Friday, January 23, 2009

LT184: Pendulums, Poles and Pictures

FAITH AND SCIENCE

For four seasons it seemed that LOST was exploring at theme of faith VERSUS science. Now we are left to wonder if they are examining faith AND science. A merger, if you will. It started with Ms. Hawking working in her science lab and then walking upstairs into a church.

The pendulum seen in the lab is also a common symbol of many religions, such as the thurible used in Catholic mass. Combine this with the practice of lighting candles as we see Ben doing and you have a science intertwined with religion.

Also consider that Ms. Hawking was wearing a cloak which brings to mind some religious overtones. Or is all of this symbolism actually a way to poke fun at faith? For one hand it seems one could draw the conclusion that the church was being used as a front or façade. It seems this goes to only strengthen the theory that the show’s opposing forces, Ben and Widmore, are on polar opposites of the scale.



PENDULUM AND SCIENCE

Foucault’s Pendulum is used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. Several Science Centers, including in my hometown, have these devices. Mine uses it to tell time as the swing of the pendulum knocks down a peg representing a minute of the day.

The device works by allowing it to oscillate in any vertical plane. Did I just say oscillate? It is worth noting that at the North or South Pole, the plane of oscillation remains fixed with respect to fixed stars. This means that a full rotation happens at each pole, clockwise at one and in exact opposite at the other. Sort of like a mirror image of each other!

The article I found on this kept mentioning a “parallel transport”, which in the best terms I can describe is the principle of making connections between geographical points. Hmmm…


DID YOU NOTICE?

There was a picture on the table in Kate’s house that showed Jack with Aaron. Not surprising since these crazy kids were just one or two mysterious phone calls away from getting married, but I wanted to make sure you noticed it.



Did you hear the public address speaker in the airport when Sun was getting ready to fly to L.A? It said that Flight 23 was boarding at Gate 15. Ah, these cursed numbers!


When Ben enters the butcher shop he takes a number. We see it as 342, but a carefully placed thumb gives us 42.


When Jack is reviving Sayid we see Jack turns the knob on the oxygen tank. We can see the 4, 8 and 12 numbers. No big deal until you realize they are even numbers until it gets to 15?


BEN’S OBJECT IN THE VENT

This guy is just sneaky to the core. What is he doing hiding something in the vent of a motel room? The first thought I had was this was about the size and shape of that buried box with the crackers that Hurley found so inviting. I think there is a clue here as to timing. What I mean is that this can explain why the crackers are not as stale as one might think they would be.

Enjoy,

KC

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ben here,
Thanks for commenting on my last post! It feels like I'm a celebrity and seeing myself in Star!
Oh Man, to tell you the truth, I'm getting sick of these numbers showing up everywhere all the time... it's merely the producer's response to getting the audience excited about seeing numbers on the show.
I'm afraid that if they overuse them, they'll lose their significance.

About the healing thing...Rose and Locke and maybe Mikhail are the only ones that were hurt considerably and the island healed them...but what about Charlie coming back from the dead after being strangled? or Sawyer healing from Sayid's knife wound? I think a lot of them have the potential to heal, but haven't had the opportunity...I wouldn't be surprised if we saw Frogurt and other ones hit with arrows again.

Of all the people on the island, we can't really say that the Lost aren't aging, because they haven't been on the island long enough for us to notice. The only one who seems to have aged is Ben, but maybe the island just brings them to maturity and then stops the aging process.

I don't really know nor care about the string-time-continuum thing. That's all I have to say about that.

OH yeah, I still disagree that Hawking is Daniel's mum...wanna bet? I'm telling you...it's gonna be some ignorant, sheltering woman that has instructions left by Daniel for Des.

Going to the pendulum thing...I noticed there were several star- things on the map...does this mean that they're tracking the island? Do they know where it is, but once they find its coordinates, it moves again? So now Hawking's been able to estimate where the island's going to be in two days? why not after that? eh? well?

One last thing, I also really liked the song...but I didn't know who produced it, although they did sound familiar.

Take care,
Ben