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113-439: As the main setting of the series, the island boasts a number of unusual properties. Its location changes at times and it cannot be reached by ordinary means. The island is surrounded by some sort of barrier which causes disruptions in the normal flow of time for those who cross it. Electromagnetic phenomena are common on the island, and it seems to bestow unusual healing properties to some of its residents. Located deep inside

226-451: A black mass accompanied by mechanical-like sounds and electrical activity within, dubbed the "Smoke Monster" or just the "Monster" by the survivors. The monster has been described by Lost producer Damon Lindelof as "one of the biggest secrets" of the mythology. The producers have often hinted that the black cloud of smoke is not a monster in the traditional sense, nor is it a cloud of nanobots (as some fans have speculated). The smoke monster

339-447: A call from Jin, who has found Kate, Jack Shephard ( Matthew Fox ), and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes ( Jorge Garcia ) in the jungle. Sawyer secretly meets them far from the barracks, where they are reunited. In the episode " Confirmed Dead ", Charlotte's birthday is said to be July 2, 1979. This led to a minor continuity error in "LaFleur", when Charlotte is depicted as being a young girl in 1974. Executive producers Cuse and Lindelof claimed in

452-512: A crew member named Brandon tried to sneak off the boat to get a closer look at the Island. According to Minkowski, as they approached "something happened" to Brandon that caused them to turn back. Brandon died as a result of this attempt to approach the Island, and Minkowski suffered from temporal displacement (jumping between past and present in his mind) and, lacking a "constant" (some aspect of his life present in both times and to which he would have

565-709: A different character, each of them being a "candidate", according to the Man in Black , destined to become the new 'protector of the Island' in Jacob 's place. Jack Shephard was number 23, as in Psalm 23 , The Lord is my Shepherd (but 42 is associated with Jin Kwon at that point). When the wreckage is found at the bottom of an ocean trench, the TV reporter announces that there were 324 passengers on

678-468: A fan of The Illuminatus! Trilogy , which details the 23 enigma , another one of the numbers. He also mentioned the movie The Number 23 and revealed that Jim Carrey was the initial choice for the role of Jack Shepard before being recast with Fox. The number 108 is of great significance in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. At the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con , Lindelof stated that "we may never know what

791-414: A force law for the interaction between elements of electric current, Ampère placed the subject on a solid mathematical foundation. A theory of electromagnetism, known as classical electromagnetism , was developed by several physicists during the period between 1820 and 1873, when James Clerk Maxwell 's treatise was published, which unified previous developments into a single theory, proposing that light

904-515: A fundamentally different person. It is revealed in " Dead is Dead " that the structure the viewers see is merely a wall concealing the temple and the actual temple itself is a mile away on the other side of the wall. There is also a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the surface of the Island. The lair of the Monster lies in these tunnels, beneath the site of the Temple wall, and another chamber was used by

1017-451: A heretofore-unseen lighthouse on the Island's coast. At the top of the lighthouse's stone tower is a set of mirrors which can rotate via a large stone dial, labeled with numbers and in some cases the names of the "candidates". Jack is able to see an image of his childhood home reflected in the mirrors when they are turned to his number, 23; whether this is due to some property of the lighthouse mirrors and structure or simply to Jacob's influence

1130-436: A link between human-made electric current and magnetism was Gian Romagnosi , who in 1802 noticed that connecting a wire across a voltaic pile deflected a nearby compass needle. However, the effect did not become widely known until 1820, when Ørsted performed a similar experiment. Ørsted's work influenced Ampère to conduct further experiments, which eventually gave rise to a new area of physics: electrodynamics. By determining

1243-474: A magnetic field transforms to a field with a nonzero electric component and conversely, a moving electric field transforms to a nonzero magnetic component, thus firmly showing that the phenomena are two sides of the same coin. Hence the term "electromagnetism". (For more information, see Classical electromagnetism and special relativity and Covariant formulation of classical electromagnetism .) Today few problems in electromagnetism remain unsolved. These include:

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1356-446: A magnetic needle using a Voltaic pile. The factual setup of the experiment is not completely clear, nor if current flowed across the needle or not. An account of the discovery was published in 1802 in an Italian newspaper, but it was largely overlooked by the contemporary scientific community, because Romagnosi seemingly did not belong to this community. An earlier (1735), and often neglected, connection between electricity and magnetism

1469-404: A man nearly fifty feet into the air. In another it wraps a tendril of smoke around a man's arm, severing it. In the first episode of season 6, " LA X ", it is revealed that the "Locke", with whom Ben is traveling back to the island, has become The Monster, an incarnation of Jacob's nemesis. It appears in the remains of the statue of Taweret and kills five people. One of the people manages to create

1582-507: A man whose only goal has been leaving the Island and "going home". After claiming Sayid to his side, and giving the Others the chance to join him, he stormed the temple and massacred all those who did not comply. In " Recon ", he gave Sawyer a mission to investigate Hydra Island to see if the coast was clear for him and the Others to travel over there so they could take the Ajira plane and fly off

