2001:aso abounds within Nolan's "Interstellar"

[s***@hotmail.com]

-- obligatory spoiler alert --

"Interstellar" involves the last remnants of NASA covertly funding planetary missions through a newly-appeared wormhole by Saturn [~appearance of monolith by Jupiter]. Earth is literally drying-up, and government funding has shifted almost exclusively to agriculture.

A near-astronaut-turned-farmer finds a gravitational anomaly in his daughter's bedroom; dust accumulating into a binary signal pattern. This binary signal [~Sagan's "Contact"] leads the astronaut to particular Earth coordinates [~Tycho's monolith location].

Sub-plot has theoretical physicists wrestling to apply quantum theory to the theory of relativity in the hopes of trans-dimensional space travel. Einstein dubbed quantum theory as 'spooky action at a distance', and this is depicted as an invisible 'ghost' in the bedroom of the astronaut's daughter.

The NASA space missions involve walking, talking, all-purpose, ex-military A.I. robots. Like the HAL 9000, they are featureless and dubbed with acronyms; CASE, KIPP [~Thorne] and TARS [~anagram of 'star']. These robots are designed like monolith slabs, with their seamless segments applied to movement and utility.

Like HAL, a trusted character with a deeper understanding of the space mission tries to kill/maroon the rest of the crew. A lengthy space airlock/docking sequence is similar to Bowman trying to gain access to the Discovery [~Endurance] while being locked out by HAL [~TARS].

There is also a brief discussion about the American moon landings being faked to bankrupt Russia in a space race, which may be a nod to the Kubrick rumour mill.

Travel through the wormhole is less like the 2001:aso stargate sequence and more similar to that in the movie "Contact". Plot of "Interstellar" is more concerned with a battle between time and relativity, both affected by the gravity of a black hole near one of the planetary missions.

When the astronaut eventually enters the black hole, his spacecraft is ripped apart by ice/dust and he must eject. A brief, stargate-like passage begins a blatant rip-off of 2001:aso where the lone space-suited astronaut is suspended in a bedroom.

There, the astronaut realizes that while he was trying to communicate with his daughter in the past, the future human race (which has already solved the quantum/relativity equation in the future) is attempting to communicate with him.

This story mode is glaringly similar to Nolan's "Inception", where various levels of a dream world (playing out in varying time dilation) must all intersect at a particular time to solve the plot's central crisis.

Linking the astronaut father, the science geek daughter, the bedroom and the 'ghost' together early on telegraphs a future trans-dimensional connection well in advance of any twist or surprise. "Interstellar" then hammers the point home multiple times that the astronaut, stuck in a future dimensional time bridge, is/was the 'ghost'.

Unlike 2001:aso, there are few lingering passages of cosmic awe and wonder, and every scientific or theoretical idea is over-explained as to be understood by mainstream audiences. "Interstellar" was once to be directed by Steven Spielberg and, with so many scenes dedicated to love and family, it does seem like a script written for him.

However, there are no aliens in "Interstellar". The idea is that the highly advanced beings are that of future Earth inhabitants, which have mastered dimensional time travel.

"Interstellar" works best when it is coldly neutral and bleak, per Nolan's aesthetic, as the space travelers endure the ravages of space-time while visiting two uninhabitable planets.

Fans of 2001:aso will definitely appreciate "Interstellar" for the future space travel technology and visuals, which are of very high quality and equal or top those of last year's movie "Gravity".

Regards,

Steve

[kelpzoidzl]

I need to see it before I read past the first paagraph.

[Jan Bielawski]

Post by s***@hotmail.com
-- obligatory spoiler alert --

Thanks! But read it anyway as I have no intent of watching it.

Post by s***@hotmail.com
Sub-plot has theoretical physicists wrestling to apply quantum theory to the theory of relativity in the hopes of trans-dimensional space travel. Einstein dubbed quantum theory as 'spooky action at a distance', and this is depicted as an invisible 'ghost' in the bedroom of the astronaut's daughter.

Give me a break! :-)

Post by s***@hotmail.com
There is also a brief discussion about the American moon landings being faked to bankrupt Russia in a space race, which may be a nod to the Kubrick rumour mill.

Are you kidding? I'm beginning to think you are just making this stuff up! Is this
really the plot?

Post by s***@hotmail.com
Travel through the wormhole is less like the 2001:aso stargate sequence and more similar to that in the movie "Contact". Plot of "Interstellar" is more concerned with a battle between time and relativity, both affected by the gravity of a black hole near one of the planetary missions.

One of these decades I'll figure out why Hollywood is forever stuck on the wormhole
metric while ignoring Alcubierre's metric (published in 2000, so it's nothing
terribly new by now).

