Interstellar
- Thread starter GK4Herd
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I'm really excited for this; I'm going to go see it on one of the big nice (non IMAX) screens locally on Sunday.
This was really an amazing movie in so many ways. H&H ...you are doing yourself a favor by seeing this on a large screen or IMAX theater because of the stunning cinematography. This movie was made with a 165 million dollar budget. I'll not give any of the plot away, but I will say that this movie probably won't be for everybody, but I am reading some overwhelmingly favorable reviews and commentary on it.
First, before you go brush up on the basics of Einstein's special relativity, black holes, wormholes, tesseracts and extra dimensions. The stuff is right up my alley so a lot of it I understood but the fifth-dimensional stuff was really difficult for me to understand. Extra dimensional stuff is so counterintuitive that I have a hard time sinking my head around it. Make no doubt about it, this movie was complicated. What I liked about it was that the main advisor was Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist who specializes in black holes. The goal of the movie was to keep it as close to real science as possible. I've seen a few criticisms on science related stuff of the movie but it has mostly been met favorably in the scientific community based on what I've read so far.
I'll put together a primer of just basic stuff that will prevent you from going into this movie blind. You really don't have to be an expert, but understanding the basics will make the movie more enjoyable. The movie is very long (169 minutes) so prepare for that.
This post was edited on 11/8 8:42 AM by GK4Herd
First, before you go brush up on the basics of Einstein's special relativity, black holes, wormholes, tesseracts and extra dimensions. The stuff is right up my alley so a lot of it I understood but the fifth-dimensional stuff was really difficult for me to understand. Extra dimensional stuff is so counterintuitive that I have a hard time sinking my head around it. Make no doubt about it, this movie was complicated. What I liked about it was that the main advisor was Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist who specializes in black holes. The goal of the movie was to keep it as close to real science as possible. I've seen a few criticisms on science related stuff of the movie but it has mostly been met favorably in the scientific community based on what I've read so far.
I'll put together a primer of just basic stuff that will prevent you from going into this movie blind. You really don't have to be an expert, but understanding the basics will make the movie more enjoyable. The movie is very long (169 minutes) so prepare for that.
This post was edited on 11/8 8:42 AM by GK4Herd
A few things that will help. Although the things I'm talking about here are generalized and are WAY more involved in reality than some of my over simplistic explanation, their basic understanding is important to the movie.
Special Relativity- this was one of Einstein's 1905 works that he submitted to journal while he worked at a Swiss patent office. (E=MC2 came that year as well.) Special relativity has a lot of implications. SR allows for time to be added to the three dimensions of space that we encounter intuitively in reality. (Up/down, left/righ, forward/backward) This is what is known as the spacetime continuum. Basically Einstein surmised that objects that move at different speeds through spacetime experience time differently relative to others frame of reference. In other words, if you were on the ground and someone took off in a rocket that could approach the speed of light, they would age differently relative to the person on the ground. This has been proven in countless experiments over the years. There is direct evidence to support this.
General Relativity-this was Einstein's 1916 addition to relativity. GR is a basic theory of gravity. Important to the movie is that the space around mass warps or bends. So this causes warps and bends in space-time. As a result, objects that get close to gravitational fields experience time differently as well. The closer they get to the object the slower time passes relative to objects outside of that gravitational influence. This is also something that has been supported through experimentation numerous times. In fact, our GPS satellites has to use a GR adjustment in calculation to account for the difference between gravitation on the satellites with that on the earth.
Black holes- this one is fairly easy. A black hole is a region in spacetime where the mass is so great and the gravity so powerful that not even light can escape. These can be formed after the demise of a very large star when it collapses in on itself after it is spent. These gravitational giants can suck in other black holes, stars, etc. and gain mass. In the movie, much of it takes place near a massive black hole called Gargantua. This causes unique problems with time based on the above relativity. Black holes also have been directly observed.
Event Horizon- this is the point in space surrounding a black hole that if you were to cross you would be swept in never to return.