1695-580: A mining colony, probably set-off from the Eastern Coast of Africa, Mozambique . The ship contains dynamite, mining equipment and several chained skeletons, which are revealed to be enslaved people carried by the ship. Dr. Leslie Arzt ( Daniel Roebuck ) mentions that a tsunami could have swept it a couple miles inland as seen later in the episode. The Swan 's blast door map has a revision marking "Known Final Resting Place of Magnus Hanso / Black Rock " as seen in " Live Together, Die Alone ". The cabin

1808-452: A nearby compass needle to move. At the time of discovery, Ørsted did not suggest any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, nor did he try to represent the phenomenon in a mathematical framework. However, three months later he began more intensive investigations. Soon thereafter he published his findings, proving that an electric current produces a magnetic field as it flows through a wire. The CGS unit of magnetic induction ( oersted )

1921-407: A podcast that the original script for "Confirmed Dead" listed Charlotte's birthday as being in 1970 and that Mader had it changed because she did not want people to think she was significantly older than she actually is. This caused a controversy when Mader later stated on her blog that Gregg Nations, the script coordinator, was the one who suggested the change. Cuse and Lindelof later conceded that she

2034-400: A rescue, as opposed to the regular style of flashbacks . The characters are revealed in the first seven episodes of Season 4 : Electromagnetism In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge via electromagnetic fields . The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It is the dominant force in

2147-415: A ring of ash around himself, temporarily hindering the smoke monster. The monster throws a rock at the man, knocking him out of the circle and making it possible for it to kill him. After the men are all dead, the smoke monster exits, and Jacob's nemesis, in the form of John Locke, immediately appears, stating that he is sorry that Ben had to see him "like that". It is later revealed that The Monster used to be

2260-413: A sewing-needle by means of the discharge of Leyden jars." The electromagnetic force is the second strongest of the four known fundamental forces and has unlimited range. All other forces, known as non-fundamental forces . (e.g., friction , contact forces) are derived from the four fundamental forces. At high energy, the weak force and electromagnetic force are unified as a single interaction called

2373-418: A sickness' true cause. The Others transmit a signal that they use to locate the Island. The Island is surrounded by a shield of electromagnetic energy, which causes temporal displacement and death when trying to enter or leave the Island, unless the person is traveling from a certain angle and bearing (which changes when the Island moves). The DHARMA Initiative located the Island, after learning about it through

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2486-495: A strong emotional connection), died soon after. One crew member, Regina, speaks with Faraday over a radio regarding a rocket payload experiment. At the time, she sounds normal. By the time Sayid and Desmond have reached the freighter, Regina is suffering from some sort of psychosis. She is pretending to be reading a book, even though it is held upside down and she generally appears as "mentally out of it". Later, Regina commits suicide by wrapping herself in heavy chains and jumping into

2599-453: A threat to those entering or leaving it, particularly if they have been exposed to a high amount of electromagnetism. Doing so under these circumstances can lead to one's consciousness traveling through time (called "temporal displacement" on the show), eventually resulting in death unless a " constant " can be found between the present and the destination time period. After Benjamin Linus turns

2712-508: A unified concept of energy. This unification, which was observed by Michael Faraday , extended by James Clerk Maxwell , and partially reformulated by Oliver Heaviside and Heinrich Hertz , is one of the key accomplishments of 19th-century mathematical physics . It has had far-reaching consequences, one of which was the understanding of the nature of light . Unlike what was proposed by the electromagnetic theory of that time, light and other electromagnetic waves are at present seen as taking

2825-405: A week, but regains the feeling in his legs immediately after coming into contact with Locke. He is able to walk (with the aid of a cane) only days later. The Others appear to operate on the assumption that cancer is impossible on the Island (" One of Us "). Ben Linus appears deeply shocked when told he has a tumor on his spine, and Juliet notes the coincidence that Jack, a spinal surgeon, arrived on

2938-403: Is achieved by tapping into the Island's energy source, as the frozen wheel does. An unusual form of naturally occurring electromagnetism is present on the island. While physical objects seem to be affected by the time passage, electromagnetism, such as radio waves are not affected. People are able to communicate directly to the outside world without a time lapse. A station was built to study

3051-476: Is also possible, though rare. Since "the Incident", increased electromagnetic immersion caused women who conceive children on the Island to die of an auto-immune condition during the second trimester of pregnancy . They can otherwise give birth as long as conception occurs off the island or if they leave before the second trimester. Some castaways express the belief that they have been miraculously healed since

3164-411: Is compatible with special relativity. According to Maxwell's equations, the speed of light in vacuum is a universal constant that is dependent only on the electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability of free space . This violates Galilean invariance , a long-standing cornerstone of classical mechanics. One way to reconcile the two theories (electromagnetism and classical mechanics) is to assume

3277-512: Is cured of these problems, although he did suffer a temporary relapse after the death of Charlotte. The third season reveals that any woman who conceives on the island dies before the baby is born. Specifically, the pregnancy goes well until about midway through the second trimester, when complications arise. The mother's body rejects the fetus as a viral infection, resulting in both the mother and child's death. Juliet states that in her research, no one made it to their third trimester. Animals such as

3390-459: Is established as an antagonist in Lost from the very first episode, " Pilot ". The producers' initial plan was for the monster to represent the id , in a manner similar to the " id monster " from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet . This idea was changed by the end of season one , when the character Danielle Rousseau describes the monster as a "security system" for the Island, specifically the ruins of