Post by s***@hotmail.com
Unlike 2001:aso, there are few lingering passages of cosmic awe and wonder, and every scientific or theoretical idea is over-explained as to be understood by mainstream audiences.

Of course, in reality this cannot be done. It's impossible to "explain" or
"over-explain" physics or math in few minutes simply because it takes several years
to understand it. So what one gets in films is always (no exception) a cuckoo parody
of some sort which makes the expert cringe. I think Tarkovsky's approach to this
sort of thing is much better: just show the stuff without even trying to explain
anything. It's much more interesting that way anyway.

Post by s***@hotmail.com
"Interstellar" was once to be directed by Steven Spielberg and, with so many scenes dedicated to love and family, it does seem like a script written for him.
However, there are no aliens in "Interstellar". The idea is that the highly advanced beings are that of future Earth inhabitants, which have mastered dimensional time travel.

When we finally have a theory that encompasses both quantum mechanics and general
relativity, it's very likely (my opinion only) that time travel will be impossible
in it. In fact the current spacetime model will be likely replaced by space
and time separated again, perhaps even reified. Nobody knows the details yet but it
seems things perhaps are drifting in that direction. Long story.

Post by s***@hotmail.com
Fans of 2001:aso will definitely appreciate "Interstellar" for the future space travel technology and visuals, which are of very high quality and equal or top those of last year's movie "Gravity".

Again, they should use Alcubierre's spacetime metric, it's actually pretty neat
visually, here is a scientifically accurate rendering from Universität Tübingen:

Warning: YouTube is FULL of videos pretending to describe this metric correctly,
just keep in mind that 95% of them are junk pseudoscience. INCLUDING (much to my
dismay) the "warp drive" work done by NASA. It's 100% nonsense and the guy
leading this research knows almost nothing about general relativity (his published
papers are full of basic errors). Another long story, sigh.

--
Jan

[Don Stockbauer]

So Jan, how do we produce the required negative energy?

[Jan Bielawski]

Post by Don Stockbauer
So Jan, how do we produce the required negative energy?

Good question :-) And that leaves aside the additional little detail of
pressurising the negative energy matter to stupendous amounts (the NASA guy is
unaware this is an issue, I've read his publications). One afternoon I sat down
with a large cappuccino and blueberry scone, and calculated the required mass
densities and pressures. If you know general relativity it's not very
difficult, just a bit tedious.

For example, if your spaceship diameter is 20 m across and the "wall" of the
"warp bubble" is about 20 cm, and the "negative matter" density is equal to
that of water, then in order for the spaceship to move at the breathtaking
speed of... 4 cm/min (slower than a snail) the required pressure would STILL
have to be about 2.7 x 10^20 Pa (about 3.9 x 10^16 psi). Good luck with that.
And to go faster than light the required density would have to be similarly
ridiculous, practically neutron-star-like (with the pressure to match, again).

--
Jan

[Don Stockbauer]

And of course that leaves aside how to obtain negative matter. To make rabbit soup you must first get a rabbit.

[Jan Bielawski]

Post by Don Stockbauer
And of course that leaves aside how to obtain negative matter. To make rabbit soup you must first get a rabbit.

That NASA dude is trying to use some quantum fluctuations which can be negative
but since he doesn't know about the pressure/momentum/etc. bit, that fiasco is
going to go nowhere very fast. Last time I checked they were making their
research secret. All the ingredients for N-rays and polywater are in place now.

--
Jan

[kelpzoidzl]

That's all pretty sharp.

[Don Stockbauer]

Jan's the sharp one. About all I can do is ask questions on this topic.

[Jan Bielawski]

Post by Don Stockbauer
Jan's the sharp one. About all I can do is ask questions on this topic.

Not sure about "sharp", I studied physics as a hobby (I am a mathematician by education).

--
Jan

[kelpzoidzl]

It was a play on words. Clarke's "SHARP drive"

[Jan Bielawski]

Post by kelpzoidzl
It was a play on words. Clarke's "SHARP drive"

Oops :-) But I must say one thing I never liked was Clarke's "Odyssey" books (OK, so I only read "2001" and "The lost Worlds of..."). For some reason I find them uninteresting and shallow: real physics is far more exciting and the metaphysics far deeper.

--
Jan

[Don Stockbauer]

I read 3001 long ago; what I liked best was when they retrieved Frank Poole's body and brought him back to life.

[kelpzoidzl]

Clarke's books are shallow on the surface, but each has a core idea, that makes it worth it. The book 3001, (which is supposedly going to be produced by Ridley Scott, ) was not a great book, but at the very end of it, there is a very subtle idea.

