Lost

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
He should still be in septic shock from all the bacteria chowing down on his intestines.

Well, the mystical healing powers of the island may have had something to do with that. Or, he may have just gotten extraordinary lucky.

[Drake Tungsten]

At any rate, having your paralysis healed instantly upon landing on the island is a whole lot more unbelievable than avoiding septic shock from a bullet wound.

[Drake Tungsten]

On another note, we really need to get KH in here to explain Minkowski space.

[Kuciwalker]

You're in it right now...

[Kuciwalker]

It's just the way to represent 3D space + 1D time mathematically when using special relativity.

[Drake Tungsten]

Actually, I wanted to know if the brief descriptions of how the treatment of time in Minkowski space applies to Lost are accurate. Descriptions like this one...

The idea is that time is another dimension of space, not separate from it. A mathematician named Hermann Minkowski came up with the idea in an attempt to provide a mathematical setting for Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. If time is connected to space, then all time is occurring at once, just as all space is occurring at once. That means that there really is no past or future; we just experience it in a mediated way because our brains have enough trouble wrapping around time-bending in narratives, let alone in our walking-around lives... If spacetime is indeed the case (and Minkowski spacetime is accepted), then when Des alters the seeming future, he's also altering the seeming past and the entire present.

http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=2110

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, well, sort of. Minkowski space does treat time, and distance through time, almost the same as distance in space. There's no concept of absolute simultaneity or beforeness and afterness. That said, it (well, special relativity) does assume causality, and prohibits time travel.

The theories that use Minkowski space don't let you "change" an event occuring in the past (or the future, really), and they have no mechanism for propogating such a change. There's no way to express "I shot my grandfather, so I was never born."

Of course, since time travel is part of the plot, presumably their explanation of how it works is accurate.

[Drake Tungsten]

OK; I figured it wasn't really accurate. Not that it matters much; I'm sure the producers of the show aren't going to be any more accurate in their potrayal of the subject than reviewers are in explaining it...

[Wiglaf]

HAY GUYS DID YOU CATCH HOW IN THE PREMIERE JACK SAYS "I'M THINKING OF GROWING A BEARD" WHEN IN THE FINALE LAST SEASON HE ALREADY HAD ONE IN THE FLASH FORWARD?

THIS IS THE KIND OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS I LOVE IN MY TV SHOWS THE WRITERS HAVE A MASTER PLAN AFTER ALL JJ ABRAMS AND THE FAT GUY WHO PLAYS THE COMIC RELIEF ARE MY FAVORITES