Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
blogs.scientificamerican.com
Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
1–10 of 109 posts
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#2Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he's grasping at straws. A lot of the things he mentions are of the type "in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects". For example, I'm sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects. What it also means is that the planet would pass through the extremely hot accretion disk twice every orbit, killing everything and evaporating all the water. And considering the speed that a stable orbit would require, that would be a very common occurrence.
The point is: don't claim that you're scientifically accurate. Usually, a good sci-fi movie will set up rules for itself, and follow those rules appropriately. If you make your ruleset "real world physics", you have to be extremely accurate if you still want to make it believable. The rules set up expectations, and breaking your own rules is an instant turn-off for science fiction fans.
The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters?
For the record: I like Interstellar a lot. It was a great film, and I'll definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD. I just have my gripes with the lofty claims of accuracy that Hollywood films so love to make.
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#3[deleted]
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#4Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he's grasping at straws. A lot of the things he mentions are of the type "in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects". For example, I'm sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects. What it also means is that the planet would pass through the ex…
The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters?
Normal fuel is just less expensive.
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#5Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he's grasping at straws. A lot of the things he mentions are of the type "in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects". For example, I'm sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects. What it also means is that the planet would pass through the ex…
The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters? Normal fuel is just less expensive.
That's a possibility, but the special fuel they have would have to have been extremely expensive then. That would have been a fine explanation, and if they had mentioned it in the movie that would be one less point I could make.
But here's another one: They set up this nice system with pings to know what planets might be suitable, but they can't detect when a ping is being repeated instead of actually sent by a person? They couldn't put a timestamp in it, or some minor variation? They couldn't figure out that it's impossible to receive a ping every hour if the relativistic effects mean an hour takes 7 years?
There are other issues like this, I'm sure I could come up with a load more if I had the time :)
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#6Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he's grasping at straws. A lot of the things he mentions are of the type "in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects". For example, I'm sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects. What it also means is that the planet would pass through the ex…
I believe it is possible to set the rules at the real physics level, take 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example. But not if you are forced by Hollywood producers to put all the little pieces that follow inner feelings of the masses. This is what I believe happened to Matrix movies, progressively keeping worse and worse grip on their own rules.
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters? Normal fuel is just less expensive.
That's a possibility, but the special fuel they have would have to have been extremely expensive then. That would have been a fine explanation, and if they had mentioned it in the movie that would be one less point I could make. But here's another one: They set up this nice system with pings to know what planets might be suitable, but they can't detect when a ping is being repeated instead of actually sent by a perso…
Ping issues were especially bugging me. Take those pings from the relativistic planet. First it is believed that the person has been sending data for many years, yet only after landing do they recall relativistic effects, and that in fact that person has spend only a couple of hours at the surface.
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters? Normal fuel is just less expensive.
That's a possibility, but the special fuel they have would have to have been extremely expensive then. That would have been a fine explanation, and if they had mentioned it in the movie that would be one less point I could make. But here's another one: They set up this nice system with pings to know what planets might be suitable, but they can't detect when a ping is being repeated instead of actually sent by a perso…
But they could. That is exactly why they did know about nice atmosphere and water on the planet, but didn't know about the waves since the first wave that killed first astronaut happened during the landing. They also left one of the team member to do gravitation research and planned to spend as little time as possible on the planet.
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters? Normal fuel is just less expensive.
That's a possibility, but the special fuel they have would have to have been extremely expensive then. That would have been a fine explanation, and if they had mentioned it in the movie that would be one less point I could make. But here's another one: They set up this nice system with pings to know what planets might be suitable, but they can't detect when a ping is being repeated instead of actually sent by a perso…
The biggest issue I see is the fact that gravitational time dilation is considerable on the surface of the Miller's planet, but not so much in the relatively close proximity of the planet, where the mothership is. I just don't get that part.
Re: Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar
#10Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he's grasping at straws. A lot of the things he mentions are of the type "in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects". For example, I'm sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects. What it also means is that the planet would pass through the ex…
I couldn't agree more. I don't understand why Kip Thorne is so desperate to declare that the movie doesn't violate known physics, when it clearly does, just not in the areas he's most concerned with. Planetary dynamics, propulsion systems... but as long as there aren't Na'vi or dragons on the planets, I suppose they consider it realistic enough. On second thought, Na'vi or dragons might be more realistic than some of what's shown.
FTL travel is "possible" too, if quantum gravity provides some loophole for violating GR on scales where GR is currently assumed. It seems like there's a reasonable basis for excluding it from the plot without declaring it impossible: if Earth technology was that advanced, they wouldn't need to travel to Gargantua's system.
I think Nolan's insistence on the extreme time dilation for the first planet in the plot is a mistake, because if they thought about what time dilation would mean for the readings sent back, they never would have investigated that risky planet first.
What's great about Interstellar, though, is that it gets viewers talking and thinking about physics. On that point, it's far better than Gravity.