Interstellar (Christopher Nolan) *SPOILERS FROM POST 458 ONWARDS*

PhiloCypher

danrua01 wrote: »

You found no emotion when Coop was watching 23 years' worth of videos from his kids? Or when he found himself stuck in the other dimension, seeing his previous mistakes, and watching his daughter, knowing he'd probably never see her?

Him leaving Murph 1.0 hit me in the feels alright but as I said in my post I wasn't able to carry that emotional investment across, I can over the course of a tv show like the change in actors who played spartacus but not over the course of a film. It's not a switch for me, it's a process. While the 23 years worth of video scene was well acted it would have been better served if it had been Murph leaving messages rather then the son who he doesn't even asked about before leaving to find Brandt . Maybe then I'd have been more invested in her as a character but instead she cold shoulders him for 23 years before breaking her silence to accuse him after Brandt Sr revelation. That scene as it is works on a purely emotional level if you have kids but it would have worked on a emotional and a narrative level if they had done away with the son altogether and had it be Murph leaving those messages.

Deco99

danrua01 wrote: »

You found no emotion when Coop was watching 23 years' worth of videos from his kids? Or when he found himself stuck in the other dimension, seeing his previous mistakes, and watching his daughter, knowing he'd probably never see her?

Yes to the 23 years of vids, Hell No to the book case crap. The film lost me at Matt Damons dastardly scientist, obviously not needed but still in it. Suggests pressure to keep it in even though it didnt work.

Hyzepher

Maybe someone can answer these for me

1. How much time did Mann believe had passed from the time he left earth? From the story he left earth approx. 10 years before Cooper.
2. Why does time go slow on Miller's planet? Now,don't point me to another part of boards for this. I understand it has to do with gravity etc but I'd like a layman's explanation
3. initially when Cooper is in the black hole / bookcase he sends two messages - the message "stay" via Morse code in the books and the co-ords of the NASA base. Are these not contradictory?

btw - loved the film and would not be deterred by any of the so-called issues. These questions are just in case I missed something

srsly78

There is no easy laymans explanation for time dilation, it needs some understanding of relativity. Special Relativity concerns itself with moving frames of reference and isn't so complicated. This explains time dilation experienced by a spaceship moving very fast (relative to a fixed observer).

However the black hole time dilation comes from General Relativity and is caused by the warping of spacetime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

Note the experimental confirmation section, this is not science fiction stuff. Try to understand special relativity, it doesn't need any advanced maths - just good old pythagoras theorem. General Relativity however involves tensors and stuff which will scare everyone off

(see the "Simple inference of time dilation due to relative velocity" section in link)

tl;dr: Triangles boss.

Sad Professor

Hyzepher wrote: »

Maybe someone can answer these for me

1. How much time did Mann believe had passed from the time he left earth? From the story he left earth approx. 10 years before Cooper.

I don’t think is made clear. Longer than 10 years anyway since Cooper and co lost 23 years on Miller’s planet. Mann spent a lot of time in hyper-sleep which slowed his ageing. We also don’t know if he “lost time” en route to his planet.

2. Why does time go slow on Miller's planet? Now,don't point me to another part of boards for this. I understand it has to do with gravity etc but I'd like a layman's explanation

Relativity. In a nutshell, Miller’s planet is orbiting the event horizon of a spinning black hole which is whirling the space around it at almost the speed of light, so time on the planet passes slower than on Earth.

3. initially when Cooper is in the black hole / bookcase he sends two messages - the message "stay" via Morse code in the books and the co-ords of the NASA base. Are these not contradictory?

When he sends the “stay” message he’s trying to change time so that he never left. When he realises this isn’t possible he accepts his fate so that he can send the gravity data attained from the black hole.

Ipso

Spoilers ahead

Just a general physics type question; technically won't Cooper always be "behind the bedroom wall"?

srsly78

Technically causality is necessary for anything to make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_%28physics%29

danrua01

Ipso wrote: »

Spoilers ahead

Just a general physics type question; technically won't Cooper always be "behind the bedroom wall"?

I don't think so because you have to see that as a physical place, and he only visited some instances. It'd be like you saying to me 'you were in Spain, so you were everywhere in Spain'.

