A NEW STATE OF MATTER

Science is the never ending quest for knowledge. Even knowledge that you would never think exists.

Every graduate of elementary school can tell you that  water can have three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. We can observe, test and create all three states of water.

But scientists at the Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) have recently discovered that when it's put under extreme pressure in small spaces, water can exhibit a strange fourth state known as tunneling.

Basically, quantum tunneling means that a particle, or in this case a molecule, can overcome a barrier and be on both sides of it at once – or anywhere between. Think of rolling a ball down one side of a hill and up another. The second hill is the barrier and the ball would only have enough energy to climb it to the height from which it was originally dropped. If the second hill was taller, the ball wouldn't be able to roll over it. That's classical physics. Quantum physics and the concept of tunneling means the ball could jump to the other side of the hill with ease or even be found inside the hill – or on both sides of the hill at once.

The water under question was found in super-small six-sided channels in the mineral beryl, which forms the basis for the gems aquamarine and emerald. The channels measure only about five atoms across and function basically as cages that can each trap one water molecule. What the researchers found was that in this incredibly tight space, the water molecule exhibited a characteristic usually only seen at the much smaller quantum level, called tunneling.

The water molecules acted according to quantum – not classical – laws of physics. It means that the oxygen and hydrogen atoms of the water molecule are delocalized and therefore simultaneously present in all six symmetrically equivalent positions in the channel at the same time.

The idea a thing can be in multiple states of matter or location at the same time is science fiction.

The one hard to grapple aspect of the LOST mythology was the parallel worlds shown on the island and in the sideways world. Fans were left to speculate that the sideways world was a device to show "what would have happened if Flight 815 did not crash."  Except, the sideways world contained different and significant story elements of the main characters which do not sync with their lives when they boarded the plane in Sydney.

Some fans believed the two were parallel universes. Theoretical physicists believe that the universe contains multiple onion skin layers of sub-universes that mirror each other. The only difference is that choices people make affect each individual universe changes that universe but none of the others.

But now science has given us another alternative: quantum tunneling but at a significant scale. Is it possible for a person to be in two places at once? Technically, yes. You can be on a Skype call and your image could appear thousands of miles away so your "presence" can be in two different locations at the same time. But instead of illusions (images), what if a person can be physically in two places at once.

If you think of the island in the massive space of the universe, it could equate to be 5 atoms across. Its intense electromagnetic fields could be the "pressure" to create the gateway between parallel universes where the actual person, not a copy, could go. In such a way, the person is no longer tethered to time, space and location of Earth's mortal coil. The control of the space and pressure could be the function of the FDW.

We know know is made of one part hydrogen and two parts oxygen. The molecules bond together to form a new compound. But philosophers attempt to break down the human existence to beyond the physical matter (which includes water as the primary element in the human body). A human being can be seen as one part chemical, one part energy and one part spirit. In the concept of quantum tunneling, the pressure exerted on the human body could make the spirit be able to cross barriers and boundaries of the human body and existence. That could be another explanation for the sideways world (which would be consistent with the ancient Egyptian burial rituals of the soul being separated from the body in its journey through the underworld).

SINKING FEELINGS

In Season 6, fans got a flash of the island under water.

There are only a few ways that an island can become submerged:

1. The volume of  ocean water increases, through the melting of glaciers or the end of an ice age. Scientists have confirmed that the rise in ocean levels have altered continent coast lines and flooded islands.

2. An earthquake could shear the base of the island, causing it to crumble. Islands are anchored on the seabed. Tectonic plates of the earth move under extreme pressure, so that a sudden joint or force could significantly alter the island's structural foundation.

3. Volcanic activity could have destroyed the island. Pacific Islands were created by volcanic activity, with the build up of cooled molten rock until the pile extends past the surface of the ocean. Likewise, a volcano can become active and its explosion force could have leveled an island.

The perspective that the island was underwater gave many viewers a sinking feeling that the series was taking a dramatic turn. It coincided with Flight 815 safely landing at LAX. At the time, what did that mean?

People immediately thought that the island events of the past five seasons must have been some sort of elaborate dream. For some who thought that, it was the jump-the-shark-moment. Other viewers theorized that the atomic bomb did go off, sending the characters back in time to moments before 815 crashed on the island. The bomb both re-set historical events, but also destroyed the island, sinking its artifacts to the ocean bottom. This theory was more palatable until the series continued to throw new current island events at us, including Juliet's apparent short-lived survival from the Hatch incident implosion. So some speculated that there had to be a separation of the characters story lines, i.e. a parallel universe was created which allowed the passengers to complete their voyage home to LA while at the same time, another universe kept the passengers trapped on the island. This would seem to be the closest explanation for what would finally occur in the end.

But it still left open questions. Because of LOST's extreme out-of-sync scene format, when did the island sink? Was it the jughead incident or was it after Hurley became guardian and he wrapped things up? Or was the island always under water, and it supernaturally trapped the passengers in a parallel universe? The show runners have never come out to explain the context of the sunken island.

So that leads to another possibility. The scene was inserted merely for "shock value." It was to confuse, divert and conceal the true meaning of the passengers landing at LAX so the final reveal that they were "all dead" could have the most impact.