Interstellar: A Visual Masterpiece with Disappointing Writing and Physics

[HomogenousCow]

One of the lamest serious movies I have ever seen.
The dialogue is laughable and just immature, melodramatic and preachy at every instance.
The story was just nonsensical. The resolution is one of the biggest macguffins in recent memory.
Love transcends time and space? How is that scientifically accurate at all?
How does quantum gravity solve the problems of space migration? The vessel at the end didn't seem like it made use of any phenomena currently unknown to us.
The characters are utterly, utterly wasted.
The son might as well not have been there, pointless character.
Michael Cane plays such a lame and uninteresting character.
Matt Damon was just awkward and confusing, his motives are all over the place.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
Clearly the movie writer/director is not going the capture the physics as PFers would like...

I liked the physics. But it's only the 3rd movie I've seen in 10 years at the theater.
I still haven't seen that "unobtainium" movie.

hmmm... Is it just me?
You can have an excellent, educational, multifaceted story, with known physics, and end up with:
Domestic Total Gross: $774,048^[1]

Or, you can make Interstellar:
Gross to date(10 days): $76,919,855

No brainer.

People love rocket ships zooming around, and lightsaber sword fights. (See Star Wars 1, 2, and 3. Not so much 4, 5, and 6. I fell asleep during those three.)

My brother, who has seen an average of a movie a day since he was 18, would probably say the movie was full of cliches. And I would probably agree with him about that about this movie. But, IMHO, one of the final scenes, was obviously a tribute to A.C. Clark.

About a year ago, someone I was arguing about politics with one day, blurted out to me; "That sorry old excuse"!?
Just because something is old, does not make it sorry, nor wrong. Old geezers, like Mr. Clark, were way ahead of their time.

One of the few regrets I've had in life, was not developing my antigravity, nor warp drive engines before his death. Upon hearing the news, I had dreams of landing in Sri Lanka, on his beachfront property, and saying, in a most "Contact" way; "Mr. Clark. You inspired me to build this craft. Wanna take a ride, to Mars? It'll only take about an hour".
[1] Mindwalk, not adjusted for inflation. Still one of my 5 favorite movies. But then, I liked "My dinner with Andre".

 

[DaveC426913]

Love transcends time and space? How is that scientifically accurate at all?

:audible blink:

What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Did you go into the theatre expecting the film was actually simply a recounting of a published scientific paper?

 

[Jim Kata]

I just saw the movie. It was weird hearing the word relativity that many times in a major motion picture. The takeaways from the movie are that love solves M-theory and if you eject out of your spacecraft into a black hole you'll end up in your daughters bedroom as a ghost. I wonder Kip Thorne advised him on that part.

 

[HomogenousCow]

:audible blink:

What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Did you go into the theatre expecting the film was actually simply a recounting of a published scientific paper?

What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Does scientifically accurate and within the realm of reality mean something else as soon as Christopher Nolan takes the reins?

At least have some respect for your audience and not treat them to idiotic plot devices.

You know what, my problem with the movie isn't even that much to do with the science.
It's the fact that the plot is just so convoluted and lame.
They didn't even put a shred of effort into making the resolution reasonable and clever, nope just "love tarvis, love connects us all" *bam some alien fifth dimensional magic happens.

The science in the ending is about as realistically grounded as Alice in Wonderland.

 

[DaveC426913]

Does scientifically accurate and within the realm of reality mean something else as soon as Christopher Nolan takes the reins?

That is not what your complaint was. Your complaint was that love specifically, as portrayed in the film, did not live up to your expectation of scientific accuracy.

By what objective criteria do you measure love, such that the film violated it in a scientifically quantifiable way?

It's a rhetorical question. It merely demonstrates the absurdity of a complaint that the human-interest storyline can (let alone must) somehow be "scientifically accurate".

 

[PeroK]

As an alternative to this movie, you could check out:

http://www.queens-theatre.co.uk/show/558/return-to-the-forbidden-planet-25th-anniversary-tour

It may be slightly more accurate scientifically, as well!

 

[QuantumPion]

Aliens, but instead of Aliens, use really angry grizzly bears.

I'd pay to see that.

 

[OmCheeto]

I'd pay to see that.

Somebody get George Lucas on the phone!
We need to remake "Interstellar" with angry grizzly bears.

Or, Bruno Ganz*! He can be inserted throughout the film, ranting about the "bad physics".
Hmmmm... But then, people would start comparing it to Dr. Strangelove.

