The Lost Number

[Stayce Cawthorn]

Jacoband his brother, the Man in Black, lived on the Island for over two thousand years. During this time, the two engaged in a rivalry over the nature of humanity. Jacob brought people to the Island in order to test them and prove his view right. However, when it became clear that his brother planned to kill him, Jacob had a new reason to summon castaways; to protect the Heart of the Island after his death and to kill the Man in Black. ("Across the Sea") ("Ab Aeterno") ("What They Died For")

Before drawing them, Jacob observed these candidates using a lighthouse. The lighthouse's mirrors displayed a different candidate's life with each degree that its dial turned. The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 corresponded with what turned out to be the final six candidates: ("The Substitute") ("Lighthouse") ("What They Died For")

Though the Numbers, as Damon Lindelof put it, "were around LONG before the early '60s,"[1] mathematician Enzo Valenzetti used them in the 1960s in a mathematical equation. This "Valenzetti Equation" aimed to predict the end of humanity, and the numbers formed its coefficients. The DHARMA Initiative, a scientific venture, conducted research to change one of these coefficients, extending the species' lifespan. (The Lost Experience)

The sequence of numbers formed the serial number of a hatch for a station the Initiative built. When they finished the station, they used the numbers as required input for the station computer protocol. ("Dead Is Dead") ("Man of Science, Man of Faith")

The Initiative broadcast the numbers from a radio tower on the Island. Thanks to the Island's unusual time flow, Ajira 316's cockpit picked up this signal in 2007, years after it had stopped transmitting, but while the broadcast continued in 1988, it reached the French Bsixdouze expedition, leading them to the island. ("Namaste") ("Numbers")

Two U.S. Naval personnel, Sam Toomey and Leonard Simms also heard the transmission. Toomey used the numbers to win a contest, and a string of bad luck followed. He eventually killed himself. Simms ended up in a mental institute, repeating the sequence continually and saying nothing else. Another patient, one of the candidates the numbers represented, heard the sequence from Simms, and he, like Sam, used them to win the lottery. Bad luck ensued, and the man, Hugo Reyes, concluded that the numbers were cursed. ("Numbers")

A search for the numbers' meaning led Hurley to Australia, and then to the Island. He eventually learned he was a candidate, and ended up serving as Protector of the Island for years. ("Numbers") ("Lighthouse") ("The New Man in Charge")

Damon Lindelof did make a comment at Comic Con in 2005 that "We may never know what the Numbers mean." He quickly regretted this, as he got tons of unhappy fan mail demanding to know what he meant exactly. In the 02/13/06 podcast, Carlton Cuse tries to explain what Damon meant.

There are some questions that are very engaging and interesting, and then there are other questions that we have no interest whatsoever in answering. We call it the midi-chlorian debate, because at a certain point, explaining something mystical demystifies it. To try and have a character come and say, "Here is what the numbers mean," actually makes every usage of the numbers up to that point less interesting.

Here's the story with numbers. The Hanso Foundation that started the DHARMA Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100 percent within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn't wipe it itself out.

In fact any positive natural number can be constructed as follows: n = (16 - 15) x n. Which simply requires n additions and as many subtractions. Since zero can also be created by subtracting any of the numbers from itself, all the natural numbers can be created. Since there exists a bijection between the rational and the natural numbers, this means that any rational number can be constructed using only the numbers 15 and 16 in an integer relation.

Here, the arithmetic is straightforward, and therefore can be construed as intentional, and beyond coincidence. This follows a general rule laid out by Occam's razor of avoiding needless complexity in order to force connections which do not really exist.

At the time the Numbers were first prominently featured in the episode Numbers, The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences did not have any integer sequences which included the Numbers.[3] Two days after the episode aired, the numbers (along with 108) were added to the encyclopedia as "The Lost Numbers".[4] Because of this it is highly unlikely that the Numbers have any real-world mathematical or scientific significance. Since then, however, two more sequences have been added which include the Numbers, A122115 and A130826

"Numbers" is the 18th episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Dan Attias and written by Brent Fletcher and David Fury. It first aired on March 2, 2005, on ABC. The character of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) is featured in the episode's flashbacks.

