Lost in Time

What Does Daniel's Experiment Mean ?

Daniel has Regina launch a small missile with a payload of a digital clock from the freighter to the island. Regina counts down 20 seconds for the missile to land on the island according to her observations. After a long delay, the missile finally lands for the island observers and Daniel is worried that one clock is slower than the other by a half hour.

Many Losties are posting questions as to why in, 'The Economist', islanders are able to communicate in real-time with the freighter crew yet a missile is delayed for island observers. The clue to the answer is in the name of the mysterious man on the freighter who is called Minkowski. The helicopter pilot Frank warns Daniel to, "... hang up the phone if Minkowski answers ..." [instead of Regina]

'Analyzing Popular Lost Theories', describes how many of the names are referencing real people such as John Locke and Mikhail Bakunin the Russian anarchist.

The real Hermann Minkowski died in 1909 and developed a 4D world called Minkowski space-time where space and time are joined together. Space-time is curved, but just like a small triangle drawn on a huge globe, from up close is appears flat as if an ordinary triangle whose three angle's would add up to 180 degrees.

It appears that the transition from off-island to on-island has an event horizon that dilates time can be explained by the Minokoski diagram that describes a shear instead of a rotation of space-time.

[In] "Einstein Principle of Relativity, all observers, regardless of their motions, must measure the speed of light to be the same constant ... " ^[1] Referring to a Minkowski diagram, "For observer A.. all events happening simultaneously " ^[2]

The test missile with the clock payload is slowly sailing through the air, compared to electromagnetic waves that travel near the speed of light. which is why the freighter people and the islanders are able to communicate with each other in real time. For island observers, it takes minutes for the missile to land but for freighter observer Regina, the missile landed in twenty seconds. Whose observation is "correct' makes no sense in Daniel's experiment.

In season 2, episode 23, "Live Together, Die Alone", Desmond was unable to sail away from the island and bewailed that "We are stuck in a bloody snow globe." Daniel warns the helicopter pilot, Frank, to take the same exact heading with severe gravity in his voice. Time dilation, a lack of simultaneous events between observers, a contraction distance in the direction of near light speeds brings a Pandora's box of paradoxes to ponder over.

Sayid discovers Ben's multiple ID papers worldwide, showing that Ben has been off island numerous times. This could perhaps explained why Ben has aged and the character played by Richard Alpert, a native of the island has not aged at all. The island is on it's on time reference and location. Could a closed time like curve, (time machine), on the Lost Island explain Dharma's polar bear ending up becoming a fossil?

What does it mean to be the Oceanic Six? Jack, Kate, Jin, Jun, Hugo, and Sayid.^[3] Ben is off-island again and Daniel is a befuddled man who in need of a caretaker. Who else has escaped from the island?

Sources:

1. Rob Salgado, "The Einstein-Minkowski Spacetime: Introducing the Light Cone" phy.syr.edu
2. wikipedia, Minkowski Time Dilation wikipedia
3. Pam Gaulin,Who Are the Oceanic 6 on ABC's Lost? associated content
4. ptosis, Analyzing Popular Lost Theories associated content
5. ptosis, Unlocking the Meaning of Lost associated content
6. ptosis, Getting Lost associated content
7. wikipedia, Hermann_Minkowski wikipedia
8. wikipedia, Manifold wikipedia
9. wikipedia "Special Relativity" Answers
10. lostpedia, The Economist/Theories lostpedia
11. lostpedia, Snow globe lostpedia