Wormhole- this is a phenomena that is theoretically and mathematically possible but has never been directly observed. Because we know that the cosmic speed limit is the speed of light (you can't go faster), that puts the ability for man to travel to most of our universe out of reach because it would take longer than our life expectancy to get there. But because we know that large massive objects bend spacetime, it is possible for a shortcut to help us reach parts of space unreachable conventionally. Imagine a napkin is a slice of spacetime. To travel from one side to the other you would have to travel in a straight line. Now fold the napkin over (imagine this fold was done by a massive object like a black hole in space) and now you have the edged lined up next to each other. A wormhole is made theoretically possible by some gravitational force on both sides of the napkins causing a funnel to connect to two points in space. By going through that wormhole you would be in effect taking a shortcut to parts of the universe that you could never reach in a linear path. Again...this works mathematically but has never been observed.
Tesseracts- a four dimensional hyper cube. I'll find a picture and post it.
Fifth Dimension-we have two dimensions on paper. We have three dimensions in observable space. We have four dimensions when you include time. A fifth dimension is a theoretica and hypothetical construct. There is no direct observation but it is argued to exist by theoretical physicist. We normally and intuitively envision time as flowing in a straight line. Einstein showed in relativity that time was relative to the frame of reference of the observer. In a hyper dimensional space it is theorized that time might not flow linearly, but flow simultaneously. In other words your entire life...your birth, your death, everything... is happening at once. This plays an important part in the movie and is illustrated through the above tesseracts. This is the part of all of this that I have the most difficult time getting my head around because it is counterintuitive by nature.
Anyway...if you familiarize yourself with the above it will make the movie more enjoyable.
Special Relativity- this was one of Einstein's 1905 works that he submitted to journal while he worked at a Swiss patent office. (E=MC2 came that year as well.) Special relativity has a lot of implications. SR allows for time to be added to the three dimensions of space that we encounter intuitively in reality. (Up/down, left/righ, forward/backward) This is what is known as the spacetime continuum. Basically Einstein surmised that objects that move at different speeds through spacetime experience time differently relative to others frame of reference. In other words, if you were on the ground and someone took off in a rocket that could approach the speed of light, they would age differently relative to the person on the ground. This has been proven in countless experiments over the years. There is direct evidence to support this.
General Relativity-this was Einstein's 1916 addition to relativity. GR is a basic theory of gravity. Important to the movie is that the space around mass warps or bends. So this causes warps and bends in space-time. As a result, objects that get close to gravitational fields experience time differently as well. The closer they get to the object the slower time passes relative to objects outside of that gravitational influence. This is also something that has been supported through experimentation numerous times. In fact, our GPS satellites has to use a GR adjustment in calculation to account for the difference between gravitation on the satellites with that on the earth.
Black holes- this one is fairly easy. A black hole is a region in spacetime where the mass is so great and the gravity so powerful that not even light can escape. These can be formed after the demise of a very large star when it collapses in on itself after it is spent. These gravitational giants can suck in other black holes, stars, etc. and gain mass. In the movie, much of it takes place near a massive black hole called Gargantua. This causes unique problems with time based on the above relativity. Black holes also have been directly observed.
Event Horizon- this is the point in space surrounding a black hole that if you were to cross you would be swept in never to return.
Wormhole- this is a phenomena that is theoretically and mathematically possible but has never been directly observed. Because we know that the cosmic speed limit is the speed of light (you can't go faster), that puts the ability for man to travel to most of our universe out of reach because it would take longer than our life expectancy to get there. But because we know that large massive objects bend spacetime, it is possible for a shortcut to help us reach parts of space unreachable conventionally. Imagine a napkin is a slice of spacetime. To travel from one side to the other you would have to travel in a straight line. Now fold the napkin over (imagine this fold was done by a massive object like a black hole in space) and now you have the edged lined up next to each other. A wormhole is made theoretically possible by some gravitational force on both sides of the napkins causing a funnel to connect to two points in space. By going through that wormhole you would be in effect taking a shortcut to parts of the universe that you could never reach in a linear path. Again...this works mathematically but has never been observed.