"They used someone with a German accent! Cliche!"

*Bruno Ganz played Hitler.

 

[HomogenousCow]

That is not what your complaint was. Your complaint was that love specifically, as portrayed in the film, did not live up to your expectation of scientific accuracy.

By what objective criteria do you measure love, such that the film violated it in a scientifically quantifiable way?

It's a rhetorical question. It merely demonstrates the absurdity of a complaint that the human-interest storyline can (let alone must) somehow be "scientifically accurate".

In the movie they use love as a genuine mode of communication across "time and space".

 

[OmCheeto]

In the movie they use love as a genuine mode of communication across "time and space".

I'll wait for the script to be published before I agree, or disagree with you. Or do you have the entire thing memorized?

Or are you misquoting the NY Times article?

Love and Physics
The Nolans take us into the farthest mysteries of space-time, where, they assure us, love joins gravity as a force that operates across interstellar distances.

force ≠ communication

I think they have different units of measurement.

Oh dear. Another can of worms...

 

[DaveC426913]

In the movie they use love as a genuine mode of communication across "time and space".

No, they say that's what they're doing. They're philosophizing. They're framing events in the context of human meaning. (That's kind of the point of telling a story in the first place. The characters just happened to state their beliefs about the meaning of it all - explicitly in the story.)

It is tantamount to a character proclaiming "I knew we'd make it. God was watching us." That is their explanation. It's not inaccurate just because a character's belief is fanciful. A film can't be said to be inaccurate about the characters finding their own meaning in cosmic events.

There were no actual lovions transmitted through time.
The events, on the other hand, which are the only viable target of scientific accuracy in this case, were to fall into a black hole, where our future selves built a tesseract so Coop could send the message.

The tesseract construct itself is something you can examine on the lab table of science.

 

[atyy]

Are the 5 dimensional beings 4+1 or 5+1? I think it is 4+1, since I am a 3+1 dimensional being and I can close a 3 dimesional cube. So they must be 4+1 in order to close a 4 dimensional cube? However, since our 4 dimensions which they can manipulate is already Lorentzian 3+1, could they be 3+2?

 

[dragoneyes001]

will you be writing a paper on the existence of "Lovions" and could they actually travel in time space?

 

[atyy]

No, they say that's what they're doing. They're philosophizing. They're framing events in the context of human meaning. (That's kind of the point of telling a story in the first place. The characters just happened to state their beliefs about the meaning of it all - explicitly in the story.)

The events, on the other hand, which are the only viable target of scientific accuracy in this case, were to fall into a black hole, where our future selves built a tesseract so Coop could send the message.

"Our future selves built a tesseract" is more in the first category - it's Cooper's belief about the meaning. I was at this point wondering whether the film-maker intended an allusion to another very famous use of the tesseract in art by Dali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_(Corpus_Hypercubus).

 

[atyy]

will you be writing a paper on the existence of "Lovions" and could they actually travel in time space?

I think it has already been written http://physics.usc.edu/~bars/twoTph.htm

 

[HomogenousCow]

No, they say that's what they're doing. They're philosophizing. They're framing events in the context of human meaning. (That's kind of the point of telling a story in the first place. The characters just happened to state their beliefs about the meaning of it all - explicitly in the story.)

It is tantamount to a character proclaiming "I knew we'd make it. God was watching us." That is their explanation. It's not inaccurate just because a character's belief is fanciful. A film can't be said to be inaccurate about the characters finding their own meaning in cosmic events.

There were no actual lovions transmitted through time.
The events, on the other hand, which are the only viable target of scientific accuracy in this case, were to fall into a black hole, where our future selves built a tesseract so Coop could send the message.

The tesseract construct itself is something you can examine on the lab table of science.

So what, you consider that ending plausible and well thought out?
Interpereting the dialogue in a non literal sense does not change how poor and unoriginal it was.
As i stated my problem isn't even with the science, it's how lame and convoluted the story and characters were in general. For the many reasons i have stated.

 

[DaveC426913]

So what, you consider that ending plausible and well thought out?

Well it was certainly better thought out than your "scientifically-accurate love" complaint that started this sideline. :D

 

[OmCheeto]

So what, you consider that ending plausible and well thought out?
...

Hot chick stranded on a faraway planet, with the hero getting in his sports car/ship to save her = Sequel

Plausible, and brilliant!