3503-527: Is impossible to get sick on the Island. Locke also makes a miraculously fast recovery in the episode " Through the Looking Glass ", after being shot and left for dead by Ben in the episode " The Man Behind the Curtain ". Locke also comments that he would have died from being shot, had the kidney Ben was aiming for not been removed earlier in his life. In the episode " Lockdown ", his legs are crushed by

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3616-415: Is in a panic, having lost her inhaler, until Sun recommends herbs from her garden. In " The Variable ", Daniel Faraday is shown to have suffered severe mental damage as a result of his experiments in temporal displacement, impairing his long-term memory. Charles Widmore promises Faraday that he will be healed if he goes on the freighter mission he was recruiting him for. Upon his arrival on the island, Daniel

3729-536: Is killed, Ben summons the Smoke Monster in a secret chamber hidden in his closet whose stone door contains hieroglyphics. In " There's No Place Like Home Pt 3", when Ben enters the Orchid Station, behind the official Dharma built station, he finds what appear to be ancient tombstones covered with unknown hieroglyphs on his way to the final room, where an ancient man-made wheel rests that is used to "move

3842-400: Is named in honor of his contributions to the field of electromagnetism. His findings resulted in intensive research throughout the scientific community in electrodynamics. They influenced French physicist André-Marie Ampère 's developments of a single mathematical form to represent the magnetic forces between current-carrying conductors. Ørsted's discovery also represented a major step toward

3955-508: Is no one-to-one correspondence between electromagnetic units in SI and those in CGS, as is the case for mechanical units. Furthermore, within CGS, there are several plausible choices of electromagnetic units, leading to different unit "sub-systems", including Gaussian , "ESU", "EMU", and Heaviside–Lorentz . Among these choices, Gaussian units are the most common today, and in fact the phrase "CGS units"

4068-567: Is often used to refer specifically to CGS-Gaussian units . The study of electromagnetism informs electric circuits , magnetic circuits , and semiconductor devices ' construction. LaFleur (Lost) " LaFleur " is the eighth television episode of the fifth season of ABC 's Lost . The 94th episode of the show overall, "LaFleur" aired on March 4, 2009, on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada. The episode

4181-479: Is revealed that pregnant polar bears who were transported to the Island from the Hydra station would suffer dire consequences due to the high levels of electromagnetism. The Island also affects fertility in men. Jin-Soo Kwon was sterile before coming to the Island, but impregnates his wife while there. In the episode " D.O.C. ", Juliet reveals that men on the island have five times the normal sperm count . Contrary to

4294-454: Is studied, for example, in the subject of magnetohydrodynamics , which combines Maxwell theory with the Navier–Stokes equations . Another branch of electromagnetism dealing with nonlinearity is nonlinear optics . Here is a list of common units related to electromagnetism: In the electromagnetic CGS system, electric current is a fundamental quantity defined via Ampère's law and takes

4407-539: Is swept inland by a colossal rogue wave , destroying all but one foot of the coastal statue of Taweret on its way, but a mystery remains as to how the Black Rock had landed on almost the other side of the Island from where the statue of Taweret was. In " The Constant ", it is explained that the Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth , England , on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the Kingdom of Siam , when she

4520-460: Is unclear. There are ruins on the Island, many with hieroglyphs. In " Live Together, Die Alone ", while at sea, Sayid , Jin , and Sun sight the remnants of a massive statue standing upon a rock in the surf. All that is left is a large, four-toed marble foot broken off at the ankle. It has been compared to the Colossus of Rhodes . The full statue, viewed from the back, appears from a distance in

4633-595: The Greeks and the Mayans , created wide-ranging theories to explain lightning , static electricity , and the attraction between magnetized pieces of iron ore . However, it was not until the late 18th century that scientists began to develop a mathematical basis for understanding the nature of electromagnetic interactions. In the 18th and 19th centuries, prominent scientists and mathematicians such as Coulomb , Gauss and Faraday developed namesake laws which helped to explain

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4746-458: The Lorentz force describes microscopic charged particles. The electromagnetic force is responsible for many of the chemical and physical phenomena observed in daily life. The electrostatic attraction between atomic nuclei and their electrons holds atoms together. Electric forces also allow different atoms to combine into molecules, including the macromolecules such as proteins that form

4859-564: The electroweak interaction . Most of the forces involved in interactions between atoms are explained by electromagnetic forces between electrically charged atomic nuclei and electrons . The electromagnetic force is also involved in all forms of chemical phenomena . Electromagnetism explains how materials carry momentum despite being composed of individual particles and empty space. The forces we experience when "pushing" or "pulling" ordinary material objects result from intermolecular forces between individual molecules in our bodies and in

4972-408: The permeability as a dimensionless quantity (relative permeability) whose value in vacuum is unity . As a consequence, the square of the speed of light appears explicitly in some of the equations interrelating quantities in this system. Formulas for physical laws of electromagnetism (such as Maxwell's equations ) need to be adjusted depending on what system of units one uses. This is because there

