See also the crew member's tatoo with the bear paw in the middle of it, encircled by... A COMPASS, with indicated bearings on it.
The island is a space-time compass for a series of interconnected wormhole systems, enabling travel among a diverse set of Earthly and perhaps even other-wordly, sites. Hence the importance of some of the numbers, even the settings Faraday gave to Desmond, in understanding not only the bearings one can head through using the island space-time compass (is it golden?)
Doc Arzt has a great set of screen shots containing pages from Faraday's notebook, the crew member's tatoos, and other key easter eggs.1 Although these clues will undoubtedly yield further insights into the mechanisms for how all of this happens, it appears that the island is functioning as a space-time compass.
Is it flat? Is it round? If the latter, then those who have surmised that it appears difficult to leave the island because the island is round, may be vindicated. Either way, and currently I'm leaning toward the latter, the island's unique electromagnetic properties have made it not unlike a lump of lodestone used by ancient mariners to detect their bearings. Only this island is one BIG lump of electromagnetically-charged lodestone/magnetite, with so much energy that it functions as a space-time distortion, with its own space-time event horizon....
We may find that in addition to traveling on certain bearings (SPACE) to and from the island, the confluential double/mirror-meaning of 31 minutes as spatial direction and as temporal delay, is signalling us that traveling at certain TIMES also is involved.
How might this be playing out, and why might this help us to explain how it is possible to be trapped on the 'island'?
I strongly suspect that we'll find that the BLACK ROCK's ultimate goal was mapping wormhole events back in the 19th Century, only they did not know what to call them at that time. So the Black Rock ledger will reveal course bearings, indicating where some of the wormholes have appeared on Earth. This will help explain the Madagascar-Siam clue dropped into the episode.
But it would be a mistake to assume the Black Rock was ONLY mapping wormhole activity on Earth in terms of SPACE or WHERE these things were occurring.... No, the Black Rock was also mapping the TIME or WHEN these wormholes were opening up, at those 'special wormhole places' on Earth.
So it is NOT sufficient to use only SPACE/Where bearings when one attempts to travel (and here is the key) on an OUTWARD path from Earth, to the island space-time compass. One must also have the key or code-book (ledger) information regarding WHEN the wormhole periodically opens, at that particular site. This is where THE NUMBERS may come into prominent play.
Think of it like this. You know where the bus station is (WHERE the wormhole will open.) But you also need to know when the bus is scheduled to arrive at the station (WHEN the wormhole will open.) An even better example is the London 'tube' subway system. We will find glimpses of this wormhole space-time table in the Black Rock ledger.
Which of course is why Widmore wants it so badly. He actually got a REALLY good deal, given the possible uses of terran/Earthly wormhole travel, and perhaps even interstellar travel (Crab Nebula?) But remember it's not just WHERE we can go, but also WHEN. Think about how knowledge of the where and when of an operating, interconnected, wormhole system might be used in the hands of a self-interested, egomaniacal industrialist, and, well....
Back to the island space-time compass.... So you can sit on (probably not a good idea!) or near the wormhole spots, on Earth, but you'll have to wait until the periodic wormhole opens up, to travel on an OUTWARD path from your starting Earth destination (Tunisia, Australia, Madagascar, Siam, etc.) With reference to the island space-time compass, however, you will be traveling TOWARD the island as you move through the wormhole.
Here is the key. Like the crewman's tatoo suggests, the island is located as a spherical distortion in the space-time stream, with an outer shell event horizon. The island is located IN the hub of an interconnected wormhole transit system, only as a sphere it is a 360 degree hub. Like a traveler in the London Underground subway system, or better yet, when one nears this 'hub' qua Grand Central Station, one is routed along another wormhole path, through being deflected/redirected by the island's event horizon outer shell.
I know this sounds complex, but actually it is not. Simply envision the island as existing on a sphere, put this sphere in the middle of an interconnected wormhole system, radiating out in all directions (360 degrees), and you can see how the wormholes are not unlike shining a beam of light onto the round surface of a shiny sphere; the paths of the light (like the wormholes) are redirected in predictable paths, from the sphere in the middle. This is the island functioning as a Grand Central Station space-time nexus, directing and redirecting traffic through an interconnected wormhole system, the ends of which some times, and in some places, open on Earth, in periodic and predictable ways. So the island is a 360 degree space-time compass. (Note: To an omniscient time-lord outside observer, the surface of the sphere is actually the event horizon generated by island, appearing around the physical surface of the sphere, while the island exists on the 'physical' surface of the sphere, itself The energetic event horizon encircling the physical sphere is what serves as a 360 degree wormhole transit system router and, at the same time, a 360 degree space-time compass. But this whole thing would not be possible, were it not for the island and its unique properties....)2
Considering this in the context of the interesting diagrams in Faraday's notebook (see especially the one with the multiple spheres) yields some intriguing possibilities....
But aren't you proposing that some, or even most, of the wormhole transit activity does NOT pierce the turbulent outer shell event horizon, but rather bounces off or 'slingshotted around' the sphere, in other space-time directions? Yes! And this would explain why the island is not over-populated with piles and piles of weird people, organisms, and objects, from elsewhere and elsewhen. Ever wonder why the island is so sparsely populated with people and stuff? Since due to the nature of the island-- how it operates as a space-time Grand Central Station and compass-- the probability of actually moving through the horizon accidentally, to the island on the physical surface of the sphere, is low. One distinct possibility is that the island's own event horizon is subject to its own periodic fluctuations.... Anomalies like the Swan hatch implosion/EMP can also disrupt the outer shell energy-event-horizon.
