new people and name significance

i got this from lostpedia:

Staples Lewis: Charlotte Staples Lewis, is a reference to Clive Staples Lewis (commonly referred to as C.S. Lewis), author of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Faraday: Michael Faraday was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to electromagnetism as a field of study. From Wikipedia: "He established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena." In this episode, Faraday comments on abnormalities in the light rays on the island.

Minkowski: The name Minkowski is a reference to Hermann Minkowski, the mathematician who pioneered the idea of 4-dimensional space-time.

Lapidus: The name Lapidus may be a reference to the movie Sleeper, in which one character says "Then I would talk like Mr. Lapidus, who got hit by lightning." Sleeper is about a man who wakes up after being frozen in liquid nitrogen for 200 years. "Lapidus," literally translated from Hebrew, means "candles," or "torches."

Thanks... I knew the Farady link right away, and it was confirmed by his comment that "light doesn't scatter here like it should".

4 dimensional space time.... very intriguing indeed...

Great info pchee, thanks for sharing.

no problemo

The C.S. Lewis reference is interesting. He's obviously well-known for Narnia and for Christian Apologetics, but he also fits into the space/time travel category...

In the Chronicles of Narnia, the children mysteriously travel from England to Narnia through several methods (wardrobe, railway station, painting, etc.). Supposedly, you can't get there the same way each time. In the final book, the children arrive via a railroad crash (the books are set in the '40's, so that would be like an airplane crash today). Also, time in Narnia passes at a different rate than time in our world. The children return after 1 year in England to find that 100+ years in Narnia have passed.

And... in his Space Trilogy books, Space Travel and the battle between good & evil (in a strange land each time) are central themes.

I found a Michael Lapidus
Professor of Mathematics
M.S., Ph.D., Doctorat d'Etat es Sciences Habilitation, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI), France

Specialization: Mathematical Physics, Analysis/PDEs, Fractal Geometry, Spectral Geometry,
Dynamical Systems
He is currently alive so I don't know if this guy is who the show is referring to.
But the mathematical stuff fits.

Hi everyone, this is my first post...

I just thought I'd mention that I read (on lostpedia I believe) that it was Michael Faraday's portrait on Ben's stash of money (British Pounds). Looked it up and checked the screencap and it checks out.

08:37 PM

From Lostpedia:
Mr. Ockham is the captain of the Christiane I in the storyline [of the Lost episode "Confirmed Dead" if season 4, episode 2] of the alternate reality game Find 815. He is decribed by Sam Thomas as a crusty ol' sea dog and a straight talker. (Find 815 clues/January

When Sam Thomas approached him about joining the expedition to the Sunda Trench, Ockham told him that the ship was crewed up. However, after Sam fixed the broken chart plotter, Ockham let him stay. When Oscar Talbot was questioning Sam's motivations for being on the ship, Ockham told Talbot that they needed him aboard, as the destination might prove hazardous to the electrical equipment.

Trivia
William of Ockham is the name of the English philosopher after whom "Ockham's razor" (also sometimes spelled as "Occam's Razor") became known. It is more properly known as the principle of plurality or the law of parsimony. Ockham's razor states that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." It suggests that when one is trying to find a solution to any problem (mathematic, scientific, philosophic, etc...), when all known variables are considered, the simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one.
Although the theory is attributed to Ockham, it can be traced back as far as Aristotle.
Retrieved from "http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Mr._Ockham"

kind of like the "keep it simple, stupid (KISS)" principle they used to teach in school?