THE HUM

Scientists have been calling it "The Hum."

On the morning of November 11, 2018, a series of unusual seismic pulses rippled around the world almost undetected.

The waves rang for over 20 minutes, emanating about 15 miles off the shores of Mayotte - a tiny island in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Africa. From there, the waves reverberated across Africa, setting off geological sensors in Zambia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

They crossed the Atlantic, and were picked up in Chile, New Zealand, Canada, and even Hawaii nearly 11,000 miles away, as National Geographic reported the event.  t

Despite their huge range, the waves were apparently not felt by anybody. However, one person monitoring the earthquakes in the US said  live stream of seismogram displays did show the unusual waveform.

The waves were very low frequency, typical of the third phase of a normal earthquake event. However, there were no high frequency waves before this event to signal that an earthquake had occurred in that area.

One speculation is that somehow an island "had moved." How can an island dislodge itself from the depths of the Indian Ocean?

The story has a science-fiction, conspiracy theory aspect to it. In LOST, the island was an enigma. It had unique electromagnetic properties, odd light bending effects and the potential to move both time and space. But is it possible in the real world?

The earth does have a planetary electromagnetic grid. Scientists are aware that this field generation is based upon the physical elements of the planet and its core. Theorists have speculated that this magnetic field could be used to send electricity throughout the globe, or be used as a transmission device for advanced communications. 

But it is possible that the seismic waves were not from the ocean floor plates shifting but from something happening deeper inside the Earth's core. Scientists have made the analogy that the hum was like a bell ringing, and its sound waves circled the globe several times. Typically, a large bell has a striker inside its shell to send sound waves outward. A shift in the molten core could be a possible explanation of the wave activity, in conjunction with another planetary event that experts are watching closely: the probable inversion of the magnetic poles.

Then again, it may have been a signal before the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Alaska.

DARK MATTER WAVES

Physics is speeding toward finding theoretical particles and answers to universal questions.

Black holes are the dense gravitational objects that capture to not let light out. Scientists have found the mysterious "god particle," and evidence of gravitational waves (disruptions of the space-time) near black holes. The missing piece is called dark matter, which theorists believe makes up most of the gravity element in the universe. How all three of these things interact with each other is still not understood.

When most people think of time, it is a linear concept. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years . . .  a progression moving forward in an aging process.

When some scientists think of time, they think of it as a coordinate in space which could theoretically manipulated like folding origami paper. The sci-fi community knows this concept as "warp drive."

In order to conquer the vastness of space, physical propulsion will not work because the human life span will not allow deep space exploration. Brilliant minds insist there has to be another wave.

Tapping into the largest "resource" in space would help solve a propulsion question. If the universe is made up of mostly gravity. And if gravitational waves can be equated with waves on our oceans, it is possible that there may be deep space gravitational "currents" which can accelerate ships at great speeds across the galaxies.

Alien seed theorists believe that advanced humanoid races seeded the universe with proto-humans to allow them to evolve into civilizations. One could assume that enlightened elders would give their offspring the tools to solve complex problems - - - by applying known concepts and experiences to hypothetical problems. Therefore, the concepts of ships navigating on ocean currents can be an analogy to solve space travel. You just need to find comparable elements.

For if gravitational waves can be harnessed, then the concept of space time can be changed to artificially elongate human life spans. A human with an average life expectancy of 75 years could go through space time travel hundreds or thousands of years to experience something not possible from his Earth bound existence. Many theorists think that forward space time travel would be possible; but most think it is a one-way journey to the future.

If we look to the symbols in LOST, we can find some off-beat similarities to modern physics theories. The series "dark matter," was the mysterious black cloud of shifting matter. The Swan station's purpose of holding back a large electromagnetic charge from purple flashing the island can be viewed as a "wave" generator which shifts time and space of island inhabitants. The frozen donkey wheel was one such early generator as it took both Ben and Locke back in time and across the globe. And the island itself is symbolic of a black hole, so unique that it could not be viewed with the naked eye. It took an observation station and precise coordinates to find it.