I dunno if I've explained myself well..

danrua01

Hyzepher wrote: »

Maybe someone can answer these for me

1. How much time did Mann believe had passed from the time he left earth? From the story he left earth approx. 10 years before Cooper.
2. Why does time go slow on Miller's planet? Now,don't point me to another part of boards for this. I understand it has to do with gravity etc but I'd like a layman's explanation
3. initially when Cooper is in the black hole / bookcase he sends two messages - the message "stay" via Morse code in the books and the co-ords of the NASA base. Are these not contradictory?

btw - loved the film and would not be deterred by any of the so-called issues. These questions are just in case I missed something

In regards to number 2, the easiest way to explain it is gravity. Gravity affects time in that when it's stronger it slows down time. Even in very small terms, the GPS satellites that orbit us are slightly off sync with our time everyday. This is alluded to in the film as well when the harvesters behave oddly, due to a gravitational change

Ipso

danrua01 wrote: »

I don't think so because you have to see that as a physical place, and he only visited some instances. It'd be like you saying to me 'you were in Spain, so you were everywhere in Spain'.

I dunno if I've explained myself well..

I seem to remember a documentary that said something like if you crossed the event hirizon you would experience eternity for a split second.
Isn't that physical place in the film really just an expression of how space time gets messed up in a black hole?

danrua01

Ipso wrote: »

I seem to remember a documentary that said something like if you crossed the event hirizon you would experience eternity for a split second.
Isn't that physical place in the film really just an expression of how space time gets messed up in a black hole?

It's could be, but I don't think so. Going through a black hole you'll be spaghettified and you'd probably just be sacked deeper and deeper into the hole... What we're shown in the film, I think, is some sort of transfer to another dimension.. I think that's the part of the film where the science isn't 100%, but only because we don't know enough about what would or could happen

Ole Rodrigo

Ipso wrote: »

I seem to remember a documentary that said something like if you crossed the event hirizon you would experience eternity for a split second.
Isn't that physical place in the film really just an expression of how space time gets messed up in a black hole?

Its not true. Not least because the photons holding the information of everything that had fallen in or was about to would be seen as white light, so you wouldn't discern anything, even if the record of it was still there.

Sort of. But in reality its meaningless because everything gets torn into sub atomic particles heading towards the black hole singularity ( which inevitably happens after crossing the event horizon, if the super heated temperatures are survived ).

Hyzepher

Not sure I buy into this time differential due to gravity/velocity. From the articles srsly78 linked to it seems that a lot of this is theory based on some fundamental assumptions

1. Gravity and/or velocity doesn't affect the time recording devices themselves while they are experiencing the changes in gravity or speed.
2. The assumption that the speed of light is constant and therefore can be used to determine the duration of time under certain conditions.
3. That both parties involved in the time differential i.e the guys on Miller's planet and the guy left in the spaceship orbiting, continue to experience time, relatively speaking, exactly as before. With no extreme changes to that differential as they come back together. For example, if time slows down as they approach the planet and spend some time on it then why wouldn't it speed up as they come away from that planet.

srsly78

See the experimental evidence in the link I provided, specifically the one about putting atomic clocks on aeroplanes and flying them around the world. Seems similar to the black hole scenario?

The blackhole stuff might be theory, but time dilation itself has a lot of experimental evidence! Dilation experienced by muons hitting the upper atmosphere is another common example used to illustrate it.

Basically this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox

danrua01

Hyzepher wrote: »

Not sure I buy into this time differential due to gravity/velocity. From the articles srsly78 linked to it seems that a lot of this is theory based on some fundamental assumptions

1. Gravity and/or velocity doesn't affect the time recording devices themselves while they are experiencing the changes in gravity or speed.
2. The assumption that the speed of light is constant and therefore can be used to determine the duration of time under certain conditions.
3. That both parties involved in the time differential i.e the guys on Miller's planet and the guy left in the spaceship orbiting, continue to experience time, relatively speaking, exactly as before. With no extreme changes to that differential as they come back together. For example, if time slows down as they approach the planet and spend some time on it then why wouldn't it speed up as they come away from that planet.

But we already know that gravity does affect time recording devices- that's why GPS satellites in orbit are slightly off if not corrected, and the same for the speed of light being a constant.

How do you mean, in your last point?

srsly78

His last point refers to the Twin Paradox.