Tesseracts- a four dimensional hyper cube. I'll find a picture and post it.
Fifth Dimension-we have two dimensions on paper. We have three dimensions in observable space. We have four dimensions when you include time. A fifth dimension is a theoretica and hypothetical construct. There is no direct observation but it is argued to exist by theoretical physicist. We normally and intuitively envision time as flowing in a straight line. Einstein showed in relativity that time was relative to the frame of reference of the observer. In a hyper dimensional space it is theorized that time might not flow linearly, but flow simultaneously. In other words your entire life...your birth, your death, everything... is happening at once. This plays an important part in the movie and is illustrated through the above tesseracts. This is the part of all of this that I have the most difficult time getting my head around because it is counterintuitive by nature.
Anyway...if you familiarize yourself with the above it will make the movie more enjoyable.
I think Christopher Nolan is a terrific director but the trailers of this movie look very uninteresting.
I'm going tonight. They did a special on the making of the set. I think it's going to really visually appealing.
How excellent of a sci-fi movie this is may be a bit overshadowed by how great of a movie it is overall. The score was excellent, the special effects appear to have been done with models instead of CGI which really fit the tone perfectly and there were some heavy homages to 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Some parts may have gone on a little longer than necessary and I might have cut the last scene entirely or reworked it some, but overall it was a really great movie. It really is something you need to see in theaters if you like hard sci-fi movies at all and really I recommend it to just about anyone who likes cerebral movies at all.
Some parts may have gone on a little longer than necessary and I might have cut the last scene entirely or reworked it some, but overall it was a really great movie. It really is something you need to see in theaters if you like hard sci-fi movies at all and really I recommend it to just about anyone who likes cerebral movies at all.
I saw Interstellar last night.....It's one of those movies that I actually like more this morning than I did right after the movie. It's just taken my brain a little while to process it.
I do have one question.......
In the end when Future Cooper was communicating with past Murphy, he sent the word S-T-A-Y in morse code, hoping she could stop past Cooper from going.
Question is......Who sent the coordinates that enabled Cooper to find the NASA complex in the first place? Future Cooper wouldn't have sent those knowing what he knew at the time, would he?
I do have one question.......
In the end when Future Cooper was communicating with past Murphy, he sent the word S-T-A-Y in morse code, hoping she could stop past Cooper from going.
Question is......Who sent the coordinates that enabled Cooper to find the NASA complex in the first place? Future Cooper wouldn't have sent those knowing what he knew at the time, would he?
This is the best plot explanation that I've seen out there. The whole time loop thing makes many things confusing.
Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert
Future Cooper did. Remember, time doesn't just flow one way in the movie. It's a common thought among those that think time travel may be possible that you can't actually change anything, because anything you did was already done in the first timeline since there is actually only one timeline.
I saw it again in IMAX this time and it was worth it, although it was way too damn loud at points. First movie I've seen twice in theaters in about a decade.
Lol that some of the same posters who can't fathom the notion of God are completely enamored with the existence of a 5th dimension, tesseracts, and time travel.
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I never said I didn't believe in those things. I just think it's funny that some of you find those notions more palatable than the idea that there is an architect behind these things.
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Some sort of god is hypothetically possible of course, there's just no evidence for one. So I guess yeah I'd be fine with a movie that had a god in it. What's your point again?
My point - I find it humorous that people who are so willing to accept the notions that things like an unseeable, unknowable 5th dimension exists, as well as the concept that we can move forward (perhaps backwards) through time, are completely dismissive of the Biblical concept of God. Seems like it would require just as big a leap of faith to acknowledge one as it would the other.
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Sort of, but thinking that wormholes exist doesn't require living your life a certain way and disbelieving a lot of other stuff like being a Christian does. It's a pretty bad parallel. If someone asserted that wormholes existed and work in precisely a certain way and had no evidence that that was the truth then yeah that'd be about the same thing.
The examples you use are extremely poor to be making the point that you are Thundercat. Let's examine the three examples that you use as a springboard to promote your goal of calling out some perceived logical fallacy.
