Number theories ***possible spoilers***

KamiKazi

so i know that the numbers are linked together an awful in both series, but what im curious about is what do they actually mean???

like did they have any relevance at the start or were they just random numbers that the writers decided to go with??

*and yes i know they add up to 108*

Genghiz Cohen

they add up to 108.

ultra maths man AWAY!!!!!!

loon

the numbers do play a part in the story, but the question you need to ask is do the co-incidences...

eg. flight 815, kate's locker 815, locke's locker 1516, etc, etc...

virtually everyone on the island has a link to one or more of the numbers in some way or another... but how can this be? they are after all just numbers.

also, lost, like the x-files is fanatic based, that is to say that people will scrutinise and theorise every aspect of the show... its what makes the show.

as any good magician will tell you, misdirection is the key.

if you think about the severity of the numbers ie how often they appear and over such a vast time frame... then tell m what could possibly influence all these random events.

when the purpose of the numbers is revealed, people will be stunned but realise that they have no bearing on the parts of the sequence, it is only the whole sequence that has bearing.

stevejazzx

my tke on it so far

The 'numbers' project:
The central hanso figure 'hurely' has been purposefully given the numbers, the valenzetti equation, through lenny the nut in the hanso owned mental institute, former place of residence of libby( a reformed mental pateinet turned professional psychologist in another Dharma project, libby travels on the plane with the losties as the losties psychoanalytical advisor) and of course, lockes mother, Locke an original Aaron, who due to the project being postponed never made it as a Dharma subject, this is why locke has this overwhelming sense of meaning thats due in his life) these numbers contain a mathamticlal anoamly or divinity (possibly governed by the belief in them by their collective users) that the scientists wish to track by stranding him desert bound on a scientifically contained and monitored
island (if the numbers doomsday prophecy is correct then dharma s utopia awaits,), dave (a hanso based employee) attempts to get hurley to kill himself when they fear the numbers have become too uncontrolable and the society is not ready (again), libby in an attempt to keep the experiment going feigns a romantic interest in hugo, suggesting she has moved from the ranks of the hanso org to the free radical ideas of new dharma,

loon

can someone please exlplain the valenzetti equation to me...

i always thought that an equation had to be.. well.. an equation. i could understand it being the valenzetti series or the valenzetti constant.. but it is lacking somewhat in the equation stakes.. eg xn + yn = zn

stevejazzx

aifik

it s like a complex version of the law of averages
i.e compile enough relevant data portaining to world survival and calculate the hypotheticals of succeess and failure

the numbers progession have some 'divine' order in that they represent patterns found in nature and just ordinary life, the equation is a balance and is altered when used like the common theory of the 'butterfly effect', slowly everything knocks on to something else and all the variables are changing constantly because of this

sephirosis

loon wrote:

can someone please exlplain the valenzetti equation to me...

i always thought that an equation had to be.. well.. an equation. i could understand it being the valenzetti series or the valenzetti constant.. but it is lacking somewhat in the equation stakes.. eg xn + yn = zn

well it's cited as being similar to Drake's equation (or the Sagan equation) for calculating the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy we might contact. basically you take a number of factors which would influence the event, in this case being the end of the world, and multiply them to get a number which dictates the number of years a civilization will survive. this could include for example, the current population, population trends for the future, population distribution, number of states with nuclear arsenals, climte change trends etc.

Sagan's equation used rate of star formation, fraction of stars with planets, number of these which could support life, fraction of these which actually do support life, fraction which go on to develop intelligent life, fraction willing and intelligent to communicate and expected lifetime of such a civilization. These are all simply multiplied to produce a number which apparently is the number of intelligent civilizations which we could expect to make contact with.

The logic of such an equation is ok enough I think, but deciding the values for all those parameters to multiply is generally widely speculative, I've seen results vary from thousands to .0000001, so it really depends on your level of optimism.

I imagine the Valenzetti equation would be similar, were it to exist, and in reality would be pretty rubbish. Again setting the parameters would rely on opinion rather than fact or experience, so and claims to accurately predict the year of our civilizations end would be wildly speculative.