Regarding the speed of light being constant, here is a relevant famous experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment

Hyzepher

danrua01 wrote: »

But we already know that gravity does affect time recording devices- that's why GPS satellites in orbit are slightly off if not corrected, and the same for the speed of light being a constant.

My point on 1. was more about how do we know that it's time that's affected and not just the devices that record it

danrua01

Ah OK! Can't answer 100% on that but I'd imagine just by repeated trials, if it was just a few times on one device or two it could be put down to that, but I'd imagine over the course of science we've used various time-keeping devices. But thats a interesting question

indough

Hyzepher wrote: »

My point on 1. was more about how do we know that it's time that's affected and not just the devices that record it

Because they are devices that record time

danrua01

a good, informative reply.

Oregano_State

Hyzepher wrote: »

My point on 1. was more about how do we know that it's time that's affected and not just the devices that record it

That's a good question. You can be sure that you're not the first person to ask it though. I'm not that familiar with the experiments used to examine time dilation, but there have been many, and all of them have confirmed the same result. If it was me, I would use clocks that use different mechanisms to detect time, if the time change is the same despite the difference in the mechanisms used to measure it, then surely it would be time itself (or rather, relative time in the reference frame of the clock) that is changing.

You're welcome to go digging and look up the experiments yourself though if you want a more complete answer than that. There's a huge body of information out there on the subject. The thing is though, people have been questioning special relativity since the first papers on it were published in the early 1900s, and it has come through largely unchanged.

Oregano_State

I'd imagine that if Christopher Nolan read this thread he'd be delighted with the debate he's caused. This movie is introducing many people to ideas they may not have been familiar with before, or at least if they have, it hasn't been in such an engaging way.

I went to see the film for a second time last night, and my opinion on it hasn't changed. Really great film. Yes, it isn't perfect, but the problems are minor compared to the successes.

danrua01

Oregano_State wrote: »

I'd imagine that if Christopher Nolan read this thread he'd be delighted with the debate he's caused. This movie is introducing many people to ideas they may not have been familiar with before, or at least if they have, it hasn't been in such an engaging way.

I went to see the film for a second time last night, and my opinion on it hasn't changed. Really great film. Yes, it isn't perfect, but the problems are minor compared to the successes.

Have to agree with everything hear. He said himself an aim of it was to get more people interested, and get more people asking questions, so on that level it's a success.

Ole Rodrigo

Oregano_State wrote: »

I'd imagine that if Christopher Nolan read this thread he'd be delighted with the debate he's caused. This movie is introducing many people to ideas they may not have been familiar with before, or at least if they have, it hasn't been in such an engaging way.

I went to see the film for a second time last night, and my opinion on it hasn't changed. Really great film. Yes, it isn't perfect, but the problems are minor compared to the successes.

+ 1.

If it succeeds in increasing overall levels of scientific literacy it will have truly succeeded.

The scientists and engineers who worked on the lunar landings went on to form Silicon Valley. The knock on effect is why China and India have their own space programs.

Nasa's budget for 2013 was 17 billion dollars. Americans spent 56 billion dollars on pet grooming for the same year.

srsly78

ror_74 wrote: »

Nasa's budget for 2013 was 17 billion dollars. Americans spent 56 billion dollars on pet grooming for the same year.

And they spend similar amounts on astrology. At least pet grooming has some value :pac:

ktulu123

Going to see it in the BFI Imax on December 6th when im over there for the Leinster game. Delighted! Will be my 4th time seeing it...

DoYouEvenLift

ktulu123 wrote: »

Going to see it in the BFI Imax on December 6th when im over there for the Leinster game. Delighted! Will be my 4th time seeing it...

That will be your first time truly seeing it

Hyzepher

I watched this in Orlando last week on iMax. Bigger than BFI and a wonderful experience

DoYouEvenLift

Hyzepher wrote: »

I watched this in Orlando last week on iMax. Bigger than BFI and a wonderful experience

Digital though

Sad Professor

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the end of the film, specifically how time (as the fourth dimension) would be viewed from a fifth dimension.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1cexcjdyIE

And here’s Carl Sagan explaining basically the same thing and the concept of a tesseract in a scene from Cosmos, which I assume was Nolan's inspiration for the ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WjV6MmCyM