I think watching 25 hours of LOST in 6 days has damaged my brain.
In episode 18, they revealed a mysterious string of numbers that seems to have some major role in the series. I know it’s sad, but I can’t get these numbers out of my brain. I know my problem, I want to solve the meaning of the numbers before they’re explained on the show. It’s the same principle as trying to figure out “who did it” in a murder mystery.
Putting too much time into solving it would be silly, so I tried to put them out of my head again. It’s not like I’m going to be able to figure out anything anyway. I’m sure there are thousands of LOST fanatics trying to figure out the puzzle too.
Then…
Tonight, just a bit before midnight, I headed to the kitchen to get some Salt & Vinegar Pringles and Easy-Cheese (trust me, these are great together.) The dry erase board and markers on my kitchen table caught my eye.
It’s not like I was really doing anything important. Lori and Charlie were sound asleep. There’s nothing on TV.
So, I thought maybe if I just jotted the numbers down real quick, maybe I would see something. Heck, maybe just the act of looking at the numbers a little closer would convince my brain that I had given this puzzle the ol’ college effort, and I could officially get them out of my brain (at least until premiere night on Weds!)
Well, that was over an hour ago.
So, here’s what I came up with. Time to write it down and join the ranks of the other fanatics who have wasted time trying to analyze a television show. ahhh…
Here are the numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42
I’m a very visual person, so of course I wrote them down. Then I stared at them for several minutes. I started adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing the numbers in different ways. It all looked pretty insane.
I decided that there has to be a more visual way of looking at the numbers. Then, I remembered that in the episodes with the french chick, she had drawn a triangle on her maps, plus, I’ve always felt the show was a little “bermuda triangle-esque”, so I decided to map each of the numbers to a point on a triangle.
Follow me here.
I noticed the numbers went from low to high. So i decided to start mapping the numbers 1-42 onto the corners of the triangle by counting in a circular pattern.
Starting with the lower left corner, it would be #1. Then the top of the triangle was #2, and the right corner #3. Then back to the first corner, now it would be #4 (THE FIRST OF THE SEQUENCE NUMBERS), then top #5, right #6, left #7, top #8 (THE SECOND OF THE SEQUENCE NUMBERS), etc.
Here is what I found:
The numbers from the sequence fell onto these points of the triangle (the dashes are where all other numbers fell and I put it into a column format.)
left top bottom
- - -
4 - -
- 8 -
- - -
- - 15
16 - -
- - -
- 23 -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - 42
Each number falls on the next point of the triangle. I decided to number the triangle points 1, 2, 3 instead of Left, Center, and Right. So Left=1, Top=2, Right=3.
Here are the results:
4-8-15-16-23-42
1–2–3–1–2–3
My next step was to do a little math. I subtracted the corresponding corner number from the original sequence number (ie, 4-1=3, 8-2=6, etc.)
Here are the results:
4-8-15-16-23-42
1–2–3–1–2–3
_______________
3-6-12-15-21-39
Now, everything is divisible by three. I decided to see if there was any pattern in the numbers, so I calculated the distance between each of the numbers.
3 (+3) 6 (+6) 12 (+3) 15 (+3) 21 (+18) 39
The distance between each of the numbers is:
3, 6, 3, 6, 18.
Wow. Looks like a pattern to me. One that I can actually repeat.
I decided to try adding some numbers to the sequence. The gap between the number 23 and 42 seems a little big, so I decided to add numbers into the middle of the sequence AND add some to the end.
The first row of numbers are based on the adjusted numbers I discovered above. Using the pattern of 3-6-3-6 I filled in the gap and added numbers to the end.
The second row is the position each new sequence number should take when mapped to the triangle. The third number is the new sequence number that results when the first row is added to the second row.
The new numbers in the sequences are highlighted in red.
3–6–12–15–21–24–30–33–39–42–48–51–57–60–66
1–2—3—1—2—3—-1—2—3—-1—2—3—-1—2—-3
_________________________________________________
4–8–15–16–23–27–31–35–42–43–50–54–58–62–69
After filling in these numbers, now I can try to find a pattern in new sequence number that was based on the original lost sequence.
The spacing between the numbers is:
4, 4, 7, 1, 7, 4, 4, 4, 7, 1, 7, 4, 4, 4, 7
You can find a repeating pattern in this sequence.
4, 4, 7, 1, 7, 4, **** 4, 4, 7, 1, 7, 4, **** 4, 4, 7
The repeating sequence is 4, 4, 7, 1, 7, 4
Using this pattern, I can create the original numbers starting from zero.
0 + 4 = 4
4 + 4 = 8
8 + 7 = 15
15+1 = 16
16+7 = 23
23+4 = 27
repeat the sequence
27+4 = 31
31+4 = 35
35+7 = 42
42+1 = 43
43+7 = 50
50+4 = 54
I can do this forever and create a pattern from the original sequence numbers.
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 27,
31, 35, 42, 43, 50, 54,
58, 62, 69, 70, 77, 81,
85, 89, 96, 97, 104, 108,
112, 116, 123, 124, 131, 135,
139, 143, 150, 151, 158, 162,
Each sequence has a span of 27.
There are some strange things about the number 27:
27 / 3 = 9
9 / 3 = 3
2 + 7 = 9
27 times any number will create a number where the individual digits when added together will equal a multiple of 9.
Examples:
27*2=54, 5+4=9
27*8=216, 2+1+6=9
27*42=1134, 1+1+3+4=9
27*99=2673, 2+6+7+3=18, 18/2=9
Interesting thing about the number 9?
3*3=9
3+3+3=9
So… what does this mean? No frigin’ idea.
What does this mean to me? Now my brain will never rest. I’ve convinced myself that there is a next step to the puzzle, but I’m not sure which direction to take it.
It’s official, I’ve lost my mind.
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