# What Was That Thing On LOST? 5.02 ‘The Lie’ Easter Eggs

#### By docarzt, 22nd January 2009

Filed under: Easter Eggs, Lost, Lost Featured

LOST maintained it’s tradition of anachronisms last night, hinting that the complex task of manipulating space and time is best done with 8-bit computers and ancient magnetic field plotters.   Could the choice of devices also point to the apocalyptic nature of LOST‘s endgame?  Next, what could be so important about an island off the coast of Georgia?  Only the LOST braintrust knows.

The brewskis that Lapidus fetched from Searcher’s fridge have a somewhat ominous label, and name. ‘Jekyll Island’ brings to mind the Robert Lewis Stevenson novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which chronicles the adventures of a man who dabbles with science and winds up cursed with a violent alternate personality.  Could this reflect that one of our characters has a hidden darkside?  Maybe not, Jekyll Island is a real place – an island off the coast of Georgia that is named for a real Mr. Jekyll, who did not have a split personality.

Of course, it could mean nothing at all – since the company “Studio Graphics,” which creates props for television shows, was the one that developed the concept.  Innocent choice, or artful use of found props – you be the judge.

Next up is the massive chalk plotter in Mrs. Hawking’s-or should we say Mrs. Faraday’s?-personal Dharma station.  in case you missed the little Dharma logos plastered all over the binders and the computers, let there be no doubt that this is the off-island Dharma station we’ve heard so much about.  Now about that device that is so strange it had to have been made up…

It’s real. The Foucault pendulum was created to verify that the earth was spinning.  The pendulum required a large electromagnet to run indefinitely; and true to their reputation for attention-to-detail – the set included one (see image below.)  Since the device physically extrapolates a reading between the forces of gravity and the magnetic poles, it is capable of ferreting out any associated abnormalities.  The question here is whether LOST’s pendulum is sussing out minor fluctuations in the earth’s gravitational field, or major shifts that could end up spelling doom for our Losties, and the rest of mankind?

From the perspective of an inertial frame outside of Earth, the suspension point of the pendulum traces out a circular path during one sidereal day. No forces act to make the plane of oscillation of the pendulum rotate – the plane contains the plumb line, so the force acting on the pendulum is parallel to the plane of oscillation at all times. But the plane satisfies the constraint that it contains the plumb line. Thus the plane of oscillation undergoes parallel transport. The difference between initial and final orientations is $\alpha=-2\pi\,\sin(\phi)$ as given by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. ? is also called the holonomy or geometric phase of the pendulum. Thus, when analyzing earthbound motions, the Earth frame is not an inertial frame, but rather rotates about the local vertical at an effective rate of $2\pi\,\sin(\phi)$ radians per day, which is the magnitude of the projection of the angular velocity of Earth onto the normal direction to Earth.

From the perspective of an Earth-bound coordinate system with its x-axis pointing east and its y-axis pointing north, the precession of the pendulum is explained by the Coriolis force. Consider a planar pendulum with natural frequency ? in the small angle approximation. There are two forces acting on the pendulum bob: the restoring force provided by gravity and the wire, and the Coriolis force. The Coriolis force at latitude ? is horizontal in the small angle approximation and is given by

\begin{align} F_{c,x} &= 2 m \Omega \dfrac{dy}{dt} \sin(\phi)\\ F_{c,y} &= - 2 m \Omega \dfrac{dx}{dt} \sin(\phi) \end{align}

where ? is the rotational frequency of Earth, Fc,x is the component of the Coriolis force in the x-direction and Fc,y is the component of the Coriolis force in the y-direction.

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From TVFrenzy:

• Rich G

Jekyll Island could possibly be referencing the real island, but not for the reasons you mean. The Island was also used by a ‘cabal’ of powerful businessmen for the creation of the Federal Reserve Banking System. There’s a book about it called “The Creature from Jekyll Island”.

• Joe J

I think the chalk plotter is used to try to pinpoint the location of the island. When the island moves the earth’s magnetic field changes slightly causing the plotter to plot a different point. This is why you see no less than 4 plot points on the map the chalk pendulum is working on.

• professorstotch

I’m counting at least 6 plot points.

• Lottery Ticket

Somewhere I read about an object from space slamming into the earth with such a great force as disrupt the planets angle relative to the sun resulting in our current 23.5 degree tilt. I think it was said that life as we know it is dependent on this angle. Someone smarter than I can look this up. OK, just go with me here. If this object, or what’s left of it is our ‘island’, and something causes it to waffle, time and space rules are suspended. So what’s the bigger picture. Stop the waffling? Reset to pre-Chang drilling? If it is that easy to time shift, Mrs. Hawking, Ben, Alpert, for example, why can’t they just take care of this? Skillet slam Chang over the head! Oh, maybe that will be Sayid’s finale act!

Having fun reading all the LOST

• Matt

From the screen caps, I counted 9 with a possible 10th.

• themachine

i see 6 pts plotted in the screen cap

• professorstotch

I’m with you.

• Kaostika

it looks like there can be several pendulums all over the world. Then when the island moves you can triangulate where the Island.

• Rousse

To Lottery Ticket, I don’t think stopping DHARMA would stop anything…there was already a Frozen Donkey Wheel(lol) pictured, so this must be the from the very beginning of Lost’s timeline. If there is any key to stopping anything it would be to go back far enough to four-toed statue time and prevent these prehistoric ancestors from mining the island or whatever from the beginning. Of course, according to Faraday you can’t change the past, so this is all moot i suppose…

• Lottery Ticket

Yes, that was the RULE. Until Daniel told Desmond that he was uniquely special . . . So given that the show ends in 2010 (and it has been mentioned that the end date is important), then what Faraday changes via Desmond is only the future. I still think that changes will be made in the past and remembered in the future. These memories will have a casual effect. Decisions based on incoming new memories. Which means that Desmond will work independently off-island as long as Faraday feeds him new information from the past. What form of communication (notes, direct contact, indirect contact via computer terminal) with Swan Hatch Desmond pre 815 and post hatch Desmond S4 floating out to 2008 Desmond will Faraday use? We may have already seen these attempts S1-S4 and should exam mysterious whispers, notes, and that box at the Arrow Station closer.

What will be the deciding factor in Desmond’s return to the island? I think the death of Penny. For then he would have nothing to live for, and two someone’s (Ben and Widmore) to take his revenge upon. This also means that he is likely to start consciousness jumping again, but having no constant, dies. [Wow, gloomy today]

• INawe