The Mysteries: The Numbers (on the hatch)

Late night Lost blogging. Might be a bad idea. But to continue from the day's post...

The numbers also prominently associated with the Dharma Initiative’s Swan Station, often referred to by the castaways as simply the hatch. The audience notices 4 8 15 16 23 42 printed on the side of the hatch door before any of the characters do.[1] It’s an ominous sign that maybe danger does lurk inside. Hurley himself see the numbers just before Locke uses the Black Rock’s dynamite to blow open the hatch door; Hurley yells at him to stop but Locke lights the fuse anyway.[2] Then 108 (the sum of the numbers) is found painted on the interior of the hatch.[3] Finally, the numbers just happen to be the code that must be entered o the computer inside the hatch ever 108 minutes to prevent the world from ending.[4]

The numbers are unique among Lost mysteries in that the show’s creators have given us a nearly complete explanation of the numbers, but have never included it on the actual show. Instead, the story comes from The Lost Experience, one of the between seasons alternate reality games (ARGs); basically a viral Internet campaign that combines puzzles with short video clips to tell a Lost side story. According to The Lost Experience, the numbers are the Valenzetti Equation, a series of values used to determine the time of humanity’s end. The Dharma Initiative was trying to use the island’s strange natural properties to alter those values and thereby starve off extinction. As I understand it, if 4, for example, represents the weight of a polar bear’s droppings in the real world and on the island it is in actually 6, not 4, then maybe that changes the entire equation so mankind does not blow itself up in 2012.
Accepting all of the above as true, still does not explain either why the numbers are cursed or why the Dharma Initiative uses them as the computer code, which of course is often referred to as the button even though the button in question is really just the enter key. We see the Swan’s construction when the castaways travel back to Dharma times. A construction worker stamps the numbers onto the side of the hatch on the instructions of his foreman, who reads the digits off of a clipboard.[5]

The numbers seem to be a critical component of the Dharma Initiative’s back story. I recently read some distributing comments from the producers indicating the Dharma back story part of the show is largely over. I think we all agree they still have a lot of explaining left to do. I think primarily we need to see what happened after the Incident. Of course, that is something we can never see if the Jack’s attempted reset worked. I can see why they put Radzinksy down there since he was responsible for distributing the pocket of electromagnetic energy in the first place. The Dharma Initiative was still a lively volleyball filled place as late as 1992.[6] How long was Radzinsky down there? Similarly, did the Others know they were down there pushing the button? Did they care?

I always imagined the Dharma Initiative chose the numbers as the computer code because they would remember it easily, the numbers being of such importance to their mission on the island. But then why would they take their secret code and broadcast it all over the Pacific Ocean?

[1] “Numbers”
[2] “Exodus”
[3] “Man of Science, Man of Faith”
[4] “Adrift”
[5] “Some Like it Hoth”
[6] “The Man Behind the Curtain”