Monday, February 2, 2009

LT193: One Thing Leads To Another

ARMY MARCHES BACK

It seems a popular theory is that the US Army was there with bombs in order to time travel. If you recall the opening scene in Season 5, one of the workers in the Orchid tunnel jokes about travelling back in time to kill Hitler. Dr. Halliwax should have replied, “Yes, sir. Exactly.”

The theory is that the United States had a desire to take the bombs back before the start of WWII (or earlier?) and to use them to stop the war from ever happening. This has shades of avoiding the Cuban Missile Crisis or any other major human event.

Or the more simple explanation might not include time travel but merely the testing of new weapons. This is a verified fact that the US tested bombs in the South Pacific at the Marshall Islands.


JUGHEAD A DUD

The bombs dropped on Japan were atomic bombs, not hydrogen bombs like the Jughead. This model was never tested and it seems about five were ever made.

Faraday sees chemical burns on one of the Others and reasons he must have been near the bomb. However, a hydrogen bomb can’t do that. The only risk involved is if the plutonium inside was converted to a liquid form. This is possible, but it requires inhaling or ingesting the stuff to have any negative effects.

The plutonium in the Jughead was a solid form and surrounded by explosives. The science behind these bombs was that if precisely positioned explosives were properly exploded at very controlled time, then the pressure would actual compact the plutonium into a tighter ball. The high temperatures and the high pressure applied would then cause a nuclear reaction. So, setting off one explosive or one entire side of the explosives by a stray bullet would not likely cause enough compact pressure on the ball of plutonium. The worst case scenario is that some of the plutonium might liquefy and spread out on the ground.

In order to render it inert as Daniel suggests one would simply cut the wires to the explosives surrounding the plutonium. Then you would remove or deactivate the explosives by soaking the bomb in water.

Yes, the plutonium ball in the center of the bomb is radioactive threat. If ingested or inhaled it can cause radiation sickness, or it can cure cancer. Strange how nature works. And plutonium might have other odd effects such as impacting pregnancies.

Encasing the plutonium in concrete is a temporary solution as the radioactivity of plutonium lasts for thousands of years and concrete lasts but a few hundred years in the best of conditions. Still, you have to do something with the stuff.

After this research, the best course of action would be to a) cut the wires, b) seal the whole thing as is in concrete casket and c) ship it out to the ocean and drop it in the deepest part you can find. Widmore Industries seems adept at this type of ocean burials, so contact them.


I SEE LOST IN EVERYTHING

If random folks on the street were given a poll on what first came to mind with the word “Jughead” then I’m betting an untested bomb of the 1950’s were not the be top response. My bet is the #1 answer would be the Archies comic book character.

Just to prove how I can see LOST in everything, let’s go down this path first…


MERLIN

In yesterday’s posting I introduced the comic novel, Watchmen. A character in the book develops a special aircraft that he nicknames “Archie”. The character explains this is a shortened nickname of Archimedes, the name of Merlin’s pet owl. This fits when you know that the character in Watchmen goes by the nickname of the Night Owl.

This leads us to Merlin who was part fictional and part real. In the literary works that introduced us to Merlin we learn that he was born of demonic origin to become the Antichrist. This plan was thwarted when his mother realized the plan and quickly got the baby baptized.

The connection is that Aaron is like Merlin who avoided a possible future life of evil – one observed by Claire’s psychic – by being baptized by Mr. Eko. The island perhaps was not thrilled with this turn of events and literally took its anger out on our favorite pseudo-priest.

See the connection? Jughead leads to Archies, which leads to Archimedes, which leads to Merlin, which leads to evil plans, which leads to evil plan averted by baptism, which leads to Aaron being baptized, which leads to Eko paying the ultimate price.

And that is how I can see LOST in everything!


BACK TO JUGHEAD

In a similar line of thinking, Jughead leads to Archies comic book which simply leads to the Jughead character in the Archies comic book. Clean and simple is always better!

In an earlier post it was pointed out that Jughead’s real name in the comic series was Jones and it seems like we have seen that name somewhere. HA!

A little digging into Archies comics and I learned that Jughead had his own comic book spin-off. Here is a cover from the first issue:

Notice the redhead on the cover who reminds me of Charlotte. And let’s not forget her last name and first initial lines up with a LOST-connected author named C.S. Lewis.

It is always nice to find two or more connections to LOST in a wild goose chase, so let me be pointed out that Jughead’s pet was a dog named “Hot Dog”.

If we examine other full names for “Archie” we not only get Archimedes but we get Archibald.

There is a scientist we should all know for the sake of LOST. His name is John Wheeler. We should know him because he coined the terms “black hole”, “wormhole” and a theory that the universe is a constant time loop that is busy creating the past, the present and the future at the same time.

I can’t but help to think of Dharma WHEEL with the last name Wheeler. And his middle name is Archibald. Mr. Wheeler’s work is taken a bit further by another scientist whose lays out his time loop theory in some detail in a book called “Paradigms Lost”. Hmmm…

Wheeler had a major critic throughout his lifetime named Heisenberg who laid the groundwork for the uncertainty principle. Heisenberg argued that even the most carefully constructed plans were subject to the random variability of uncertainty. Heisenberg’s concepts suggested that the nice order of Wheeler’s theory was flawed because something was always changing the rules. It seems a little more than coincidence that Ben Linus complained about someone changing the rules during his life of time loops.

In order for Wheeler to keep his credibility, he had to respond. He wrote a book entitled, “The Great Smokey Dragon”. Smokey?

The correlation of possibly unrelated factoids stems from the name of the episode. If this is the case we come up with four interesting names: JOHN, WHEELer, ARCHIE, BALD. Can you say John Locke?


OTHER STRANGE CONNECTIONS

Foucault’s Pendulum was seen in the lab of Ms. Hawking. It is also the name of a book by an author named Mr. Eco. This author’s trilogy begins with a monk (think the hooded garment) who investigates a demonic influence (see Aaron’s baptism above). The middle book is Foucault’s Pendulum and the final book is entitled “The Island of the Day Before”.

Need more convincing? The third book is about guy who shipwrecks on an island on the earth’s dateline. The chapters in this book reference the Underground, a review of Hell, and the plurality of worlds.


RELATIONSHIPS

LOST has long focused our attention upon relationships from family ties to love triangles. But how about the possibility of a relationship between the island and the Survivors? What if the island needs a constant and the Oceanic 6 serves that purpose? Without them, the island is jumping through time like Desmond did before he contacted his constant. The island NEEDS the Oceanic 6.

The producers have hinted at the possibility of the island being a sentient thing. Very early in the show we had people wondering if someone’s consciousness was implanted in the Swan Hatch walls, we sure can allow the room of what we normally think as non-living rocks actually being very much alive.

Before you dismiss this do consider that another comic book introduced this same concept with The Thing. The Fantastic Four orange pile of rocks is very much portrayed as being alive right? And his real name is BENJAMIN JACOB GRIMM. I’m sure if I look hard enough there is a connection to The Shield, Vic Mackey and hopefully Jessica Alba!

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Thanks for reading!

Enjoy,

KC

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