Experiential Point 4 - Watch “Interstellar”
Ryan Le - 934001124
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a movie about humanity trying to survive when Earth
starts to become inhabitable. It won the oscar for best visual effects. The film includes many
advanced and complicated scientific concepts, including wormholes, black holes, and time
dilation. The movie is known for being somewhat realistic, as they had a physicist work with
Nolan to ensure scientific accuracy, but as any movie there are many things that are unrealistic or
impossible.
One of the most important parts of the movie is a wormhole which can take anyone who
enters to another galaxy. Wormholes are something that could theoretically exist, but one has
never been found so there is actually know way of knowing if one exists. One major thing is that
it would also be incredible to navigate a wormhole if one even existed. The crew travels through
the wormhole quite easily, but in real fashion would likely experience extreme gravity and
instability, something that might not even be survivable for man made spacecraft.
The crew in Interstellar travel to a planet near a black hole called Gargantua. The movie
was praised for its depiction of gravitational lensing, and this was because of the physicist they
brought to do calculations. The giant waves on Miller’s planet are similar to what would actually
be on a planet so close to a black hole. The gravitational forces generated are massive, greater
than anything we would be able to comprehend. The movie also shows time dilation, where an
hour on Miller’s planet is seven years on Earth, and could be accurate because of the black hole,
but that large of a gravity field would destroy the planet.
Additionally, the fuel capacity of the spacecraft Endurance is something that would
simply be impossible in real life. Endurance enters and leaves many planets and wormholes,
something that would constantly require an insane amount of fuel if we were using any modern
propulsion system. When they aim to slingshot themselves into Gargantua's event horizon, an
insane amount of energy would be required to do so.
The least realistic scene of the movie is when Cooper gives data from the inside of a
black hole. We believe black holes have singularities at their core, meaning a calm environment
in the center is simply impossible. Cooper likely would’ve instantly been spaghettified. It would
be unrealistic for anyone to survive in such an environment, and even more unrealistic for any
information to be shared.
Even though Interstellar has some unrealistic moments, it still gets high praise for being
so beautiful and imaginative with some realistic moments. The movie gives hope for the future
of space exploration, even though we as humans should never hope to ever leave the Earth as
uninhabitable as it was in the movie.
References
Tate, K. (2014, November 7). The Science of “Interstellar” explained (infographic). Space.com.
https://www.space.com/27692-science-of-interstellar-infographic.html