5085-599: The quantized nature of matter. In QED, changes in the electromagnetic field are expressed in terms of discrete excitations, particles known as photons , the quanta of light. Investigation into electromagnetic phenomena began about 5,000 years ago. There is evidence that the ancient Chinese , Mayan , and potentially even Egyptian civilizations knew that the naturally magnetic mineral magnetite had attractive properties, and many incorporated it into their art and architecture. Ancient people were also aware of lightning and static electricity , although they had no idea of

5198-536: The Dharma Initiative. Jacob's brother tried to use the energy to transport himself off of the Island by building the frozen wheel underground. The Island is surrounded by an invisible electromagnetic barrier in which the normal rules of time do not apply. In " The Economist ", a missile fired from a freighter outside the barrier to the Island, carrying a timer in its payload, is shown to take roughly 31 minutes longer to arrive at its designated target area. In

5311-612: The Island for time preceding even that (definitely hundreds, possibly thousands of years). The Others used to reside in the barracks first built by the Dharma Initiative to house their employees, after the Purge, but have left the Barracks during season 3 and have not returned. The Oceanic Six is a group that consists of characters who have safely gotten off the Island and are given flashforward episodes showing them coping with life after

5424-554: The Island, Kelvin Inman also asked Desmond about his physical health and implied that he was out long enough to have been exposed. A mysterious vaccine is provided by Dharma food drops. It is taken regularly by Kelvin and Desmond in the Swan Station. This vaccine likely exists as a means of enforcing isolation and is of no medical value. It's also highly likely it's for counteracting electromagnetic radiation exposure that's surrounding

5537-502: The Island. Later in the episode, it tells Kate that he is sorry about Claire. He tells her that his own mother was crazy, just like Aaron's mother, Claire. In the final episode, he is rendered mortal again, along with Jack, the new protector of the island, when the electromagnetic source at the center of the island is disabled. Trapped in the form of John Locke, the Man in Black fights Jack on the cliffs, stabs him and almost kills him. Kate shoots

5650-476: The Man in Black in the back, and Jack kicks him off the cliff, killing the darkness before it could cross over on a boat to Hydra Island in order to escape the Island using the plane. The numbers 4 , 8 , 15 , 16 , 23 , and 42 appear throughout the series, both in sequence and individually. The numbers add up to 108 , another common number in the series. For example, it is said that the Oceanic Six left

5763-467: The Numbers mean". In a 2010 interview with USA Today , Lindelof also remarked that the show “wasn't about the answer to what the numbers meant, it was really about: 'How did I feel while I was watching Lost ? ' " From the 1970s to the 1990s, a group known as The DHARMA Initiative operated through numerous stations scattered across the Island, studying its unique properties. They came into conflict with

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5876-399: The Others at the time (probably Charles Widmore, who is shown interacting with Benjamin Linus before the Purge, and is generally known for his ruthlessness). Its facilities were left behind, some of which the Others claimed as their own. As a result of time travel, some of the survivors of Flight 815 become directly involved with The DHARMA Initiative, joining the program in the mid-1970s during

5989-471: The Others to isolate a hydrogen bomb with a breach in its casing, which lies beneath the Dharma Initiative barracks. Some of these tunnels are marked on the blast door map in the Swan Station. In the sixth-season episode " Across the Sea ", young Jacob and his unnamed fraternal twin brother are shown a cave with a waterfall; in " The End ," Desmond descends into the cave and discovers an ancient chamber. In

6102-464: The Others, known to them as the Hostiles, as a result. They formed a tentative truce with them with strict territorial boundaries set for each side. The DHARMA Initiative began to decline around the 1980s (most likely following the "Incident"), and was virtually destroyed in 1992 when Benjamin Linus facilitated a massacre of the group, named "the Purge", orchestrated by Richard Alpert and the leader of

6215-400: The Others. Alpert is further convinced when Sawyer shares knowledge of the events that transpired in 1954 when Locke approached him. Because Sawyer has successfully defused the situation, Horace allows the group to stay for two weeks and look for the other crew members of their ship, when in reality they are waiting for Locke to return with the survivors who left the island. Three years later,

6328-466: The Swan Station since 1977. Additional vaccine is administered to Claire's unborn child by Ethan after her kidnapping. During this encounter, Ethan confides in Claire that the Others don't have enough vaccine, implying that either they or their recent abductees required it as well. This vaccine either serves an alternate purpose that Ethan was unwilling to divulge or represents a dramatic misinterpretation of

6441-552: The Swan station's blast doors. Rose teases Locke later when he is depressed about possibly being immobile, saying that he will recover sooner than he should. In " Because You Left ", Locke gets shot in the leg by Ethan when he is flashed to the past. After Locke gets flashed to the present day, Richard briefly treats his wound and tells him "the island will do the rest." Other characters like Mikhail Bakunin and Naomi also recover from injuries very fast. Shannon suffers an asthma attack and

6554-498: The United States Army, by building The Lamp Post, an off-Island station underneath a church, over a pocket of electromagnetic energy that uses the energy and a complex mathematical equation to locate where and when the Island will be. The Island can be physically moved in space, while many of its occupants have been seen to move through time and space, to wherever the island is located at that moment in time. This phenomenon

