To Make Your Head Explode...Again?"

I've become very intrigued with the theory posted at the Doc Arzt coverage of the Octagon Global Recruiting video which involves a 30-year time span difference. A poster named WLM put down an excellent approach to laying out the ramifications of what was said in that video by Dr. Candle/Chang, which could really mesh with what we've seen so far on Lost.

Here's how WLM puts it: "Chang mentions the Kerr Metric, which if you look on Wikipedia, the following paragraph could relate to what happened to the Island. "Even stranger phenomena can be observed within the innermost region of this spacetime, such as some forms of time travel. For example, the Kerr metric permits closed, time-like loops in which a band of travelers' returns to the same place after moving for a finite time by their own clock; however, they return to the same place and time, as seen by an outside observer." I suspect the Island will return to the same place and time as it was when it vanished, yet days, months or years may have passed for anyone on or near the Island."

This Kerr Metric theory is really complicated, but includes the possibility of a spacetime spheres (if I understand it correctly) which allows a sphere of existence within an outside area of existence. Here the inner area could have a different spacetime, while the outer area retains it's current spacetime. Also according to the Wiki: "...the Kerr metric describes the geometry of spacetime around a rotating massive body." That rotating body might just be our island, when the conditions are "right". I know, it's weird, and even more dizzying than that because it includes spinning black holes and I'm not even too clear on regular black holes yet! But as I am wont to do, I'm trying to locate some graphics that can assist with comprehension.

BTW, all this involves an "ergosphere": "...a region located outside a rotating black hole. Within the ergosphere, spacetime is dragged along in the direction of the rotation of the black hole at a speed greater than the speed of light in relation to the rest of the universe." Could this ergosphere actually be our mysteriously unstable, and often stormy, island barrier that has to be traversed via an exact bearing? In the following illustration, the ergosphere is adjacent to the event horizon, i.e., the point of no return at the edge of the black hole. And as a secondary thought, does turning the Wheel initiate the spinning black hole? Just wondering. I must say, TPTB have their work cut out for them after revealing this explosive tidbit this summer.

And, do the concentric circles in the Orchid video pertain to the inner sphere area of the spinning black hole in the Kerr Metric? Update: WLN has said this about that: "The Island has not moved in place, only in time. Think of a sphere, with many concentric circles. The outer most circle is "now." Each inner circle is a different time line, the closer to the center, the further back in time. Jack and others are on the outer most circle. Locke and others are on the next band closer to the center, 30 years in the past. But the WHOLE circle sits in the same physical spot. These are timelines, not time places." It sounds very like the Orchid logo to me! I think that TPTB just gave us a really huge hint.

This formula makes sense too, right? Heheh, just kidding. P.S. Much thanks to Ellen for bringing this theory to our attention over at the TLC ARG blog. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr_metric

http://www.docarzt.com/octagon-global-recruiting/ch-ch-ch-cheng-turn-and-face-t.php

"Visual Aids Revisited, FWIW"

I was thinking today about some of the theories that we came up with about the island science before we saw the FDW in action -- boy, that seems like a long time ago. One idea that helped me get a handle on the Bunny-15 problem in last year's first mysterious Orchid video, was an illustration in a Stephen Hawking book, that I took the liberty of enhancing for a previous post. This illustration shows how someone could leave on one wormhole for the future, and return to the present on a different "wrong" wormhole, to arrive before he left. Perhaps that's how Bunny-15 landed in the same room as his early self, barring an "operator error" by the technician running the equipment that is. It's hard to get good lab help, especially when you are plucking recruits off the side of the road in Portland.

If this is one of Ben's "ideas" to get back to the island (arriving on a different wormhole to before he got squirted off the island), then he would have to kill his duplicate, like in the movie "Prestige"...and that's just too creepy, even for LOST -- but maybe that's why Richard doesn't need to remember birthdays, because he keeps killing his extra selves and therefore technically doesn't have a birthday anymore! But then Ben might have to dig up another ancient FDW to do it -- unless like S.R.Hadden in "Contact", the DI secretly built an extra Orchid apparatus on another anomaly and just billed Hanso double on the purchase request forms! OK, now I'm getting too crazy.

