Interstellar, the Movie

[Airbrush]

Spoiler alert. If you have not seen this movie yet, you will probably not want to read this. It may give away the ending.

 

Has anyone else seen this movie? I saw it yesterday. It seemed to be very well done, but the scientific details were too vague for me. I'm not sure exactly what happened. How can planets be habitable that are orbiting a black hole? Seems unrealistic to me. Can anyone explain what happened at the end? Cooper entered the black hole and survived because time slowed down so much that he had plenty of time to send the important info that combined relativity with quantum mechanics, so that he could save the human race and also be rescued. This reminds me of the ending to "2001 A Space Odyssey", vague and dodging hard science, but lots of fun to watch.

 

This movie is nearly 3 HOURS long.

 

You can review this movie on the movie review web site, "rottontomatoes.com" see below.

 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014/?adid=home_list2a

Edited November 16, 2014 by Airbrush

[Greg H.]

As far as the habitable planet around a black hole goes, I think it might be possible, if not very likely. What makes a planet habitable to us?

 

Enough incoming energy to keep the planet warm enough for liquid water and a thick gaseous atmosphere, with a surface gravity of somewhere around a G (though given enough generations, you could adapt to even a significant change in the gravity). You would need a way to block the hard radiation being emitted by the black hole (the sun), and an orbit that was stable in the long term. You'd have to either find local flora and fauna that didn't poison us immediately, or have a way of generating the necessary "sunlight" to grow suitable crops. Of course if we're eating pill meals, a la the Jetsons, that's not a problem .

 

Personally, I think the biggest challenge in colonizing other worlds, even more normal seemingly prosaic ones, would be the ability to find food on the surface that didn't turn out to be immediately fatal due to subtle differences in chemistry, combined with issues growing our own food which has evolved to grow well on our planet, but may be at a significant disadvantage anywhere else. Genetic engineering will, most likely, play a crucial role in any such extraterrestrial colonization.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Greg H.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Spoiler alert. If you have not seen this movie yet, you will probably not want to read this. It may give away the ending.

 

Has anyone else seen this movie? I saw it yesterday. It seemed to be very well done, .....

 

Yes , saw the movie Interstellar about a week ago .

 

Heard that Kip Thorne advised a lot on the film making .

 

Link :- http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne

 

Imagine a lot of film producers licence also went into the pot. But if you like musing about the possible future or possibilities elsewhere in the universe , very stimulating and enjoyable.

 

My personal take on things , for what it is worth . Creative things often seem to happen where ' systems are in balance . '

Eg . Where symmetry breaks , or balanced forces open up some form of equilibrium.

 

A wormhole , or an area surrounding a black hole at an event horizon , both seem likely candidates for interesting creative things being possible !

 

 

Mike

Edited November 25, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Endy0816]

It sounds like the 'tesseract room' is supposed to explain how the speed of light limit is bypassed. Might be easier understood as Cooper's mind interpreting a temporal wormhole, or at least the options that even a small one would allow.

 

In the normal fashion once you are past the event horizon

[Airbrush]

Thanks for the link Mike. Wikipedia.org already has a page on the movie. Below is a summary of the plot, exactly what I was looking for.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)

[GeeKay]

With regards to Interstellar (which as enjoyable as it was, induced in this viewer some time-dilation issues of its own, given its length) I found this interview in a recent Scientific American article, in which Kip Thorne explores some of the physics contained in the film.

 

PS. I'm not sure if this link functions properly, but it's worth a try.

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/28/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/

[acord]

With regards to Interstellar (which as enjoyable as it was, induced in this viewer some time-dilation issues of its own, given its length) I found this interview in a recent Scientific American article, in which Kip Thorne explores some of the physics contained in the film.

 

PS. I'm not sure if this link functions properly, but it's worth a try.

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/28/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/

Yes, the link is OK, thanks. Very informative and enjoyable

[Torben]

I didn't really enjoy the movie. I found it too long and the plot was a little farfetched in my opinion. I really liked the timeloop idea of humanity saving itself though.
What bothered me was that all these miracles in the movie were presented as science. They should've either make the whole thing scientifically sound or admit to the viewer that it's not.

[GeeKay]

Yes, on reflection I have to agree. . . at least in part. There were some fine moments in the film, especially visually. But it did drag in places. I'm afraid I still don't understand the 'timeloop' sequence, though the tensions it created certainly added to the drama. Timeloops? Is this a reading of the multiverse concept?