 

[dragoneyes001]

mix two threads together: this one and the dark mater one and make "lovions" able to travel by dark mater transmission so two people in love can send their love across the universe in a form of FTL communications. the governments start a program of collecting people with a deep love bond and sending each in opposite directions across space to create an interstellar communications network...etc...

 

[OmCheeto]

mix two threads together: this one and the dark mater one and make "lovions" able to travel by dark mater transmission so two people in love can send their love across the universe in a form of FTL communications. the governments start a program of collecting people with a deep love bond and sending each in opposite directions across space to create an interstellar communications network...etc...

Bah! You've not listed an antagonist. Throw in Brad Pitt, and we've got the sequel to Thelma and Louise.

script to follow, after my nap... zzzz...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

 

[Matterwave]

I was most confused how there could be a 7year to 1 hour time dilation factor between being on the surface of a planet, and orbiting the planet...anyone have any indications on how that happened? I mean the surface of the planet is what a few hundred km away from the orbit? A few thousand? How can they travel through such a huge gravitational potential difference in such a short distance?

Unless the planet itself was a black-hole, I don't see how this could possibly work...

 

[DaveC426913]

The whole planet was in a high grav potential.

In a nutshell, getting to the planet required them to get nearer the BH.

They had a quick diagram showing this.

 

[nikkkom]

The whole planet was in a high grav potential.

In a nutshell, getting to the planet required them to get nearer the BH.

They had a quick diagram showing this.

View attachment 75767

You do realize that this requires delta-V in the neighborhood of 0.5c?

 

[DaveC426913]

Yeah. The more I think about this particular maneuver, the more I see the egregious inaccuracy in it.

It's a dilation factor in excess of 60,000.

That's equivalent to 0.9999999999c or approaching the speed of light to within one part in 10 billion.

 

[hankaaron]

You do realize that this requires delta-V in the neighborhood of 0.5c?

And I thought the shuttle craft escaping 1.3G was far-feteched. Geez.

 

[hankaaron]

The whole planet was in a high grav potential.

In a nutshell, getting to the planet required them to get nearer the BH.

They had a quick diagram showing this.

View attachment 75767

A couple of questions.

1. If the Endurance is in orbit around the planet wouldn't it eventually end up in the high gravity well too.
2. So 23 years passes for Romily (who remained in Endurance) and seven hours passed for Cooper and Brand on the planet. Let's say in that seven hours Cooper and Brand measure the planet rotate one-quarter spin on it's axis. Does Romily measure the planet making a one-quarter spin in 23 years?

 

[Fredrik]

That's equivalent to 0.9999999999c or approaching the speed of light to within one part in 10 billion.

But they're near a supermassive black hole, so it's probably not about speed at all. I'm more concerned that the engines would burn up all the fuel rather than produce anywhere near enough thrust, and even if the necessary thrust was obtained, it would crush the astronauts against the floor. Meanwhile, the mothership would probably have used up all its fuel trying to keep up with the planet. (If it's in orbit around the black hole at a higher altitude, then its speed should be slower than that of the planet). Of course, I haven't actually tried to figure out what's going on near a rotating black hole. I'm just naively applying what I remember about Schwarzschild black holes. We would really need to look at the Kerr solution to understand this.

 

[DaveC426913]

A couple of questions.

1. If the Endurance is in orbit around the planet

It isn't.

This is worth emphasizing, so people don't get the wrong idea:
The Endurance did not orbit the planet while Coop and whats-her-face made planetfall. The Endurance orbited the black hole, in a higher orbit than the planet, so less time dilation. This was shown in the film.

See diagram in post 120.

But they're near a supermassive black hole, so it's probably not about speed at all. I'm more concerned that the engines would burn up all the fuel rather than produce anywhere near enough thrust, and even if the necessary thrust was obtained, it would crush the astronauts against the floor.

Equivalence Principle. Acceleration and gravity are equivalent. It's just easier to grasp just how ridiculous the thrust would need to be when you see it as acceleration as opposed to fighting gravity.

Meanwhile, the mothership would probably have used up all its fuel trying to keep up with the planet. (If it's in orbit around the black hole at a higher altitude, then its speed should be slower than that of the planet). Of course, I haven't actually tried to figure out what's going on near a rotating black hole. I'm just naively applying what I remember about Schwarzschild black holes. We would really need to look at the Kerr solution to understand this.

No need to keep up. They'll pass each other often enough.

 

[Rive]

The Endurance did not orbit the planet while Coop and X made planetfall.