6667-458: The ability to disturb a compass needle. The link between lightning and electricity was not confirmed until Benjamin Franklin 's proposed experiments in 1752 were conducted on 10   May 1752 by Thomas-François Dalibard of France using a 40-foot-tall (12 m) iron rod instead of a kite and he successfully extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. One of the first to discover and publish

6780-416: The baby, the first that survived in all her time on the island. Horace believes that Amy is not yet over her deceased husband, however Sawyer reassures him by stating that three years is enough time to get over someone, referring to his relationship with Kate Austen ( Evangeline Lilly ). Sawyer returns to his home, where he lives with Juliet, with whom he is now in a relationship. The next morning, he receives

6893-513: The barracks, where Amy resides. However, she tricks them into walking through the sonic fence which surrounds the barracks, knocking them unconscious. Sawyer wakes up and is confronted by Horace Goodspeed ( Doug Hutchison ), the leader of the Dharma Initiative on the island. Sawyer tells him that his name is James LaFleur and that he and the other survivors were part of a shipwreck on the island, and that they are still looking for other members of their crew. Horace tells him that they will have to leave

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7006-628: The basis of life . Meanwhile, magnetic interactions between the spin and angular momentum magnetic moments of electrons also play a role in chemical reactivity; such relationships are studied in spin chemistry . Electromagnetism also plays several crucial roles in modern technology : electrical energy production, transformation and distribution; light, heat, and sound production and detection; fiber optic and wireless communication; sensors; computation; electrolysis; electroplating; and mechanical motors and actuators. Electromagnetism has been studied since ancient times. Many ancient civilizations, including

7119-492: The broken base of a large, stone column. Toward the end of the third season, Ben tells Richard to continue leading the rest of the Others to the Temple, and in " Meet Kevin Johnson " he sends Alex, Karl, and Rousseau to the same location. His map marks it with a Dharma Initiative symbol, but the Temple has also been mentioned as something the Monster is in place to protect. In addition, in " The Shape of Things to Come ", after Alex

7232-693: The chamber there is a pool of electromagnetic energy with a large hieroglyphic stone that sits at the center covering a mysterious hole. When it is removed by Desmond, the water and energy drain from the pool, an infernal red glow infuses the chamber, and the island begins to violently react. When Jack returns the stone, the water begins to flow into the pool again and the electromagnetic energy returns. The Island has extraordinary healing properties. The Island can heal normally untreatable conditions, such as spinal damage (Locke), cancer (Rose), and infertility ( Jin ). Injuries heal much faster than they normally would, though by no means are people incapable of dying. Disease

7345-407: The crash. Prior to his arrival, Locke was paralyzed, but he regains the use of his legs immediately after the crash. Richard Alpert says in " The Brig " that Locke's spine healing itself is not a normal event, even by the Island's standards. It is a sign of Locke being somehow "special". The effects of this specialness seem to extend to other people. After his spinal surgery, Ben is paralyzed for over

7458-502: The deep connections between electricity and magnetism that would be discovered over 2,000 years later. Despite all this investigation, ancient civilizations had no understanding of the mathematical basis of electromagnetism, and often analyzed its impacts through the lens of religion rather than science (lightning, for instance, was considered to be a creation of the gods in many cultures). Electricity and magnetism were originally considered to be two separate forces. This view changed with

7571-562: The effects of modern physics , including quantum mechanics and relativity . The theoretical implications of electromagnetism, particularly the requirement that observations remain consistent when viewed from various moving frames of reference ( relativistic electromagnetism ) and the establishment of the speed of light based on properties of the medium of propagation ( permeability and permittivity ), helped inspire Einstein's theory of special relativity in 1905. Quantum electrodynamics (QED) modifies Maxwell's equations to be consistent with

7684-433: The episode " LaFleur " Amy gives birth to a healthy baby Ethan and there was no mention of her being off the island during conception or pregnancy. It is revealed that during Dharma time women would leave the island to give birth, though Amy is clearly in the third trimester of her pregnancy. This implies that the pregnancy problems were caused by the electromagnetism released during the Incident. In "The New Man In Charge" it

7797-576: The existence of a luminiferous aether through which the light propagates. However, subsequent experimental efforts failed to detect the presence of the aether. After important contributions of Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré , in 1905, Albert Einstein solved the problem with the introduction of special relativity, which replaced classical kinematics with a new theory of kinematics compatible with classical electromagnetism. (For more information, see History of special relativity .) In addition, relativity theory implies that in moving frames of reference,

7910-435: The existence of self-sustaining electromagnetic waves . Maxwell postulated that such waves make up visible light , which was later shown to be true. Gamma-rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible, infrared radiation, microwaves and radio waves were all determined to be electromagnetic radiation differing only in their range of frequencies. In the modern era, scientists continue to refine the theory of electromagnetism to account for

8023-477: The fifth-season episode " LaFleur ". The statue seen from behind has lion-like ears, a crown on the head, long hair, an ankh in each hand, and ancient Egyptian dress. The statue is named Taweret , the Egyptian god of fertility and life. At the base of the statue is a secret chamber in which Jacob resides. All four elements of earth, water, fire, and air are represented in this chamber. "The fire pit in