In September 2004, Hurley wins the lottery, and over the ensuing weeks, everyone around him seems to suffer increasingly bad luck. His grandfather dies of a heart attack, the priest officiating the burial is struck by lightning, his brother's wife walks out on him, his mother breaks her ankle while the house he bought her goes up in flames, and Hurley himself is falsely arrested. He then visits an asylum where he'd resided for a time to talk to a patient there, Leonard Simms, who continually mutters the numbers Hurley used to win the lottery. When Hurley tells him about this, Lenny turns lucid, panics, and shouts that "The numbers are bad!" As the hospital staff drag him away, Leonard tells Hurley to find Sam Toomey in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Hurley travels to Kalgoorlie and learns that Toomey died four years before. His widow Martha explains how Toomey and Leonard served together in the U.S. Navy, stationed at a listening post in the Pacific where they monitored longwave radio transmissions. Most of what they heard was static, but at one point in 1988 (which coincides with the time Rousseau was stranded on the island), they picked up a signal of a human voice repeating the numbers over and over. After using the numbers to win a guessing jar game at a fair, Toomey experienced a steady stream of bad luck until he finally committed suicide by shotgun. Despite this, Martha asserts that there is no curse, and that "You make your own luck."

Looking at some of the documents Sayid found in Rousseau's camp, Hurley notices repeated notations of "4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42," the same numbers he used to win the lottery. Agitated by this, Hurley sets off on his own to find Rousseau, ignoring Sayid's warnings. The next day, Hurley finds the same mysterious cable Sayid had followed, which extends from the ocean up into the hills and then disappears into the underground near a ravine with a rope bridge across it. Rousseau has since set traps alongside the cable, but through apparent good luck, Hurley keeps avoiding getting hurt. Sayid, Jack, and Charlie eventually catch up with him. The group come to the bridge, which Hurley crosses first, since he's the heaviest. It then collapses under Charlie's much lighter weight, and the group is separated.

Jack and Sayid arrive at Rousseau's old shelter, only to set off another trap, causing an explosion which destroys it. Sayid surmises that Rousseau expected him to return. Meanwhile, Hurley and Charlie split up after being shot at, and Hurley encounters Rousseau, who holds him at gunpoint. Hurley refuses to back down, and adamantly insists that she tell him what the numbers mean. Convinced of his sincerity, she lowers her gun, but then says that she does not know. Her party was drawn to the Island by the numbers radio transmission, but their ship was wrecked by submerged rocks. It took them weeks to find the transmission tower, which was near "the Black Rock," but her team became "sick." After the rest of them were gone, Rousseau changed the message to her own distress call. Musing on how the numbers were evidently responsible for bringing both of them to the Island, and that just as they brought bad luck to him, they caused her to lose everything she cared about, Rousseau concludes that they are indeed cursed. Hurley is relieved to have finally found someone who agrees with him, and hugs her.

Hurley makes his way back to Sayid, Jack, and Charlie, giving them a battery from Rousseau, which can be used for Michael's raft. On the beach, Charlie reveals his heroin addiction to Hurley, who in turn reveals how wealthy he actually is, although Charlie thinks this is a joke and storms off. The numbers are then shown to be engraved on the side of the hatch Boone and Locke found.

A reference is made to Curb Your Enthusiasm, as Hurley is mistaken for a drug dealer and arrested. In Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jorge Garcia plays a drug dealer, and his role as the drug dealer got him the role of Hurley in Lost.[2]

The episode had 18.85 million American viewers.[3] In Chris Carabott of IGN's review of "Numbers", in which Rousseau makes her second appearance, Carabott described Hurley and Rousseau's encounter as "the episode's best moment", as "Hurley finds comfort with someone who we would least expect."[4] Lost co-creator J. J. Abrams commended Furlan for giving the character "heart and soul", and managed to make her "identifiable and complex".[5]

After the episode aired, numerous people used the eponymous figures (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) as lottery entries. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, within three days, the numbers were tried over 500 times by local players.[6] Likewise, in the same period, over 200 people in Michigan alone used the sequence for the Mega Millions lottery[7] and by October, thousands had tried them for the multi-state Powerball lottery.[8][9] The issue came to attention after a Mega Millions drawing for a near-record US$380,000,000 jackpot on January 4, 2011 drew a series of numbers in which the three lowest numbers (4-8-15) and the mega ball (42) matched four of the five numbers. The #42 is also the "Mega Number" in Hurley's "Mega Lotto" ticket. The players who played the combination won $150 each (or $118 in California).[10]

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