The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 appear throughout the series, both in sequence and individually. They were broadcast from the Island's radio transmitter, and it was this message that drew Rousseau's expedition there. Although she later changed the message after the deaths of the rest of her team, the numbers had also been heard by other people, eventually making their way to Hurley, who used them to win a lottery. 
After those around him suffer a series of misfortunes, he begins to believe the numbers are cursed. In the episode "Numbers", it is revealed that Hurley heard the numbers from Leonard Sims, a patient at a mental hospital. Sims had received them from Sam Toomey, with whom he had served in the U.S. Navy, at "a listening post monitoring longwave transmissions over the Pacific" 16 years earlier. The numbers are prevalent throughout the modern-day island, as they are engraved on the hatch of the Swan station, appear on medicine bottles, and constitute a code that must be entered into the Swan station's terminal.
According to the DHARMA Orientation video in the Lost Experience, the Numbers represent the exponents of the Valenzetti Equation, which claims to accurately predict when humanity will be extinguished.
*Wikipedia
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