That part is the other side of this business. To fall so deep to that gravity well would mean the same speed to loose before they can enter that atmosphere.
That speed is not something to burn up with aerobrake...

 

[dragoneyes001]

lol they had a ready supply of anchors to toss out into the upper atmosphere to slow them down without the use of fuel

 

[DaveC426913]

That part is the other side of this business. To fall so deep to that gravity well would mean the same speed to loose before they can enter that atmosphere.
That speed is not something to burn up with aerobrake...

Agreed. I noticed that when I started thinking about just how far apart the two orbits must be (in distance, but more importantly in orbital delta v!) to get a factor 60,000 time dilation between them.

So, we;re not just talking about a climb out of a gravity well, we're also talking about an orbital speed-matching.I am beginning to see that this one plot point is a far more egregious scientific error than all the rest put together.

KT really should have made the dilation factor much, MUCH smaller - say 3,000 times smaller - and found some reason to strand them on the planet for months or a year. Then that 20 years could have passed with a slightly less outrageous science blunder.

 

[DaveC426913]

Though I suppose, technically, the Endurance could have sat in the L2 Lagrange point above the planet... :D

 

[QuantumPion]

Perhaps they used the BH to perform a gravity assist or somehow used the properties of the BH to extract energy from it (Penrose Process?)

 

[Rive]

KT really should have made the dilation factor much, MUCH smaller - say 3,000 times smaller - and found some reason to strand them on the planet for months or a year. Then that 20 years could have passed with a slightly less outrageous science blunder.

Practically any dilation factor with noticeable effect would be the same. At that point of the story we already had some hints about the magnitude of Δv available - two years from Earth to the wormhole! - and it's nowhere to the necessary to achieve any real dilation factor // climb in or out of any gravity well with real dilation factor.

It cannot be helped. They had to cheat.

 

[Fredrik]

I doubt that velocities are even relevant to this problem. We have to compare the proper time of the world line of an object in orbit around a rotating black hole, to the proper time of the world line of an object that starts and ends in that same orbit, but takes a detour down to a lower orbit and stays there for a while before it climbs back up. I expect the contribution from the velocity difference to be negligible compared to the contribution from the "altitude" difference.

 

[Rive]

Altitude change is velocity (usage of the Δv available for the device).

 

[Fredrik]

Altitude change is velocity (usage of the Δv available for the device).

Obviously you can't change your position without changing your velocity, but this isn't special relativity. In principle, you can get a huge time difference by descending straight down at walking speed and then coming back up just as slowly. A clock that hovers at a fixed lower altitude accumulates less time than a clock that hovers at a fixed higher altitude, because even though their coordinate velocities are zero, the clock at the lower altitude has a greater proper acceleration. (Less proper acceleration = closer to inertial motion = closer to maximizing the proper time).

 

[Rive]

You are right, we are just following a slightly different track.
It's as DaveC426913 said: it's easier to grasp it if we calculate with speed (change) instead of gravity potential. But both view is 'right'. Yours might be a bit more accurate (and also harder to discuss as in this case it's about a really special case of general relativity).

 

[Fredrik]

You are right, we are just following a slightly different track.
It's as DaveC426913 said: it's easier to grasp it if we calculate with speed (change) instead of gravity potential. But both view is 'right'. Yours might be a bit more accurate (and also harder to discuss as in this case it's about a really special case of general relativity).

Mine is an oversimplification, since I'm ignoring that the black hole is rotating and that the mothership and planet are both in orbit around the black hole. It might be close enough to the actual answer, but this is far from certain. The velocity argument is completely missing the detail that's the reason for the age difference in the oversimplified picture, so it's very likely to be completely wrong.

The only way to settle this is to calculate the proper times of the relevant world lines in a Kerr spacetime.

 

[OmCheeto]

Agreed. I noticed that when I started thinking about just how far apart the two orbits must be (in distance, but more importantly in orbital delta v!) to get a factor 60,000 time dilation between them.

So, we;re not just talking about a climb out of a gravity well, we're also talking about an orbital speed-matching.I am beginning to see that this one plot point is a far more egregious scientific error than all the rest put together.

KT really should have made the dilation factor much, MUCH smaller - say 3,000 times smaller - and found some reason to strand them on the planet for months or a year. Then that 20 years could have passed with a slightly less outrageous science blunder.