Let's start with your reference to "being enamored by" tesseracts. You present the term tesseract as though it was some type of theoretical construct of a physicist or mathmetician. That makes absolutely no sense. A tesseract has been used as a mathematical tool for over a hundred years. It is a geometric construction of a cube within a cube. It has practical application in computers. Implying that a person has committed a logical fallacy by believing in tesseracts but not in God is akin to saying that it is a stretch for people to believe in triangles but not in God. The movie Interstellar simply used tesseracts as a means of illustrating a thetheoretical concept of extra-dimensions. They're allowed...it's a movie.
Now...let's look at the time travel notion. In your example you are advancing a misnomer. Science has never implied time travel backwards in time is possible. In fact, Einstein rules out that possibility because of our inability to go faster than light. So when you talk about the possibility of going backwards in time you are advancing the imaginative creations of science fiction...not any science that is being promoted in the mainstream scientific community. But going forward in time is not only theoretically possible, it has been proven in numerous situations. First, there are two scenarios where time dilation occurs...when we travel at speeds approaching the speed of light (special relativity) and when we get near significant gravity masses (general relativity). Test have been done with atomic clocks and the Concorde decades ago where the clocks we started simultaneously and one placed on the ground and the other placed on the Concorde. The Concorde spent time doing what it does...going very fast...and when it returned to the ground the clock on the ground was ahead of the clock that was traveling at supersonic speed. The Concorde doesn't travel anywhere near as fast as light, but the extrapolations showed that the time difference was exactly as Einstein predicted. This experiment has been repeated with equal results numerous times including recent tests done with particles in the LHC. The same thing occurs near gravity sources. That is why Einstein's general relativity figures have to be applied to GPS satellite calclculations in order to work correctly. So yes...if we ever develop the technology to travel near light speed we should be able to advance to the future because those on earth will age more quickly while we are flying around going very fast.
Now let's talk about five-dimensions. Let me start by saying that five dimensions is a legitimate mathematical construct. But how the movie used it is in terms of space. This is definitely theoretical...and I might point out that I've NEVER herd anyone advancing it as such on this board. But it has definitely been debated and discussed by both astrophysics and particle physics. It has been used as the basis for work in unifying relativity with quantum mechanics. There is a ton of work where adding a fifth dimension to the three-dimensional space plus time creates the mathematical basis to possibly explain the very nature of our universe. No one is suggesting that extra dimensions have been proven. But the possibility of the Higgs Boson (God Particle) languished in the same theoretical type of framework as extra dimensional theories for decades...and now we know it exists.
I love science. Believing in it neither confirms nor denies the existence of God. If anything it should magnify the awesomeness of a God if one exists.
Let's start with your reference to "being enamored by" tesseracts. You present the term tesseract as though it was some type of theoretical construct of a physicist or mathmetician. That makes absolutely no sense. A tesseract has been used as a mathematical tool for over a hundred years. It is a geometric construction of a cube within a cube. It has practical application in computers. Implying that a person has committed a logical fallacy by believing in tesseracts but not in God is akin to saying that it is a stretch for people to believe in triangles but not in God. The movie Interstellar simply used tesseracts as a means of illustrating a thetheoretical concept of extra-dimensions. They're allowed...it's a movie.
Now...let's look at the time travel notion. In your example you are advancing a misnomer. Science has never implied time travel backwards in time is possible. In fact, Einstein rules out that possibility because of our inability to go faster than light. So when you talk about the possibility of going backwards in time you are advancing the imaginative creations of science fiction...not any science that is being promoted in the mainstream scientific community. But going forward in time is not only theoretically possible, it has been proven in numerous situations. First, there are two scenarios where time dilation occurs...when we travel at speeds approaching the speed of light (special relativity) and when we get near significant gravity masses (general relativity). Test have been done with atomic clocks and the Concorde decades ago where the clocks we started simultaneously and one placed on the ground and the other placed on the Concorde. The Concorde spent time doing what it does...going very fast...and when it returned to the ground the clock on the ground was ahead of the clock that was traveling at supersonic speed. The Concorde doesn't travel anywhere near as fast as light, but the extrapolations showed that the time difference was exactly as Einstein predicted. This experiment has been repeated with equal results numerous times including recent tests done with particles in the LHC. The same thing occurs near gravity sources. That is why Einstein's general relativity figures have to be applied to GPS satellite calclculations in order to work correctly. So yes...if we ever develop the technology to travel near light speed we should be able to advance to the future because those on earth will age more quickly while we are flying around going very fast.