His book, "Light of other days," co-authored by Steven Baxter, is based on a "time travel" Dick Tracy type watch/device, that squeezes open the quantum foam, allowing one to be able to view any time, any where and it becomes popular like the internet. Privacy vanishes. Clarke and Baxter, also discussed the theories behind the idea. Clarke was no physics slouch, nor was he a slouch in metaphysics in the cosmic sense. As a writer, writing about people he tended to be surface, but his appreciation of reality on a deeper level his words would be very subtle.

[Don Stockbauer]

Clarke's works were quite an eye opener for me when I was around 13. It began with a class assignment to read "Rescue Party."

[kelpzoidzl]

I read all the Rama Books, even those not by Clarke directly. The last two in the "Rama Universe" (after Rama 5,) were very obscure and they were very subtle.

I cant remember the titles, but the very last one was a very emotional book.

[kelpzoidzl]

Books in the Rama Universe


http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?21593

[kelpzoidzl]

Interstellar discs come out March 30 and probably payforview. Still haven't seen it, but waiting patiently.

[kelpzoidzl]

Finally saw Interstellar.

Easily the best Sci-Fi film since 2001.

SPOILERS. see the movie

Usually when a new Sci-Fi film gets compared to 2001, I balk, because they are usually dogs. (Man-bear-pig).

Then the critical articles came out about the "Bad Science" in Interstellar. I wasn't convinced by these articles. The whole idea that a certain breed of scientists as a collective, hold the greatest knowledge by concensus and is superior to the Lone Geniuses is already proven by history, to be crap. This film adequately proves this. I can understand the scientist unions, and government shills, tip-toeing around things they barely know anything about. They have to show the power of their elite academic cliques and act like they know things. They don't know s&@$t about it.

The music at first bothered me because it was so incessant, but it's one of the best film scores ever. One of the best films ever.

I really think Stanley Kubrick would applaud this movie. The ghosts are telling us what to do.

[kelpzoidzl]

In light of Jan B saying in this thread, he won't see Interstellar, because he assumes it's bad science, I think he might like it.

I wasn't big on Inception (i thought it was silly trippy entertainment but that's all) and tend to scoff, when people compare Nolan to Kubrick, i have to say that Interstellar's science (Kip Thorne) is strong to a large degree. Like 2001, it ventures beyond what science really knows objectively.

One of the main themes is the idea of Simultaneous Cause and Effect and past, present and future being one, as with the Japanese Buddhist term, "Inga Guji." In Buddhism subjectivity and objectivity is fused as one moment, during Samadhi experiences, in deep meditation. Here it's not about theory or math, it's about actual experience. The ending of Interstellar in like the Akasa (akashic records). which is experiential. Trying to quantify experience is so far, beyond the ability of nuts and bolts science, because it does not study the experiential.

[kelpzoidzl]

