The Movie Interstellar: The Science Behind the Story
Lots of my students are asking questions about the new film Interstellar. I have been hearing
about the movie for some time; the studio even sent me a “teachers’ guide”
that was not especially useful, but piqued my interest. Most exciting for me was the news that the
scientific advisor (and one of the producers of the film) was Prof. Kip Thorne
of Caltech, who is arguably the world’s expert on black holes and wormholes --
and designed the science behind the “galactic subway system” in Carl Sagan’s
novel and film Contact.
I wrote to Dr. Thorne and he told me that he had indeed been involved
with Interstellar, and had, in fact
written a book, entitled The Science of Interstellar, to explain the
complicated science that was the basis for some of the more intriguing scenes
and events in the film. The book also tells the story of the film,
which was always supposed to be strong on science, and, at one time, was set to
be directed by Stephen Spielberg. But
that original deal fell apart and it took a while to bring Christopher Nolan,
the film’s current director, into the project.
Dr. Thorne wasn’t the only scientist involved in the long period before
the movie went from an idea to a completed production. Yesterday, I was talking with Dr. Frank Drake,
the father of the scientific search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, and he
told me that he was on one of the early panels of scientists brought together
(with Stephen Spielberg) to make sure the plot stayed close to real science and
possible science.
With Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (a writer of
screenplays) involved, the film evolved from the script Dr.Thorne and producer
Lynda Obst had first envisioned, to include much more about a future Earth
facing ecological disaster. Still, the
original thought, to portray black holes and worm holes as accurately as modern
science can make it, was high on everyone’s list of priorities.
A black hole is a place where the death and collapse of a huge star has
produced such strong gravity, that space itself is “warped” -- and nothing, not
even light can escape. Near a black
hole, time proceeds more slowly than in the rest of the universe, and this
change in the flow of time becomes a major plot element in the movie. Both the existence of black holes and their
strange effect on time have been demonstrated by many experiments and are well
established.
A wormhole is more speculative, but something Einstein himself thought
a bit about. It’s a place where a black
hole or some other unusual feature of space and time becomes a tunnel (or short cut) from one place in space to another place very far
away, or even to another time. In a
wormhole, the dangerous effects you would feel falling into a black hole are
somehow kept at bay, so that a spaceship can go through it to elsewhere or
elsewhen.
Both wormholes and black holes get major roles in Interstellar. The astronauts
in the movie first use a wormhole to get from our Milky Way Galaxy to another
galaxy far far away. Then, they wind up
in the new galaxy in a location where there is a massive, spinning black hole,
with planets around it. I won’t give
anything else away, except to say that the special effects showing the wormhole
and the gargantuan black hole were composed from calculations made by Dr.
Thorne and his team at Caltech, fed directly to the computers of the special
effects team for the movie – and they are truly SPECTACULAR.
For more, I recommend reading Dr. Thorne’s book (pictured in this post)
and going to see the movie – especially if you are a black hole fan. Dr. Thorne also has a web page with some
animations at: https://interstellar.withgoogle.com/transmissions
