4 8 15 16 23 42

[underpants]

Okay so these numbers bring fortune AND miserable luck to everyone who uses them.

If you don't watch the show "Lost" (great show)we found out "Hurley"s back story last night. He used these numbers to win the lottery and he ended up in Australia trying to track down another guy who used them to guess the number of beans in a jar winning lots of money but having tragic events happen all around him as did Hurley. We find out that the "French woman" who was already on the island ended up there because the ship she was on picked up a message from the island that included these numbers so they went to investigate, hit rocks, and sunk (she is the only survivor that we know about).

In the last 30 seconds of the show "Locke" pulled back the undergrowth on what appears to be a spaceship or some sort of aircraft to reveal the numbers on the side.

So my wife and I (both accountants) set out to try to figure it out.

4 8 15 16 23 42

mulitplied out they = 7,418,880
added together they = 87
but it has to be something other than just equation

Alpha numeric?

Corresponding to the English alphabet it spells out
DHOPY and then the 42 (26+16) is P

:shrug:

Individually corresponding they spell out
DHAEAFBCDB

:shrug:

The correspondig US Presidents are
Madison
Van Buren
Buchanan
Lincoln
Benjamin Harrison
Clinton

US states as they entered the union
Georgia
South Carolina
Kentucky
Tennessee
Maine
Washington

:shrug:


On the face of a clock ( I can't really draw this on this thread)

:shrug:

Any ideas?

[xray s]

1. Well...in Close Encounters of the Third Kind....

....a series of numbers like that related to longitude and latitude lines, which zeroed in on Devils Tower.

I'll leave it up to you to get the big globe and roll it into your office to see where there coordinates point to.

[kevinmc]

2. Try this.............

Click onto the Numbers link

The Numbers Lady: http://numberslady.com/

[alpizzy]

3. Well

The first two numbers are my birth month and day.
And the next two numbers contain the last two digits
of my birth year. So stay away from me...I might be cursed. Yikes!

The thought that crossed my mind last night was...
How many people are going to play these numbers
in the lottery?

[Dhalgren]

4. The numbers were not coordinates -

they said so on the show last night. Stellar coordinates? It really can't be "aliens" because the numbers are written in Arabic numerals. From the future? Maybe it's a "Mobius" thing; the numbers form a loop of "success" and "failure" throughout time, always circling back on itself, like a snake eating its own tail. The ultimate failure is finding yourself back at the beginning. Who knows?

[seasat]

5. Maybe it's the number of live people lost each time.

Hurley did a survey and found there were 43 people but one was Ethan so that means that after the marshall died there were 42 people that survived the plane crash matching the last number. Just my guess, probably completely off. It also may be elements Beryllium ( Be4 ), Oxygen ( O8 ), Phosphorus ( P15 ), Sulfur ( S16 ), Vanadium ( V23 ), and Molybdenum ( Mo42 ). Maybe the combination of atomic numbers and symbols mean something. :shrug:

[underpants]

6. WOW thanks----THANKS to EVERYONE

Very interesting

[Sporadicus]

7. I Took That Tack Also

but the combination of elements didn't look like anything meaningful. I also looked at atomic WEIGHTS, but nothing corresponds to 8, 15, or 42.

[seasat]

8. Maybe the elemental symbols are part of the code

It might be

EV MOB OPS

ESP BOOM V

MOVE OPS B

It may even be a formula based on atomic number that produces a drug that enhances latent ESP. Of course, since 42 is the meaning of life the universe and everything, it could be that the chamber contains the mice that are observing those on the island to figure out what the question is. ;)

[kweerwolf]

9. Genetic meaning?

Since humans are comprised of 23 pairs of chromosomes, it occurred to me that the numbers may refer to specific chromosomes.

The French lady's first appearance (when she kidnapped Sayid) included some odd references to "it" killing the others in her party. While the "it" was unexplained, many people believed she was referring to the so-called monster on the island. But what if she was talking about an infectious genetic disease that affects chromosomes 4 8 15 16 23 and 42? And what was that stuff she injected into Sayid? She claimed it was a sedative so she could move him ... but would a sedative still be effective after 17 years? Perhaps she gave him a "cure" for whatever's on the island.

Eh ... far-fetched I know, but it's fun to speculate. :shrug:

[paula777]

10. I saw this analysis on tvtome.com - allthough it doesn't really explain it

Numbers 2
If you add all the digits of the numbers plus Hurley's worth in america ($156 mil) 4+8+1+5+1+6+2+3+4+2+1+5+6=48 which is the same number of the original survivors on the island.

More with addition and subtraction
If you add up the numbers, 4+8+15+16+23+42=108, and subtract that from Hurley's net worth (156-108=48), again, it equals the number of survivors.