Interstellar

\

Interstellar is directed by Christopher Nolan who has a history of confusing whoever watching his movies. Interstellar is one of the more scientific movies that he has made and it has many space physics to talk about. One of the main focuses is a blackhole called Gargantua and how it would effect anything nearby and how it can warp time. The scene when the crew lands on Miller's planet which is located very close to the black hole demonstrates time dilation and tidal gravity. When they are on the planet, one hour of Earth's time is seven hours on Miller's planet. This is caused by the massive gravitational pull of Gargantua. The planet its also covered in water and what they think they see in the distance as mountains are actually giant waves. The waves are 1.2 kilometers high! 


There are two explanations as to how this is possible from a chapter from Kip Thorne's book "The Science of Interstellar." The chapter "Miller's Planet", talks about the physics of how things play out in the movie on the planet. Both explanations require that the planet is not permanently locked in Gargantua's gravitational pull. The planet must rock back and forth relative to the black hole. This rocking causes the planets tidal gravity to warp in the direction to Gargantua. This causes the oceans to slosh around and cause a "tidal bore" which also happens on Earth. 


When the tide rises, a wave or wall of water is sent rushing up connecting rivers. Of course the ones on Earth aren't 1.2 kilometers high but that's how the movie portrayed how strong the gravity is from a black hole. The other explanation is that they are simply tsunamis. When the planet is rocked, the crust obviously doesn't break apart, but causes earthquakes because of the deformation. So as a planet covered in water would act, creates tsunamis. Since the waves seem like they occur pretty often I don't it is earthquakes. There is no way to know how accurate the sheer size of the waves are because there are no nearby blackholes to test this. 

I give Interstellar a PGP because it goes to new heights with space physics and is pretty accurate for the most part besides the ending. 

Comments

  1. Thank you for sticking to the assignment and trying to summarize the discussion from a chapter in The Science of Interstellar.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts