So there can only be 360 candidates or are there more than 360 degrees on the dial? Kind of limited if there can only be 360 for all time. Anyone have a screencap?

I think thats a grat observation...

360 people...thats a whole lotta lives to play around with.

Great catch!!! A perfect circle!

can't be more than 360 degrees on the dial. unless there's a "branch cut" like dealing with multivalued fuctions or something like the spin half of the electron where you only get the same state back again every 2 full revolutions as opposed to once around the circle. both of which still only has the circle being 360 degrees; they just deal with the cyclical nature of the function/electron

I'd like to think that it's an evolving list: when someone has been crossed off for a while, they are replaced by a new candidate at the same number.

Jacob just doesn't understand the benefits of radians.

beema, I don't think so, though, since we saw that the vast majority on the dial were crossed off....
Yes, it does seem that 360 is the total number.

well, 360 is arbitrary maybe there are more degrees squeezed into THIS circle

I'd like to think that it's an evolving list: when someone has been crossed off for a while, they are replaced by a new candidate at the same number.

No, because how would they cross off and replace a name on that compass? Its fairly permanent from what I can see.

No, a finite number of people explains the amount of manipulation that has been happening in these people's lives. If you can't choose who the candidates are, at least you can go back through time and try to shape them into the kind of people who might be able to qualify as candidates.

It only ends once, the rest is progress. :)

well, 360 is arbitrary maybe there are more degrees squeezed into THIS circle


that's like saying "maybe there are more centimeters in THIS meter" or "maybe there are more inches in THIS foot"

i think the fact that hurley says "108 degrees" means that there are only 360 people on there. one for each degree. if hurley said "notch 108" then, yeah, i can see more than 360 people being on there. but degree is a unit of measurement

Maybe we are missing the bigger point here. WHATEVER THE NUMBER IS (though I do think it is 360), it is a finite number.

SECONDLY, from the one section we saw, almost or all the names were crossed out. Assuming that section was arbitrary, that means almost all of the names on the entire circle are crossed out.

JACOB IS RUNNING OUT OF CANDIDATES.

The endgame is near.

No, because how would they cross off and replace a name on that compass? Its fairly permanent from what I can see.

The names were just handwritten on there, could easily be erased...

I think it makes the most sense that its only 360 names and that Jacob is running out of candidates as well as time to find his replacement. However we are talking about light house with a mirror that sees things that are thousands of miles away, to bring people to an island. With that in mind this circle could have more degrees as well as those names could be changed when needed.

I don't think it is so much that Jacob is running out of candidates as it is that Jacob has almost out of pieces to put into play, and once they are all in play, that's when the real game begins. I'm guessing that, because he had run out of numbers, he knew that he had only a few more pieces to set up, and that once they were in place, he knew he would have to die, and he just had to hope that the pieces play out the way he wanted them to.

No, because how would they cross off and replace a name on that compass? Its fairly permanent from what I can see.

It looks like they were written in pencil, from what I can see.

Also there have to of been way more than 360 people to come to the Island over the years. I guess not all of them had to be candidates, maybe just pour souls who were brought to the island as byproducts of trying to bring the candidates there. The whole process by which Jacob brings people to the island and picks candidates is really perplexing to me.

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135806&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135807&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135810&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135783&fullsize=1 (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135806&fullsize=1)

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135806&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135807&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135810&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135783&fullsize=1 (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=135806&fullsize=1)

thanks!

So yeah, almost all the names look to be written in either pencil or faded ink, except for Jarrah and Shephard.

Shephard is even more bizarre because it doesn't even look like the same handwriting as the rest of the names.

Maybe they just did that to call out more attention to it on the show??

SHEPHARD appears to be the only name is all capital letters....

Could be Jack, David, Christian, or Grandad Ray.

SHEPHARD appears to be the only name is all capital letters....

Could be Jack, David, Christian, or Grandad Ray.
David does not exist in the 2007/2008 because Jack did not have a son so David only exists in the 2004 parallel/sideways.

David does not exist in the 2007/2008 because Jack did not have a son so David only exists in the 2004 parallel/sideways.

That is unless Jacob is able to pull people across time lines.

can't be more than 360 degrees on the dial.

