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Hi,

the presentation of this theory suffers for a lack of knowledge about the physics of relativity. Firstly, a black hole would not be requrired - if one existed, it's effects would be somewhat total (ie crush) on the island! All that is required is a curvature in spacetime - note Minkowski spacetime - see special and general relativity, and Minkowski space - on wikipedia. Such curvature is total for a black hole (which is why nothing can escape). BUT things clearly can escape on the island - hence the ability to travel to the Freighter. It is likely spacetime is curved around the island - the point of minimum curvature and hence minimum time dialation effects (hard to visualise) is the bearing 305 to the freighter. There is still some time dialation effect on objects with mass - like the rocket and the helicopter - travleling this path, hence why the helicopter arrived many hours later. This effect would also explain why Faraday stated 'the perception of time is different'; time on the island and outside run at different rates - this arises for satellites in orbit in reality due to general relativity. Radio signals (the phone) are unaffected since they travel at the speed of light and have no mass.

Of interest is what would happen if one left on a different bearing (say 325, as Ben told Walt et al., and as Desmond left on). In such a spacetime it would be possible to travel in what one would preceive to be a straight line, but actually - following the curvature of space - end up back in the sam eplace. This is likely to have occured to Desmond, bringing him back to the Island (further, from his perception 2 weeks may have passed, but mere minutes - or less - on the island). Even more interesting, space AND time may be curved. This would mean anyone leaving the island on an incorrect bearing could return to it in the future or in the past - possibly hence Locke's references to a 'bigger' older Walt since this may have occured if Ben deliberately gave a false bearing (which would also imply Ben knows much more about the island than he is letting on...)

sorry if this is a bit unclear - being a physicist makes it a bit easier! 'A Brief History of Time' does discuss these concepts and the repeated appearance of the book is very interesting.

--Jw2034 01:03 GMT 1st Mar 2008

• Actually, electromagnetic waves ("light", "radio waves") are susceptible to gravitation: "Einstein's theory predicts that the direction of light propagation should be changed in a gravitational field. Precise observations indicate that Einstein is right, both about the effect and its magnitude. We have already seen a spectacular consequence of the deflection of light in a gravitational field: gravitational lensing." [1]. This would mean that there is no sane explanation for why they can phone over the sat phones in realtime. Mikhail_Cylon 02:22 CET 1st Mar 2008

ah, indeed this would occur (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapiro_effect). BUT if the path to the freighter is a path of near-zero spacetime curvature as i've guessed, this effect would not be observable hence no time delay on the phone!

Jw2034 02:22 GMT 1st Mar 2008 I'm jumping in a little late here, but on other sites I keep seeing mention of there being a wormhole instead. I'm not a physicist by any means, so I'm wondering if someone, such as Jw, could what the differences in the effects on our favorite island would be between a black hole and a wormhole. Someone had said that this would explain the mentioning of exotic matter. From what I read, that would supposedly keep a wormhole and stable. But either way this is very interesting!-- Lost Locke 21:12, 15 August 2008 (PDT)

It's my understanding that a black hole is inescapable to the point where nothing, not even light, can escape, hence the 'black' hole, whereas a wormhole is like a tunnel in the space-time fabric through which things could theoretically travel. Vster88

_{talk | contributions} 22:29, 15 August 2008 (PDT)