FAQ: Miller's World (spoilers) self.interstellar
Submitted 4 months ago * by sto-ifics42
On several forums I've seen moviegoers poking & prodding at "plot holes" and "science errors" in Interstellar. While some are legitimate criticisms, the vast majority have fairly simple explanations. In this post I hope to correct some misconceptions about Miller's world, which seems to be getting the brunt of the criticism. The following is based on information provided in chapter 17 of Kip Thorne's The Science of Interstellar.
General premise: Miller's world is a roughly Earth-size planet orbiting the supermassive black hole Gargantua. The planet orbits so close that time passes ~61,000x slower on its surface compared to the outside universe due to gravitational time dilation. The surface is covered in a global ocean, and any given point is inundated by skyscraper-size waves every hour or so (local time).
Q1: Why doesn't the planet get sucked into the black hole if it's so close?
A: Contrary to popular belief, it is perfectly possible to safely orbit a black hole. Only when an object gets extremely close (roughly when distance to the event horizon < diameter of the event horizon) does the extreme curvature of spacetime prevent stable orbits from existing. But Miller's world is extremely close to Gargantua, so what's holding it there? While Gargantua does have extreme gravity, another property of the singularity can help counteract it in some cases - its spin. When enough mass spins fast enough, it can actually "drag" the spacetime around it in a spinning motion. Gargantua is 100 million times heavier than the Sun and spins at 99.8% of lightspeed, so this effect is significant. It turns out, when you run the math, that there is an orbit just outside the event horizon where gravity and centrifugal effects balance out, and Miller's world can reside. The orbit is also stable: any perturbation pushing the planet slightly closer or further away will cause an opposing reaction force, keeping the planet in its orbit.
Q2: Wouldn't the planet be torn to shreds from intense tidal forces?
A: This might stem from a misconception of what tidal forces actually are. Right now, as you're sitting in front of your computer, your feet are slightly closer to Earth's center than your head. That means there's actually a difference in gravity between the two, which manifests as a force working to stretch you vertically - a tidal force. Of course, Earth's gravity is weak enough that you'll never actually notice. But go near a black hole with much more intense gravity, and the effect can be very significant, enough to rip your body apart before you get anywhere near the event horizon. So how does Miller's world stay in one piece if it's so close? Counter-intuitively, it's because Gargantua is so massive: tidal forces around a black hole decrease as the black hole gets larger. Remember, a tidal force comes about because gravity has a different strength on two sides of an object. Gargantua's event horizon is as wide as Earth's orbit around the Sun. Compared to that, the width of Miller's world is absolutely puny. When you run the math, you find that the tidal forces experienced by Miller's world would be enough to slightly deform the planet into an egg-shape, but not enough to rip it apart; it'll stay in one piece.
Q3: Why do clocks tick slower there? And why did the crew age slower?
A: One of the consequences of Special & General Relativity is that time and space are not absolute, independent things. They are intertwined into one 4D entity - spacetime - and can be stretched and warped. The warping of time is referred to as "time dilation," and can occur when A) two objects are travelling incredibly fast relative to each other and/or B) an object is in an extreme gravity field. Both of these effects noticeably affect Miller's world: it's zipping around Gargantua at nearly 50% lightspeed in its orbit, and is very deep in the black hole's extreme gravity well. The cumulative effect of these two facts is that time itself runs slower on Miller's world relative to the rest of the universe: 1 hour on the planet equals 7 years on Earth. Such extreme dilation is possible due to Gargantua's immense mass and proportionally immense gravity. Note that this isn't just something that affects clocks. It affects any physical process that involves time, including all the molecular interactions in your body that keep you alive and cause you to age. Literally everything runs slower on the planet - but you wouldn't notice, because your thoughts and cognitive processes would have slowed by the same amount. To you, the outside universe would be running fast, and to anyone far away from the black hole, they would see you running in slow motion.
Q4: What's making those waves?
A: There are a few theories making the rounds; what follows is Kip Thorne's theory, which I personally think explains them best. Recall that although they don't rip it apart, tidal forces from Gargantua are enough to distort Miller's world into more of an egg-shape than a sphere. Due to its now-slightly-elongated shape, the planet will have a preferred orientation relative to the black hole, with its long axis perpendicular to the event horizon. It will be tidally locked: one side will always face Gargantua, and the other will always face away. Tidal forces act to maintain this stable orientation - any slight rotation away from it will cause a reaction force acting to push it back. Here's where the waves come in. If Miller's world were just barely not tidally locked (had a slight residual spin), it would instead oscillate slightly back and forth like a pendulum around its most stable orientation. These periodic oscillations would make the planetary ocean slosh back and forth, and could create massive waves like those seen in the film.
Q5: How did the Ranger reach the planet at all if it's spinning around Gargantua at half of lightspeed?
A: Supermassive black holes tend to gather a lot of smaller bodies (stars, planets, debris, etc.) in their orbital space. Gargantua doesn't just have 3 planets, there's loads of other stuff orbiting it. Cooper references this at one point when he says "I could slingshot around that neutron star to slow down." By using carefully calculated gravitational slingshots around small high-gravity objects like neutron stars and mini-black-holes, the Ranger could have gotten from Endurance's parking orbit high above Gargantua down to Miller's world without using the engines much. Plus, since the Ranger & crew will be in freefall during the slingshots, they won't feel any G-forces despite the tremendous accelerations they'll be undergoing.
~ ~ ~
All that said, there is one outright impossible thing about Miller's world - this image from when the Ranger descends to the surface. Gargantua is depicted as being about 20x larger in the planet's sky than the Moon is in Earth's sky. However, in order to experience the stated time dilation, the planet would have to be so close to Gargantua that the event horizon would fill half the sky. Nolan wanted to save close-up imagery of the event horizon for the climax of the film, so he overrode Kip Thorne and instead depicted the planet as further away than it actually is.
A clear sky on Miller's world would truly be a spectacular sight. One half of the sky would be pitch black - the event horizon - and the other half would be a twisted starfield spinning ten times a second (thanks to time dilation, from your perspective, the planet orbits Gargantua in a tenth of a second) along with the accretion disk forming a massive arc of light stretching across the sky.
~ ~ ~
EDIT: For a more rigorous mathematical demonstration that Miller's world can exist, check out Dr. Ikjyot Singh Kohli's analysis of the physics involved.

[kelpzoidzl]

"Interstellar's rejection of climate change hysteria"

http://freebeacon.com/blog/interstellars-rejection-of-climate-change-hysteria/