First off, I'd just like to say the science is now way over my head.
Secondly, I think the 60,000 factor may have some relevance for the sequel.
Do you remember the guy they left for dead? When Cooper flies back through the wormhole, he's going to get a scratchy message; "Hey! I'm still alive. Can you come pick me up, PLEASE..."

I'm basing this idea purely Hollywood physics, of course.

 

[QuantumPion]

First off, I'd just like to say the science is now way over my head.
Secondly, I think the 60,000 factor may have some relevance for the sequel.
Do you remember the guy they left for dead? When Cooper flies back through the wormhole, he's going to get a scratchy message; "Hey! I'm still alive. Can you come pick me up, PLEASE..."

I'm basing this idea purely Hollywood physics, of course.

Time dilation wouldn't make a message delayed and then suddenly appear decades later. It would make the message redshifted and slowed down. Even with a factor of 60,000, you could still receive about 1.4 seconds of message per day.

 

[dragoneyes001]

"I'm alive and now the interstellar record holder for biggest wave surfer in history! Aloha!"

 

[Matterwave]

The whole planet was in a high grav potential.

In a nutshell, getting to the planet required them to get nearer the BH.

They had a quick diagram showing this.

View attachment 75767

But how in the world do you fine tune the black hole's potential to give you high potential something like 100km away from low potential? It doesn't seem like it would work unless the black hole itself was ~a few 10's of km in size... and at that point I would be very doubtful that the planet can get so close and still have an orbit...

 

[DaveC426913]

But how in the world do you fine tune the black hole's potential to give you high potential something like 100km away from low potential?

Where did 100km come from? We have no idea how far the Endurance's orbit was above the planet's orbit.

It doesn't seem like it would work unless the black hole itself was ~a few 10's of km in size... and at that point I would be very doubtful that the planet can get so close and still have an orbit...

I've been thinking that myself.

Unfortunately, this plot point is getting squeezed between a rock and a hard place, because to have such a high gradient also means there is a high gradient across the planet's diameter. i.e. colossal tidal forces will rip the planet to rubble. Gotta be well within the Roche Limit.

 

[Matterwave]

Where did 100km come from? We have no idea how far the Endurance's orbit was above the planet's orbit.

I guess it sort of looked that way to me when I was watching the movie. I didn't see Endurance being a huge distance away from the planet.

 

[hankaaron]

Unfortunately, this plot point is getting squeezed between a rock and a hard place, because to have such a high gradient also means there is a high gradient across the planet's diameter. i.e. colossal tidal forces will rip the planet to rubble.

But the gradient shouldn't be greater than the inverse square law, right?

 

[DaveC426913]

But the gradient shouldn't be greater than the inverse square law, right?

The point is that they had to traverse a grav potential where the time dilation was 60,000.
If the grav pot across the planet is bigger than, like, a fraction of 1, then it would be torn apart.
Which means that they would have had to traverse a distance that is 60,000 x some inverse of that fraction x the diameter of the planet.

So, say, a planet falls apart when gravitational potential across the planet's diameter is big enough to cause a time dilation of, say 0.001 from one side to the other. (That's huge, it's probably orders of magnitude smaller).

So, now they must have passed 60,000 x 1000 x the diameter of the planet (let's call it 10,000 miles), for a total distance from Endurance to planet of 600 billion miles. these are just hypothetical numbers, but it's a real problem.

 

[Matterwave]

The point is that they had to traverse a grav potential where the time dilation was 60,000.
If the grav pot across the planet is bigger than, like, a fraction of 1, then it would be torn apart.
Which means that they would have had to traverse a distance that is 60,000 x some inverse of that fraction x the diameter of the planet.

So, say, a planet falls apart when gravitational potential across the planet's diameter is big enough to cause a time dilation of, say 0.001 from one side to the other. (That's huge, it's probably orders of magnitude smaller).

So, now they must have passed 60,000 x 1000 x the diameter of the planet (let's call it 10,000 miles), for a total distance from Endurance to planet of 600 billion miles. these are just hypothetical numbers, but it's a real problem.

Lol, 600 billion miles is well outside of our solar system (I think Neptune is ~1-2 billion miles away from the Sun?)...in what way is that called an "orbit" on the planet? In addition it took Endurance 2 years to reach Saturn, if Endurance was 600 billion miles from the planet, either the shuttle is orders of magnitude faster (then, why not just use the shuttle?) or it would have taken them ~300 years to get to the planet from Endurance, and then 300 years to get back (not counting all of that gravitational potential and time dilation they have to go through).