No, but there can be more than 360 marks around the dial. If you want to get fancy and the dial's big enough, you could break it down into minutes (60 per degree) and seconds (60 per minute).

I guess it's a moot point anyway, because it looks like there's a 1:1 correspondence between the names and the degree marks on the show.

-steve

360 is a sumerian number. The sumerians measured time not in a decimal system, but in a system of sixes. The year had 360 days. A sumerian "minute" had 360 seconds. The sumerians were the first high culture.

Anyone else happen to catch some of the other names written on the dial? I saw Linus, Lewis and Faraday. Wish I had a screencap so I could see what numbers they were.

EDIT: I just checked on my DVR...Linus is 117, Lewis is 104 and Faraday is 101. Theories? Another red herring perhaps?

Sayid's name is not crossed out. Clue. or Jacob hasn''t had time, or he can't now. There don't seem to be many names left so I think this group has to come through or Jacob loses.

Jacob just doesn't understand the benefits of radians.
Then he'd only have 6.28 candidates.

Anyone else happen to catch some of the other names written on the dial? I saw Linus, Lewis and Faraday. Wish I had a screencap so I could see what numbers they were.

EDIT: I just checked on my DVR...Linus is 117, Lewis is 104 and Faraday is 101. Theories? Another red herring perhaps?

Rousseau's also on there at 20. Montand is at 102.

The name Horton looks to be on twice at 98 and 112. So it seems like it is individuals and not family lines.

Anyway else think that the indentations have some meaning. There seem to be an awful lot around/on Jack's name and none at other places. Looks like they were intentionally made.

If there are a finite amount of numbers, I'm still puzzled as to the numbers assigned to the 815 crash survivors. The crash is a relatively recent even in the island's history; even if someone was using the mirror to watch the 815ers in their young lives, that only moves the puzzle back about 30 or so years. Considering how long Jacob and MIB are supposed to have been here (since the Black Rock ear at least), and considering that the island ALWAYS seems to be drawing people to it, the 815ers should be in the 300s, if not the thousands. But while Littleton is 313, Jarrah, Kwon, Reyes, Ford, and Sheppard are all groped near the beginning of the scale at 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. This leads to speculation.

Possibility 1: Whoever made the list had the advantage of the island's time travel abilities. This person could look or travel into the future; this person chose to do so, and witnessed a particularly important event (by accident? predicted by the Valenzetti equation?). The watcher took note of EVERYBODY who was there, traveled back to his present, and has since been trying to narrow down which of those people was the crucial factor in the cause or prevention of that event. The names are crossed off as people die, or when the watcher determines that person is not the lynch pin.

Possibility 2: All this time, the listmaker has been watching FAMILY LINES and not particular people. So this guy has been tracking candidate families through history with the use of the Lighhouse, and has been narrowing it down. That would explain why Jaraah, Kwon, Reyes, Ford, and Sheppard are early - their families were important a very long time ago, and have been watched ever since. Some of the higher numbers, like Littleton, could be offshoots of family trees. This watch - in this case assumed to be Jacob, because we've seen him do it recently - goes off island, and influences the children of these families, trying to get them to come to the island. The names are crossed out, because the families have been dying off.

Possibility 3: The numbers are NOT finite, and are being reused.

#1 sounds like the most fun to me at the moment, because it involves the kind of 4th dimensional thinking we've had to learn to do for the show. I tend to dismiss #3 altogether, because it didn't look like names had been written over other names. #2 is interesting, but we still don't know WHY these families are being watched.

Anyone else happen to catch some of the other names written on the dial? I saw Linus, Lewis and Faraday. Wish I had a screencap so I could see what numbers they were.

EDIT: I just checked on my DVR...Linus is 117, Lewis is 104 and Faraday is 101. Theories? Another red herring perhaps?


http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Candidates Somebody out there is always on top of it!

Definitely 360.

http://squareworld.com/stuff/images/LLHD.png

And number 108 is "Wallace" scratched out.

http://squareworld.com/stuff/images/LLHW.png

http://forum.thefuselage.com/showpost.php?p=2286821&postcount=134

http://forum.thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=121136 Very much the same thing is being discussed