Of course, this does NOT rule out the distinct possibility that through stumbling upon and through the event horizon, and arriving on the island, one might figure out the precise space-time bearings to move through the event horizon with greater control and less turbulence, leaving the island nexus/compass and reentering the wormhole transit system. This is what Ben must know how to do.... And it may be why the submarine is helpful... Ben and others may possess knowledge of a bearing/path away from the island, using the submarine underwater, that enables crossing the event horizon threshold shell surrounding the island, crossing it in a way that is less turbulent and more predictable, in terms of making the right connection to the wormhole that will take you where and when you want to go....
When it does happen-- when people and objects do appear on the island-- they are subject to a range of strange space-time effects, including distorted time perception, the appearance of slowed aging, scattered light, enhanced psychic activity (yes, perhaps in part enabled by STERILE NEUTRINOS.)
If these persons try to leave the island, their attempts will be thwarted since they will end up traveling around and around the island globe, unable to leave. Why? Since you need to travel outward from the island, along the proper space(time) bearing, to penetrate the island's event horizon and connect to a wormhole. This is why it is so important to use the same space-time bearing while leaving the island.... The 31 degree (minute) clue on Frank's helicopter gauge shows that it's important to pay attention to WHERE one is heading, with reference to the island (the COMPASS), and the 31 minute payload time differential clue shows that it's important to also pay attention to WHEN one is heading, where one is going, so one can properly hook up with the desired wormhole, when and as it opens with reference to the island's outer shell event horizon, thereby making the desired connection (finding the right bus, the right train, etc.) and heading back to good 'ol space-time home.3
So it matters not only where you are heading, but when you are heading, in terms of successfully using this interconnected wormhole traveling system, ensuring you will be traveling at/when the proper space-time coordinates that the wormhole opens, as it periodically does. This can be at one of the special wormhole places on Earth, functioning as space-time terminals (Tunisia, Australia, Madagascar, Siam, etc.) And the same logic applies to leaving the island, as well. If you try to leave but it's not the proper time to intersect an opening wormhole as it intersects the island's outer shell event horizon, then you'll keep flying and floating around, in circles, trapped on the island nexus/compass.
So the island is a space-time nexus, a 360-degree 'hub' in an interconnected wormhole travel system, whose 'lines' run or operate with clockwork precision to deliver their payloads to the appointed destinations/terminals (Tunisia, etc.) And yes, the nature of this island/nexus/sphere is that it functions in no small part as a space-time compass helping travelers identify the right heading/bearing to take, in order to make the right 'connecting flight' to the right wormhole exit. One effect of the island's functioning is that it 'unsticks' space-time for those who happen to be living on the island, living as it were in INSIDE the outer shell event horizon circling the island, producing some very interesting effects for those who are inhabiting the island, in terms of: scattered light, distorted space-time perception, and mind-ful flashes forward and backward in time.4
This is in no small part why the Black Rock ledger is so valuable-- they have begun mapping out not only the WHERE of the location of these wormhole endpoints/terminals on our island Earth, but by so doing, they have also begun mapping out the WHEN, i.e., the timing of when these wormholes periodically open at various places on Earth.
Of course, wormhole traveling being what it is, at times an anomaly occurs and those who are traveling through the wormhole system are inadvertently 'dumped' on the island, like the Flight 815 plane. (Was the Black Rock ship accidentally dumped on the island, or did it intentionally travel there, with mining equipment to extract valuable space-time compass material, to bring back to Earth in an attempt to recreate the island and its special space-time effects, on a smaller scale? And Ben appears to have special knowledge regarding the proper bearing to take to and from the island, to intentionally travel to and from the island....)
So yes, the $64 Billion Dollar Question now is whether the Black Rock ledger also reports the bearings/locations for traveling through wormholes to and from off-world locations! Is this the ability that Widmore so desired, when he bought that cherished ledger at auction? And does this not signal a potential dark-side subtext, dwarfing even the conspiracy led by the Cigarette Smoking Man himself, in X-Files?
Copyright 3/1/08
by Dr. Todd J. Hostager
ENDNOTES:
1. Please see the excellent Doc Arzt site for screen shots of The Constant, and more:
2. If I was viewing the island as a two-dimensional compass, I would be invoking a black hole as the driver for the island-nexus wormhole transit router. Instead, I'm positing a comparatively lower GRAVITY-DRIVEN island-nexus-compass mechanism, hence its shape as a sphere. NOT super-high gravity, mind you, but just enough to combine with the island's unique energy properties to produce the effects. This view has some benefits over a model positing a black hole operating on the island. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, anyone?
3. Yes, I was thinking about the connection of the Maxwell Group's logo to this view of the island as a compass, but I left that out, as the Maxwell Group may not turn out to be part of the official Lost canon.
4. I will not be surprised to learn that a larger and improved version of Daniel Faraday's mind-flashing time-travel device-- bigger and better than the one that was used to send Eloise into the future and impart her with a-mazing abilities-- was constructed on the island in the late 1990's or early 2000's. In the teaser for next week's episode, was Faraday adjusting the controls to this device? Even if it turns out that a 'Faraday-device' was not installed on the island, it certainly is interesting to reconsider the implications and potential effects of the 'flash' coinciding with the Swan hatch implosion....