8136-668: The first time was Oceanic 815. During the season 2 episode " Man of Science, Man of Faith ", Jack is giving care to two people who have been in a car crash. After one of them dies, a voice is heard in the background saying, "Time of death, 8:15 AM". According to the DHARMA Orientation video in the Lost Experience , the numbers represent the factors of the Valenzetti Equation , which claims to accurately predict when humanity will be extinguished. A part of

8249-484: The footballs, Locke proceeds to tell her that Aisle 8 are for regulation and Aisle 15 are for Nerf. In the season five episode " Some Like It Hoth ", members of the DHARMA Initiative are shown as they are building the hatch which the survivors would later live in. As they are preparing to place the door on the hatch, a worker asks for the serial number to put on the door. Another worker responds by telling him

8362-516: The form of quantized , self-propagating oscillatory electromagnetic field disturbances called photons . Different frequencies of oscillation give rise to the different forms of electromagnetic radiation , from radio waves at the lowest frequencies, to visible light at intermediate frequencies, to gamma rays at the highest frequencies. Ørsted was not the only person to examine the relationship between electricity and magnetism. In 1802, Gian Domenico Romagnosi , an Italian legal scholar, deflected

8475-435: The formation and interaction of electromagnetic fields. This process culminated in the 1860s with the discovery of Maxwell's equations , a set of four partial differential equations which provide a complete description of classical electromagnetic fields. Maxwell's equations provided a sound mathematical basis for the relationships between electricity and magnetism that scientists had been exploring for centuries, and predicted

8588-564: The frozen wheel beneath the Orchid station, he finds himself in the Tunisian Desert 10 months later. After the wheel is turned, several characters remaining on the Island are intermittently transported back and forward through time, with each shift being accompanied by a blinding purple flash and health deterioration effects (including headaches and nosebleeds) until Locke puts the wheel back on its axis. Walt's becoming so tall so quickly

8701-413: The height of its power. The Others are a group of inhabitants that have been on the island for an unknown number of years. It is known that their occupation precedes both the Dharma Initiative and the U.S. Army 's exploration of the island, as well as the survivors of Flight 815. Early flashbacks show they have been on the island since at least the mid-19th century, and both Jacob and his rival existing on

8814-666: The interactions of atoms and molecules . Electromagnetism can be thought of as a combination of electrostatics and magnetism , which are distinct but closely intertwined phenomena. Electromagnetic forces occur between any two charged particles. Electric forces cause an attraction between particles with opposite charges and repulsion between particles with the same charge, while magnetism is an interaction that occurs between charged particles in relative motion. These two forces are described in terms of electromagnetic fields. Macroscopic charged objects are described in terms of Coulomb's law for electricity and Ampère's force law for magnetism;

8927-445: The island after 108 days. Also, the button in the hatch had to be pushed every 108 minutes. The numbers were first explicitly mentioned in the season one episode " Numbers ", which was also the 18th episode of the series, 18 being the average of the numbers. They were chosen by Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and David Fury , one of the writers of that episode. Speaking in 2008, Fury remarked that "your guesses are as good as mine" as to what

9040-420: The island two days after Ben's condition was diagnosed. Similarly, Rose had been dying of cancer before crashing on the island. After the crash, she feels as if the cancer has "left her body" and, in " S.O.S. ", credits her cure to the island. Jack contracts appendicitis while on the Island, which Rose observes is suspicious given that they expect their imminent rescue and the fact that she strongly believes that it

9153-434: The island". The fifth-season episode " This Place is Death " shows a better view of what appears to be the Temple that Ben will one day order Richard to lead his people to. In this episode the temple is directly guarded by the Monster. In " Whatever Happened, Happened ", Richard Alpert is seen taking a young Benjamin Linus inside the temple, as a means of healing a fatal gunshot wound. Alpert notes beforehand that Ben will emerge

9266-469: The island's radio transmitter as a message that drew Rousseau 's expedition there. Rousseau changed the message after the deaths of her teammates. The transmission was also heard by military personnel stationed off the island, eventually making their way to Hurley . Some time before the crash, Hurley uses the numbers for a lottery, and wins a huge amount of money, but this seems to bring those around him nothing but misfortune. Because of this, Hurley believes

9379-421: The jungle is the Black Rock , a sailing ship from the mid-19th century. In " Ab Aeterno ", the Black Rock set sail in 1867 and was captained by Magnus Hanso and had Richard Alpert , a Spaniard by the name of Ricardo, as a prisoner. Jacob , the protector of the island, does not deny when asked by his fraternal twin brother if he brought the ship to the island, as the two watch it approaching. Eventually, it

9492-435: The knives took up the nails. On this the whole number was tried, and found to do the same, and that, to such a degree as to take up large nails, packing needles, and other iron things of considerable weight ... E. T. Whittaker suggested in 1910 that this particular event was responsible for lightning to be "credited with the power of magnetizing steel; and it was doubtless this which led Franklin in 1751 to attempt to magnetize

9605-478: The lack of magnetic monopoles , Abraham–Minkowski controversy , the location in space of the electromagnetic field energy, and the mechanism by which some organisms can sense electric and magnetic fields. The Maxwell equations are linear, in that a change in the sources (the charges and currents) results in a proportional change of the fields. Nonlinear dynamics can occur when electromagnetic fields couple to matter that follows nonlinear dynamical laws. This

