UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE LIGHT WAS IS THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING LOST

I submit to you that the light is…. time.

How is that for an abrupt answer?

Now think of what Jacob’s mother told him about the light in the episode “Across the Sea” she tells Jacob and his brother in black they must never enter the cave. The Boy in Black says that it is beautiful, she agrees and tells them that a little bit of the same light that is in the cave is inside every man but that people always want more. Mother says… that while the other people can’t take the light, they might try and if the light goes out here it goes out everywhere.

Think about it, don’t we all wish we had more time? And if we could make time wouldn’t we make more, and more, and more?? We could never get enough. And she wasn’t being purely philosophical when she said that a little bit of that light is in every man because every living human has a little bit of time left (be it an hour, or be it 100 years) but we always lust for more. That’s why we have sayings like, “if I could just make some time”, “there is never enough time in the day”. But even more importantly, if we could manipulate goodness would we travel in time? Of course not. The light is time, NOT goodness.

TIME, WHAT IS IT ANYWAY?

Here is a tidbit about time from wikipedia…

Einstein showed that if time and space is measured using electromagnetic phenomena (like light bouncing between mirrors) then due to the constancy of the speed of light, time and space become mathematically entangled together in a certain way (called Minkowski space) which in turn results in Lorentz transformation and in entanglement of all other important derivative physical quantities (like energy, momentum, mass, force, etc.) in a certain 4-vectorial way (see special relativity for more details).

Therefore light is time, and conversely time is light, (also note the reference to mirrors in the common explanation for time. For six seasons they showed us our favorite characters looking at their reflections in various mirrors, in essence they were looking at a past version of themselves in time which symbolizes the struggle we all have with our past).

When physicists attempt to visualize time it sorta looks like a hourglass. (see image below)

We can measure time in various ways…

• Hourglasses (like the one above)
• Grandfather clocks with chains and weights (more on these later)
• Watches, with gears and magnets (magnets and electromagnetism are important time keeping tools)
• Pendulum clocks (such as the one in Eloise’s church)
• Atomic clocks
• Water clocks (invented by the Egyptians)

All of these types of clocks are present or hinted at throughout the six seasons of LOST.

With all of this in mind it leads us to the story behind the story of LOST. To do this we must make some educated assumptions but I think you will find that this theory makes the entire six seasons of LOST come to life and all the puzzles pieces fit together like a glove.
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