AN EXPLANATION OF LOST ELEMENTS

Three of the oddest plot points in LOST may now have a theoretical scientific basis.

Scientific America reports that Spanish physicists have crafted a wormhole that tunnels a magnetic field through space.

"This device can transmit the magnetic field from one point in space to another point, through a path that is magnetically invisible," said study co-author Jordi Prat-Camps, a doctoral candidate in physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. "From a magnetic point of view, this device acts like a wormhole, as if the magnetic field was transferred through an extra special dimension." 

The idea of a wormhole comes from Albert Einstein's theories. In 1935, Einstein and colleague Nathan Rosen realized that the general theory of relativity allowed for the existence of bridges that could link two different points in space-time. Theoretically these Einstein-Rosen bridges, or wormholes,  could allow something to tunnel instantly between great distances (though the tunnels in this theory are extremely tiny, so ordinarily wouldn't fit a space traveler). So far, no one has found evidence that space-time wormholes actually exist.

The new wormhole isn't a space-time wormhole per se, but is instead a realization of a futuristic "invisibility cloak" first proposed in 2007 in the journal Physical Review Letters.  This type of wormhole would hide electromagnetic waves from view from the outside. The trouble was, to make the method work for light required materials that are extremely impractical and difficult to work with, Prat said.

This discovery gives some basis for several bizarre and troubling aspects of the LOST story.

First, many fans theorized that the island was at the gateway of a space-time vortex, a wormhole, as a gateway to explain why the island would shift in time when the light cave FDW was turned. Since wormholes are not controllable (they are destructive galaxy inhalers), it was hard to wrap a scientific basis for this plot element. But if the island was conducting electromagnetic experiments, the Dharma-military complex could have been attempting to create an artificial "wormhole." It makes sense that Dharma would be funded as part of black ops defense budgets. A space-time device would be a radical new weapon to actually "replay" and re-position assets to guarantee victories.

Second, the artificial wormhole could be used as a "cloaking device." This would explain how the O6 helicopter "saw" the island disappear. In our known physical universe, an island is attached to the ocean bottom miles from the surface. If the island vanished as seen, the displacement of millions of square feet of earth in the ocean would have caused a massive whirlpool tsunami effect. But none of those physical ocean changes were seen by the O6 survivors. The conclusion was that the island had to have been cloaked (and in the confusion the pilot overshot the island and crashed in the ocean.)

Third, the idea of an artificial wormhole with layers of invisible EM energy would help explain why the island was hard to find. It would also explain the light differentials Daniel observed on the island (because the island shifts between dimensions in order to be obscured, and more energy would make the island then shift in time.)