9718-613: The lack of disease on the Island, Rousseau claims to have killed her team because they had caught a mysterious disease, which necessitated their executions. She also claims that the Others are the carriers of disease. It is later shown that Rousseau's crew was "infected" after entering the tunnels beneath the Temple in order to rescue a member of her team from the Monster. Upon their return, the three crew members show no physical symptoms of anything being wrong with them, but act strangely, even attempting to kill Rousseau. She executed them, believing that they were no longer "themselves" (although she

9831-442: The mechanisms behind these phenomena. The Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus discovered around 600 B.C.E. that amber could acquire an electric charge when it was rubbed with cloth, which allowed it to pick up light objects such as pieces of straw. Thales also experimented with the ability of magnetic rocks to attract one other, and hypothesized that this phenomenon might be connected to the attractive power of amber, foreshadowing

9944-427: The middle of the room consisted of flames rising from black sand with a ring of water surrounding all of it." The room also housed a weaving loom in which Jacob is shown creating a tapestry. In addition, painted on the ceiling was "an ancient Egyptian astronomical chart which refers to the stars and planets, time, and the goddess Taweret." Further ruins are revealed in " The Brig " when the Others tie Locke's father to

10057-429: The molecular scale, including its density, is determined by the balance between the electromagnetic force and the force generated by the exchange of momentum carried by the electrons themselves. In 1600, William Gilbert proposed, in his De Magnete , that electricity and magnetism, while both capable of causing attraction and repulsion of objects, were distinct effects. Mariners had noticed that lightning strikes had

10170-416: The next day on the submarine because they are not "Dharma material". Meanwhile, Daniel sees Charlotte Lewis ( Rebecca Mader ) as a young girl, but decides not to say anything to her. That night, the spokesman of the Others, Richard Alpert ( Nestor Carbonell ), enters the barracks to determine why his treaty with Dharma was broken. Sawyer convinces Alpert not to attack Dharma, because he is the one who killed

10283-496: The numbers are cursed. In the "flash-sideways" in season 6, Hurley has again won the lottery, but with different numbers, and appears to have great fortune afterwards. In the season 1 episode "Deus Ex Machina" , in a flashback, Locke is a salesman teaching a kid how to play the Mouse Trap, when he notices a mysterious woman staring at him, he goes to meet her and asks if he could help her, which in turn she says she's looking for

10396-454: The numbers mean. They are placed throughout the series for a kind of "Easter egg hunt". Sometimes DHARMA test rabbits can be seen that have identification numbers on them; at least twice, the 23rd rabbit has been seen. They can also be seen on items such as sports shirts and on the DHARMA interrogation room door, which is also designated "23". The plane that brought the castaways to the island for

10509-424: The numbers, which are inscribed on the hatch door. These numbers are later seen by some of the survivors, including Hurley. The numbers are seen in various occasions in different places during the series. A flashback in season one that shows Jack and Ana meeting at the airport bar mentions their seats on flight 815; Jack sits in row 23 and Ana Lucia in row 42. In season 6 a part of the plot associates each number with

10622-451: The objects. The effective forces generated by the momentum of electrons' movement is a necessary part of understanding atomic and intermolecular interactions. As electrons move between interacting atoms, they carry momentum with them. As a collection of electrons becomes more confined, their minimum momentum necessarily increases due to the Pauli exclusion principle . The behavior of matter at

10735-574: The ocean. No move is made by the crew to dissuade her, with Captain Gault claiming that "she is too far gone." How Regina, having never gotten close to the Island as Minkowski and Brandon had, became ill is never revealed. In " Cabin Fever ", Captain Gault informs Martin Keamy that he may be suffering from some sort of dementia connected with the Island. The Island is home to a mysterious entity, consisting of

10848-422: The past. On the island, after John Locke ( Terry O'Quinn ) falls into the chamber with the wheel during a time jump, the survivors — James "Sawyer" Ford ( Josh Holloway ), Juliet Burke ( Elizabeth Mitchell ), Miles Straume ( Ken Leung ), Daniel Faraday ( Jeremy Davies ) and Jin-Soo Kwon ( Daniel Dae Kim ) briefly arrive to a time when there is an ancient statue standing on the island. After Locke turns

10961-482: The plane, which is three times the sum of the numbers (108 × 3 = 324). In his last talk to the survivors of the crash, Jacob reveals they are "just numbers". In an interview with Lostpedia, producer David Fury confirmed that the number 42 was a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which it is “ the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything? ". Lindelof has professed to be

11074-451: The plot is based on certain characters using the numbers to constitute a code that must be entered in a terminal. The writers originally introduced the numbers solely to engineer a meeting between two characters, Hurley and Rousseau , not because they had a plan for them. Due to viewer feedback, however, they were eventually implemented into a greater part of the story. The numbers are introduced early in season 1: they were broadcast from

11187-408: The publication of James Clerk Maxwell 's 1873 A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in which the interactions of positive and negative charges were shown to be mediated by one force. There are four main effects resulting from these interactions, all of which have been clearly demonstrated by experiments: In April 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted observed that an electrical current in a wire caused

