The Economist - and no, I don't mean the magazine

By Chris Kirkman

Whew. Most of the revelations within "The Economist" have to do with Sayid's missions after he gets off the island and becomes one of the famed Oceanic Six. We'll deal with those in due time, as they're pretty straightforward - at least as straightforward as most of the breadcrumbs dropped by the powers-that-be. Before we move onto the more mundane questions at hand regarding R.G., world-hopping Ben and the superspy Sayid, I'd like to talk a bit about physics and quantum theory. Bear with me, this will be short and painless, I promise.

THE FLUX CAPACITOR, DOC BROWN, AND THE SEVEN ARROWS OF TIME
Let's talk a bit about Dan and his experiments. Dan calls Regina back on the freighter and asks her to send a payload, which we later learn is a rocket with a stopwatch in its innards. Regina counts down the moment until touchdown, at which Dan notes that the rocket hasn't reach its destination quite at the same time as she notes from her perspective on the freighter. Of course, when Dan removes the stopwatch from the rocket when it finally touches down, he notes that the stopwatch inside the rocket is almost thirty minutes behind the watch he has on the island. There are two possible theories to explain such an event.

First, let's take a look at the more mundane theory:
1. The magnetic field around the island is all out of whack.

First of all, this would explain why Sayid's compass goes crazy when he tries to get a True North reading while trying to interpret Danielle's map in Season One. He remarks very early on that he can't trust the compass for a bearing because it's spinning wildly while trying to get a reading.

Secondly, when Ben sends Michael and Walt off the island in the Others' boat, he informs Michael that he should adhere closely to a specific bearing. If Michael follows his instructions, he'll get off the island. This infers that there is only one specific magnetic bearing that is "true," and if he fails to follow that input, the two will never make it off the island. If the magnetic field around the island was in flux or off-kilter, it would make sense that one particular bearing would match up to a real-world equivalent.

Thirdly, a strange magnetic anomaly would account for Desmond's inability to sail away from the island when he flees the hatch early in Season Two and then ends up back on the beach later that season. Regardless of whether Desmond was drunk the entire time, he would have picked a heading on the compass and stuck to it, trying to get to open sea.

Lastly, in regards to the payload, if the rocket was guided by a radio signal sent by Daniel's device, the disruption in the magnetic field could have done one of two things. If the rocket was guided by positional triangulation, then the third reading it used - a static compass setting - would have been disrupted by the strong magnetic force. In similar fashion, if the rocket's guidance depended on a radio signal from Daniel's device as a sort of homing beacon, the magnetic disruptance would have skewed the radio signal in such a way that the rocket had to circle the island a few times, lowering its altitude in each pass, before it could reacquire the signal and lock onto it. Remember, now, that Dan was using a satellite phone to contact Regina and the boat, which would have been barely affected by a magnetic field.

2) The island is somehow situated within a temporal vortex or gravitational fluctuation with may have caused time dilation.

I won't even attempt to go into all the hullabaloo surrounding the theories of special and general relativity here because a) it would bore you to tears, b) it's a lifetime kinda thing and c) I'm not a physicist, although I play one on TV. Instead, I will focus on one specific theory which relates to Daniel's little experiment: gravitational time dilation.

The long and short of it is basically this: Higher gravitational fields can affect areas of space time in much more dynamic ways than low gravitational fields. Let's look at it this way: Let's pretend we have two objects, a ping-pong ball and a golf ball, laying on a sheet of fabric. The fabric represents space-time, and the ping pong ball and the golf ball represent two objects with differing gravitational fields. The ping pong ball is lighter and has less gravitational pull than the more dense, gravity-infused golf ball. As such, one of the two objects will cause more of an effect on the fabric.

Figure 1

If you'll take a look at Figure 1, you'll notice that the ping pong ball has much less of an effect on the fabric than the golf ball does. Yes, I know this is a bit dramatic, but you physicists and perfectionists can get off my back.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the path of an object traveling toward the two objects. Let's say it's a very small marble. The path that the marble takes to reach the ping pong ball is much shorter than the path the marble will take in reaching the golf ball. Granted, this is a very crude graphic and demonstration, of which I apologize, but you can still see the point I'm trying to make. The greater the gravitational pull, the longer it will take for an object to reach its destination if it exists outside the space-time plane of the main object. If an observer is on the main object, it will appear as though the object has taken longer to reach its destination than normal because the observer is outside the distorted path that the object has had to take in order to reach its destination.

Essentially, the object with a greater gravitational significance will affect other objects in its vicinity, regardless of their make-up. This also includes light, which is not immune to gravitational influence. In the previous episode, Dan notes that light doesn't quite scatter the way he expects on the island and considers it fascinating. If the island somehow exhibits a distortion in the gravitational field, then light would also be affected.

Basically, it boils down to this: with a magnetic field in significant flux, the island could exist as a point of stronger gravitational impact on the earth, which could explain some of the phenomena on the island. Most notably and topically, it could explain why Daniel's rocket took an extra thirty minutes to reach its target, at least in relation to the observer - Daniel. Basically, the strong gravitations of the island affected the speed of the rocket relative to its intended target - Dan. I know my examples don't fully explain what the hell I'm talking about, but it's the best I can do in only a few short paragraphs. If any of you are more interested in the vagaries and wonderment of relativity, gravity and the warp of space-time, I'd be more than glad to indulge you in a subsequent feature or through email.

Also, for those of you who may not have quite gotten the relation here, the island is represented by the golf ball, with a higher gravitational pull. So, there.

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE BRACELET
One thing became crystal clear from this episode: there's a bigger force at work here, off the island, than Ben and his Others. Last episode we learned that the so-called Dharma Initiative was involved in research that was not specific just to the island, indicating that there were other "mystery spots" that the Initiative deemed important for research. What we may have learned from this episode is that there is an individual far-removed from the island and the Initiative that is not only alive, but is also in charge of the whole damn thing.

One clue as to this person's identity is the bracelet that Sayid found on Naomi's body. The initials "R. G." will be burned into our brains for quite some time, now, since we saw the inscription. Although we never saw the inscription therein, we know that Elsa was also wearing one of these bracelets, which can only lead us to assume that the mastermind behind most of this holds the exact same initials.

Who is this mysterious R.G.? Frankly, I haven't a clue. Not even a guess, honestly. The initials don't correspond to any individual involved with the island that I can remember. Maybe some of you can recall someone I'm missing or have a good theory. I'm all ears, so drop me a line.

BEN'S A BIG FAT LIAR
Well, duh. Clearly, the puppetmaster has not only been pulling the strings of the survivors, but also those under his direct command on the island. The Others have clearly been duped into believing that Ben is a pseudo-native that was sent to lead them, partly because of Jacob, and partly because he took care of a threat to the island. What's clear, now, is that none of them knew of his globetrotting. What, exactly, he has been up to in his years on the island remains to be seen. What we do know, for certain, is that he's been off the island many, many times and he's the mastermind behind a global conspiracy, of sorts.

The biggest spoiler for most of us, though, is knowing that no matter what someone does to him on the island, he's not gonna catch a bullet for his bullshit.

Unless, of course, he has a twin. Nahhhh, what're the chances of that?

That about wraps it up for this week. Sorry I had to break out the science and metaphysics. Hopefully next week we'll just get a plain ol' filler episode about Sun and Jin's miracle baby. Then again, I'm guessing not.

Until then, let me know what you think and if I missed something.

Namaste.