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Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#101

Post by snowballsteve »

seanflyon wrote: post #93
snowballsteve wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wormhole was perfect, except the travel bit bugged me. They use the 2d analog with paper. The second you pass through the hole in one location you emerge from the hole in the other location. In the third dimension, as they touch the sphere near Saturn they would be leaving the surface of the sphere on the other side. From their point of view they should be about to hit the 'ball' then all of a suddenly then are t…

Imagine in the 2D analog, if there was a small gap of air between the 2 points on the paper.

Yea I was thinking about that, say a straw. A cylinder to us in the 3d world but in the 2d world one would just see themselves stuck in a circle for awhile. So to up a dimension a 4d whole in a 3d world would I guess appear to us to be a stuck in a sphere? Maybe that is what the movie tried to show, but it still looked like they were travelling in a tube.

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#102

Post by EpicEng »

gonvaled wrote: post #37
Morgawr wrote: post #31

One thing I cannot understand is... Sure, this movie was very "accurate", all these explanations can make sense, the calculations fit but.. why is nobody talking about the major obviously impossible/inconsistent problems in the plot? INTERSTELLAR SPOILER BELOW For example, how did he survive inside a black hole, how did he pass through the Schwarzschild radius with his simple spaceship, why was there no time dilation…

SPOILER ALERT The science was basically non-existing: controlling a distant device with gravitational waves? Which can only be controlled whenever it is in a specific room? Which stores the information transmitted and repeats it endlessly (otherwise, how is the daughter able to gather all information transmitted)? How long does he spend inside the black hole transmitting what must be like lots of information in morse…

> Gravity was orders of magnitude better.

Gravity was a completely different sort of movie, so the comparison makes little sense. Gravity was about the here and now, things we understand and can convey rather easily. This movie explores some of the most strange edges of our current understanding in order to tell a story.

Also, did you miss all of the criticism of the physics in Gravity?

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#103

Post by drivingmenuts »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #79
drivingmenuts wrote: post #78

It's not a science movie. It's fiction. Science is a passenger, not the vehicle. You want science - go watch a Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Carl Sagan (and don't get too wound up about how they gloss things over - the kind of science they're doing is too complicated for an hour long show). The science used in sci-fi movies is not about the science - it's about the myth of science; the things we wish science could do or lea…

All that I could swallow, if only. If only it made any attempt to even fake it well. If only it didn't ignore plot holes the size of a truck. If I could only figure out what the plot was, or who the characters were (from moment to moment), or what they meant by the words that came out of their mouths. If only it was a real movie, and not just a bunch of images on a screen to give teenagers the impression they're watc…

All of the problems you mention are problems created by the writer, director, producers, etc., and have nothing to do with bad science. They can, and frequently do, show up in every genre of film. One of my favorite films is Big Trouble in Little China (as an example) and I'm sure there are all kinds of issues about the film itself, but I still love the film. Ditto Blade Runner, Brazil, Contact, etc.

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist by profession.

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#105

Post by JoeAltmaier »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #103
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that I could swallow, if only. If only it made any attempt to even fake it well. If only it didn't ignore plot holes the size of a truck. If I could only figure out what the plot was, or who the characters were (from moment to moment), or what they meant by the words that came out of their mouths. If only it was a real movie, and not just a bunch of images on a screen to give teenagers the impression they're watc…

All of the problems you mention are problems created by the writer, director, producers, etc., and have nothing to do with bad science. They can, and frequently do, show up in every genre of film. One of my favorite films is Big Trouble in Little China (as an example) and I'm sure there are all kinds of issues about the film itself, but I still love the film. Ditto Blade Runner, Brazil, Contact, etc. Disclaimer: I'm…

Its an interesting question: who failed this movie? The director is easy to blame - why are characters changing without motivation? Who is connected to whom, emotionally? What is that grandfather doing there anyhow? How can a father care deeply about his daughter, but ignore his son (and grandson)? If there're reasons, let us know!

As for science: its more than technical details. Its why they are so dumb. Why can a 12-year-old out-guess the plans made by the scientists? (We're in a terrible hurry; lets set down on a time-dilated planet for a few hours and let the masses on Earth rot for a decade or two).

Once decided, why park your interstellar ship outside the time-dilation zone, so you can take your shuttle to the surface? Makes no difference to Earth - they wait either way. But the ship burns half their fuel, just station-keeping for 20 years. If it had been time-dilated too, that wouldn't have happened! Not even to mention the poor sap on the ship, stuck waiting for half his life.

Oh I can go on (have, for hours, to my family's dismay)

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#106

Post by snowwrestler »

nilkn wrote: post #81
snowwrestler wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2001 explored some pretty darn exotic phenomena, it just didn't both to try to explain them scientifically.

Admittedly it's been some time since I watched the full movie, but I don't recall anything in it, other than the highly abstract ending, that would be considered exotic by today's standards. Maybe they were exotic at the time, but they were still quite well understood at the time of the film's production, whereas the interactions near the singularity of a black hole, say, are very much not understood even at the pres…

Well, the ending was a big part of what I was referring to. Plus a monolith appears on ancient Earth overnight without disturbing sleeping hominid animals, and somehow teaches them how to use tools. And another monolith that is buried in the moon for millions of years sends a targeted, powerful radio beam at Jupiter.

Maybe 2001 just did a better job than Interstellar of drawing lines for the audience between "known science" and "alien technology so advanced it looks like magic." So that 2001 still has a great reputation for scientific accuracy despite the fact it contains elements at least as fantastic as Interstellar does.

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#107

Post by Tycho »

eyevinx wrote: post #104
Tycho wrote: post #30

Does he explain the glaring paradox of the time travel storyline? Someone said it is permissible as a 'closed timelike curve' but smells like BS to me.

There is no paradox: http://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/comments/2mmh71/spoiler...

maybe I missed something but I don't see how that resolved the paradox

just because you introduce more dimensions, doesn't mean you resolve a paradox within the existing dimensions

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#108

Post by Tycho »

mindcrime wrote: post #88
Tycho wrote: post #30

Does he explain the glaring paradox of the time travel storyline? Someone said it is permissible as a 'closed timelike curve' but smells like BS to me.

The thing is, you don't really have to explain that, exactly because we don't know what the "rules" of time-travel are, IF it were even possible. We talk about "grandfather paradoxes" and "ontological paradox" in sci-fi, and speculate about what would happen in "real life" if some of these things happened, but the paradox might be completely irrelevant for all we know. Anyway, for my money, this issue falls well into…

I think you do if it comes across as a fundamental breach of logic.

Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar

#109

Post by xxxyy »

snowwrestler wrote: post #106
nilkn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admittedly it's been some time since I watched the full movie, but I don't recall anything in it, other than the highly abstract ending, that would be considered exotic by today's standards. Maybe they were exotic at the time, but they were still quite well understood at the time of the film's production, whereas the interactions near the singularity of a black hole, say, are very much not understood even at the pres…

Well, the ending was a big part of what I was referring to. Plus a monolith appears on ancient Earth overnight without disturbing sleeping hominid animals, and somehow teaches them how to use tools. And another monolith that is buried in the moon for millions of years sends a targeted, powerful radio beam at Jupiter. Maybe 2001 just did a better job than Interstellar of drawing lines for the audience between "known s…

> Maybe 2001 just did a better job than Interstellar of drawing lines for the audience between "known science" and "alien technology so advanced it looks like magic."

That is true, but it is not enough. A lot of Interstellar criticism comes from the fact that events described as scientifically feasible were in fact not. I will not describe what particular problems can be found in Interstellar because other posts in this thread already touched virtually every possible issue.

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