A Wiki illustration for a space/time application gave us one visual theory on the critical coordinates, that I also embellished. I'm not sure if I buy into the Moebius space warp anymore, but all that coordinates business is still up in the air until TPTB give us some more "friggin' answers". Although, I can imagine Doc Ray randomly floating in outside of the 305' (as TPTB have mentioned), getting caught in the loop, and slipping around time to acquire his previously cut face, before he washed ashore. But I wonder why his neck didn't go back to before it was cut? Hmmm.

"Have TPTB Revealed The Island's Location?"

As Bigmouth has noted on his blog: http://eyemsick.blogspot.com/ TPTB have mentioned "antipodes" in a couple of their last interviews this season. Antipodes are geographic locations that are diametrically opposite to each other through the center of the earth. Check out his great post and references on it.

After reading that I got curious and did an image search on antipodes and found a Google map for finding them. I put the arrow on Tozeur, Tunisia, where Ben's hotel was (not necessarily where he landed) and the bottom arrow landed at the antipode as shown, to the right of Australia. It's not exactly at the "4.815, 162.342" coordinates, but a bit south of that. Going to a "4.8xxx..." point takes the antipodal arrow to the far south of Nigeria. Not a bad proposition for explaining Yemi's small plane getting to the island, although that's too far away for Ben to be riding a horse to his favorite hotel with no provisions. But...is Tunisia the antipode for the island's position in 2004, or for its location after it "moved" and spewed Ben out to the antipodal point in the desert?!

I thought that it was interesting to find a map that could locate the exact antipodes for us, so that we wouldn't have to guess, in case this concept is a key to locating the island.

http://www.antipodemap.com/

"The Fertility Issues"

Ezra James Sharkington has posted some interesting points about the island pregnancy and fertility situations on her blog: http://iheartdharma.blogspot.com , so be sure to read her thoughts from the perspective of her experience in the health field. :-)

I was also wondering today, if one of the many reasons why Juliet wants to get off of the island is because of what she now knows about how the island ages women's reproductive systems. Richard was very vague and withholding when he showed her the CT scans of one of their island symptoms. Just as he lied to her about her 6-month stint, he also was not forthcoming about how her longer stay on the island might affect her body as well. But surely now that she's been on the island for 3 years, she knows what caused the problem that she saw on the images before she signed on. With that knowledge, she must also realize that her body could be quickly disintegrating in the same fashion. Granted she misses her sister, and who wouldn't want to leave Craphole Island for any reason, but I'm wondering if TPTB mean for us to keep Juliet's accelerating bio-clock in the back of our minds as well, as we judge her intentions for leaving.

There are scores of questions, contradictions and implications on the fertility problems to wonder about. Including how it relates to the way the island usually heals other maladies, but adversely affects female reproduction while at the same time enhancing the male system. Does anyone know of any other blogs that have good ideas about these complicated medical topics?

http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Pregnancies/Theories

"Some Blast Door Map Thoughts"

For a little hiatus distraction, I wanted to post this Blast Door Map video by Celeon999A. It combines the BDM shown in the "Lockdown" episode, with the map in the game Via Domus, highlighting and translating some of the new inscriptions. Although the game BDM is not entirely within the show's canonical parameters, TPTB did mention before the game was released that it would reveal an added dimension of the BDM that we could not see on the show. Lostpedia also notes this, with inconsistencies to keep in mind as well. But since we now have new stations on the island to consider when studying the old map, it's fun to apply these theories with a grain of salt when looking back on the BDM notations. We do need to reassess the map with the new information anyway, as Wayne Allen Sallee has noted. A longer video covering the original BDM is also available, which includes the episode scenes with Locke, making it even more interesting and creepy to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iPGxyVGsbI&feature=related

http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Blast_door_map_%28Via_Domus%29