11300-452: The same episode, a helicopter leaves the Island late in the afternoon. Even though the flight only takes about 30 minutes, it arrives at the freighter the next morning. Doc Ray 's body washes ashore in " The Shape of Things to Come ", but when the freighter is contacted via radio for an explanation, he is alive and well from their perspective. Two episodes later, in " Cabin Fever ", the doctor is murdered and thrown overboard. The barrier poses

11413-481: The survivors have joined Dharma and are living in the barracks. Sawyer is the well respected head of security, while Jin (who is now fluent in English) continues to search for those who left the island. Amy is pregnant with Horace's baby and due to give birth in two weeks. Following an argument between them, Horace gets drunk and hurls sticks of dynamite at trees and Amy goes into early labor; Juliet successfully delivers

11526-417: The temple on the Island. This plan was continued into season five , when Rousseau's husband, Robert, describes the monster as a security system that guards the island's temple. It has been repeatedly described as a "security system." It emerges from vents in the ground to attack people, though it does not always attack those it encounters. The Monster is capable of lifting a grown man, and in one instance tosses

11639-477: The unique form of electromagnetism found there. Radzinski was very vocal in manipulating electromagnetism "in ways we have never dreamed before". At the end of " Live Together, Die Alone ", when Desmond has used the fail-safe device in the Swan station to destroy it, a monitoring station in the Antarctic detects the electromagnetic event. It is the same energy as that in the heart of the Island that's been hinted by

11752-611: The wheel, the survivors arrive to 1974, at the peak of the Dharma Initiative 's presence on the island. Now that John has pushed the wheel, the time jumps have stopped and they are stuck in the past. The group comes across a pair of Dharma Initiative members who have been captured by two of the island's native inhabitants, known as the Others . Juliet and Sawyer kill the Others and free Amy ( Reiko Aylesworth ), but her husband Paul (Casey Byrnes) has been killed. The group returns to

11865-418: The wild boars do not die during pregnancy. Women who went through their second trimester off the island are able to give birth without incident (Rousseau, Claire). The Others have enlisted the help of Juliet, a fertility researcher, to help find out why this happens, but she never finds an answer. Several women among the Others volunteer to get pregnant for Juliet's research, all with uniformly fatal results. In

11978-456: Was a natural event and not a result of the temporal displacement, although it was likely the inspiration of this device. Malcolm David Kelley's sudden growth spurt had caused a problem for Abrams and Lindelof who were seeking ways to explain it. In the end, the characters were stuck on the island for 108 days, the same as off the island. In the fourth-season episode " The Constant ", it is revealed that freighter communications officer Minkowski and

12091-406: Was an electromagnetic wave propagating in the luminiferous ether . In classical electromagnetism, the behavior of the electromagnetic field is described by a set of equations known as Maxwell's equations , and the electromagnetic force is given by the Lorentz force law . One of the peculiarities of classical electromagnetism is that it is difficult to reconcile with classical mechanics , but it

12204-423: Was built by the Dharma Initiative mathematician Horace Goodspeed as a sort of retreat for himself and his wife. It is surrounded by a broken ash circle. While at first it is believed that Jacob resides there, it is actually the Man in Black in the cabin, falsely giving orders on behalf of Jacob. The cabin has appeared in three separate locations. In " Lighthouse ", Jacob instructs Hurley to take Jack to

12317-478: Was on the verge of insanity herself after suffering this ordeal). The Temple master, Dogen, refers to both Sayid and Claire as being "infected". This infection is akin to being "claimed" by the Man in Black, and results in a complete loss of emotion and altered personality, a state which both Sayid and Claire were eventually able to overcome. When Locke is being held captive by Desmond, Desmond asks Locke if any of his people are sick or dying. When Desmond first came to

12430-475: Was reported by a Dr. Cookson. The account stated: A tradesman at Wakefield in Yorkshire, having put up a great number of knives and forks in a large box ... and having placed the box in the corner of a large room, there happened a sudden storm of thunder, lightning, &c. ... The owner emptying the box on a counter where some nails lay, the persons who took up the knives, that lay on the nails, observed that

12543-406: Was right. The episode gained 12.396 million American viewers and 339,000 Australian viewers. "LaFleur" garnered generally positive reviews from critics. Chris Carabott of IGN gave the episode a positive review, stating "The narrative successfully establishes a new direction for the story from here on out and gives us an exciting, yet familiar, setting for the next few episodes." He also liked

12656-486: Was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is the journal of the ship's First Mate , which was discovered seven years later among the artifacts of pirates on Île Sainte-Marie , Madagascar . The contents of this journal have never been made public nor known to anyone outside the family of the seller Tovard Hanso. This journal is later bought at auction by Charles Widmore . In " Exodus ", John Locke mentions that this ship must have been en route to

12769-429: Was written by co-executive producers Elizabeth Sarnoff and Kyle Pennington and directed by editor Mark Goldman. Having lost Charlotte Lewis in the time flashes, James "Sawyer" Ford , Juliet Burke , Miles Straume , Jin-Soo Kwon and Daniel Faraday realize the time flashes have stopped, and they find themselves in 1974. Sawyer then perpetuates a lie to the DHARMA Initiative to protect themselves from mistakes of

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