Now let's talk about five-dimensions. Let me start by saying that five dimensions is a legitimate mathematical construct. But how the movie used it is in terms of space. This is definitely theoretical...and I might point out that I've NEVER herd anyone advancing it as such on this board. But it has definitely been debated and discussed by both astrophysics and particle physics. It has been used as the basis for work in unifying relativity with quantum mechanics. There is a ton of work where adding a fifth dimension to the three-dimensional space plus time creates the mathematical basis to possibly explain the very nature of our universe. No one is suggesting that extra dimensions have been proven. But the possibility of the Higgs Boson (God Particle) languished in the same theoretical type of framework as extra dimensional theories for decades...and now we know it exists.
I love science. Believing in it neither confirms nor denies the existence of God. If anything it should magnify the awesomeness of a God if one exists.
First, I think it's patently clear that I was referring to a tesseract as a conduit to other dimensions, not the geometrical construct.
Second, while time travel is theoretically possible according to physics, no one has been able to accomplish it, therefore it exists merely as theory - specifically superstring theory (at least that is my understanding).
Third, with regard to the existence of a 5th dimension, again we are dealing with theory. While physics suggest the existence of such a plane, we don't have the capacity to understand or accesses it.
Finally, I agree completely that science - and physics in particular - support the belief in a Supreme Being.
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Second, while time travel is theoretically possible according to physics, no one has been able to accomplish it, therefore it exists merely as theory - specifically superstring theory (at least that is my understanding).
Third, with regard to the existence of a 5th dimension, again we are dealing with theory. While physics suggest the existence of such a plane, we don't have the capacity to understand or accesses it.
Finally, I agree completely that science - and physics in particular - support the belief in a Supreme Being.
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http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/mysteries/html/kaku1-1.html
See the last page re: how string theory applies to the concept of time travel. No offense, but I'm going to trust the physicist over random internet smart guy.
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See the last page re: how string theory applies to the concept of time travel. No offense, but I'm going to trust the physicist over random internet smart guy.
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You need to reread that article. Nowhere are they implying that string theory is a theory of time travel. They are saying that string theory possibly holds the key to unifying the standard model of particle physics (quantum mechanics) with gravity. It would be the key to the elusive theory of everything. Einstein chased this this to his deathbed.
The underlying basis behind time travel is based on relativity...traveling at high speeds (special) and manipulating large sources of gravity (general), such as black holes, to create conditions like was illustrated in the movie. (Wormholes) the reason we can't do this is we are nowhere advanced enough to create the energy to manipulate the conditions necessary for time travel. The article simply stated that string theory was a leading candidate to understanding the basic underpinnings of our universe thus allowing us the ability to create the energy needed to manipulate the conditions for time travel.
And Internet smart guy? This thread was nothing more than people talking about a movie. You were the one who took a shot over the bow of several posters and used faulty science analogies to make some kind of point about religion.
This post was edited on 11/19 12:11 AM by GK4Herd
The underlying basis behind time travel is based on relativity...traveling at high speeds (special) and manipulating large sources of gravity (general), such as black holes, to create conditions like was illustrated in the movie. (Wormholes) the reason we can't do this is we are nowhere advanced enough to create the energy to manipulate the conditions necessary for time travel. The article simply stated that string theory was a leading candidate to understanding the basic underpinnings of our universe thus allowing us the ability to create the energy needed to manipulate the conditions for time travel.
And Internet smart guy? This thread was nothing more than people talking about a movie. You were the one who took a shot over the bow of several posters and used faulty science analogies to make some kind of point about religion.
This post was edited on 11/19 12:11 AM by GK4Herd
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