Taken together, the island could have been a massive space-time travel experiment which may have been abandoned because of its inherit inability to be controlled by man.

MAKING WAVES

For the second time this year, scientists have found evidence of gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of spacetime  that propagate as waves. generated in certain gravitational interactions and traveling outward from their source. The possibility of gravitational waves was discussed in 1893 by Heaviside  using the analogy between the inverse-square law in gravitation and electricity.

Albert Einstein based  his theory of general relativity on gravitational waves transporting energy as gravitational radiation. In  his theory , gravity is treated as a phenomenon resulting from the curvature of spacetime. This curvature is caused by the presence of  mass.  Generally, the more mass that is contained within a given volume of space, the greater the curvature of spacetime will be at the boundary of its volume. As objects with mass move around in spacetime, the curvature changes to reflect the changed locations of those objects. In certain circumstances, accelerating objects generate changes in this curvature, which propagate outwards at the speed of light in a wave-like manner. These propagating phenomena are known as gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves cannot exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation since Newtonian theory postulates that physical interactions propagate at infinite speed.

Astronomers which aims to use gravitational waves to collect observational data about objects such as neutron stars and black holes to supernova events to help explain the universe and the Big Bang Theory. 

Understanding these concepts is important in figuring out if humans can leave Earth to make deep space explorations. In science fiction writings, the universe is so large it is impossible to travel long distances during a normal human life time. By bending the known rules, writers have given the prospect of space travel by bending time and space ("warp drive") to bounce around the vastness of space like driving cross country with an Interstate Highway map.

This adds to the discussion of whether time itself is linear. We currently perceive time as linear because our calendars and clocks march forward along a single line of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. But ancient people did not see time as linear, but as a cycle of spring, summer, fall and winter as based upon the rotation of objects in the sky.

For a space traveler, the concept of time and distance is important. The universe is expanding which means there are great forces pushing everything outward. It is up to us to figure out how to tap this unseen and unknown force to break the known boundaries of physics.

In physics, Acceleration  is the rate of change of velocity of an object. An object's acceleration is the net result of any and all forces  acting on the object, as described by Newton's Second Law.  The second law states that the rate of change of momentum of a body, is directly proportional to the force applied and this change in momentum takes place in the direction of the applied force.

If gravitational waves are forces that ripple across the universe, those forces can be used to help propel objects in space. For example, if one is in the ocean, waves created by the force of currents, push any surface objects toward the shoreline at variable speeds depending upon atmospheric conditions (such as wind velocity). A surfer rides the wave at the same speed of the wave. But if the surfer adds to his own speed (such as adding a wind sail or a power prop to the board), he could go faster than the actual wave he is riding.

In theory, if one can ride a gravitational wave in space, you can use it to propel your rocket faster because you are adding more applied force than the rocket produces on its own. And if gravitational waves are moving at light speed, then adding any additional force to it could mean you can propel an object at greater than light speed (the key to interstellar travel).

Scientists wonder if black holes, star degradation or supernova events that expel mass into the universe have some corresponding effect on gravity and other unknown elements in space (such as dark matter or dark energy).

When Daniel arrived on the island, he noticed that the light acted differently and time did not sync with the freighter several miles off shore. The light may have had a ripple effect such as to disclose that the island was riding a gravitational wave away from the ship. This anomaly in nature could have been a great power source or portal across the spacetime universe. And that was the reason why Widmore and Linus were fighting for its control.

What was under the Hatch could have been a complex tied to the island's electromagnetic energy that could have created gravitational waves since the island itself was accelerating away from known objects in the same ocean space. The ripple in spacetime by using gravitational waves would phase the island out-of-sync with normal objects - - - in a way to make the island disappear because its gravity and mass would be different than Earth's. If true, the ramifications would have changed how man would fight future wars or explore space.