The Problem With Interstellar's Black Hole that Everyone Ignores
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into the scientific concepts explored in Christopher Nolan's *Interstellar*, particularly black holes, wormholes, and time dilation. While the film pushes boundaries between science and science fiction, it stays grounded in modern physics theories like Einstein's relativity and Kip Thorne's research. The video examines the plausibility of key elements such as wormholes, gravitational time dilation, and black hole travel, highlighting where the film aligns with and diverges from current scientific understanding. It concludes with a discussion on time paradoxes and the challenges of time travel portrayed in the movie.
Takeaways
- đ Interstellar masterfully blends science with science fiction, particularly concepts like black holes, wormholes, and time dilation from general relativity.
- âł The film explores extreme time dilation as astronauts experience decades passing in minutes due to gravitational forces near black holes.
- đ Wormholes are theoretically possible, based on Einstein's theory of relativity, but creating and sustaining them for travel is still beyond our capabilities.
- đ Negative mass would be required to keep a wormhole open, but it is purely theoretical and has never been observed in reality.
- đ°ïž Gravitational time dilation is real and has been experimentally verified, impacting technologies like GPS, which must account for these effects.
- đ The massive time dilation experienced on Millerâs planet is scientifically plausible due to its proximity to the supermassive black hole, Gargantua.
- đ Interstellar made significant breakthroughs in visualizing black holes and wormholes, using mathematical models from general relativity to create accurate on-screen representations.
- đŹ While the visual scale of Gargantua was altered for cinematic purposes, most scientific details surrounding black holes and gravitational forces were accurately portrayed.
- đ« Cooper's journey into the black hole involves theoretical elements like spaghettification and event horizons, though his survival and communication across time stretch scientific plausibility.
- đ The filmâs depiction of time loops, bootstrap paradoxes, and free will presents fascinating but speculative ideas about causality and paradoxes in time travel.
Q & A
What scientific concepts are prominently featured in *Interstellar*?
-*Interstellar* prominently features black holes, wormholes, and time dilation, which are key concepts derived from Einstein's theory of general relativity.
How does *Interstellar* portray wormholes, and is it scientifically accurate?
-The film portrays a wormhole near Saturn as a distortion of light, which is scientifically plausible. Wormholes are extreme distortions in spacetime, and the portrayal aligns with our theoretical understanding, though we currently lack the technology to create or use them.
What is the main issue with creating wormholes, according to the film's scientific advisor Kip Thorne?
-Kip Thorne explains that creating wormholes would require negative mass to keep them open, a form of exotic matter that has not been discovered. Without it, wormholes would pinch off and close, making travel through them impossible.
Is the time dilation experienced on Miller's planet scientifically plausible?
-Yes, the time dilation on Miller's planet is scientifically plausible. The massive gravitational pull from the nearby black hole slows down time for those on the planet, which aligns with Einstein's theory of gravitational time dilation.
Why does the appearance of the black hole in the film deviate from scientific accuracy?
-In the film, the black hole Gargantua appears smaller than it should for aesthetic reasons. In reality, it would take up half the sky of Miller's planet based on its calculated mass, but the filmmakers reduced its size to create more striking visuals.
What happens to Cooper when he enters the black hole in the film?
-In the film, Cooper enters the black hole and finds a tesseract, a five-dimensional space where he can move through time as a physical dimension. This allows him to communicate with his daughter across time using gravitational forces, though this is more science fiction than scientific fact.
What is 'spaghettification,' and would it happen to Cooper if he entered a black hole?
-Spaghettification is the process where an object gets stretched due to the intense gravitational gradient near a black hole. If Cooper entered the black hole, he would likely experience this stretching until he was torn apart at the molecular level.
Can someone actually survive entering a black hole, as Cooper does in the film?
-In reality, entering a black hole would be fatal due to extreme radiation, spaghettification, and the intense gravitational forces. The film's portrayal of survival inside a black hole is purely fictional.
How does the film address paradoxes related to time travel, and what is a bootstrap paradox?
-The film uses a bootstrap paradox, where events are self-contained in a time loop. Cooper's actions in the black hole help humanity in the past, and this cycle always happened the same way, avoiding the paradox of changing the past in a way that prevents future events.
What role did Kip Thorne play in the production of *Interstellar*?
-Kip Thorne served as the scientific advisor for the film, ensuring that concepts like black holes and wormholes were portrayed as accurately as possible. His work on the film even led to new breakthroughs in the mathematical modeling of black holes.
Outlines
đŹ Interstellarâs Revolutionary Scientific Concepts
The first paragraph introduces how Christopher Nolanâs film *Interstellar* intertwines complex scientific ideas like black holes, wormholes, and time dilation with a captivating story. These ideas are rooted in general relativity, and the film portrays the dramatic effects of time dilation as astronauts lose years in mere minutes. Although the film blends science with fiction, it raises questions about the realism of some concepts, such as using black holes to communicate across space and time.
đ Exploring Wormholes in Science and Fiction
The second paragraph explains the film's depiction of wormholes, showing a more scientific approach compared to the usual portrayal of portals. It discusses how wormholes, theoretically allowed by Einstein's equations, could connect distant points in space and time. However, the scientific limitationsâsuch as the inability to create or sustain wormholesâare outlined. The filmâs scientific consultant, Kip Thorne, clarifies that creating a wormhole would require backward time travel and negative mass, both of which remain speculative.
đ Keeping Wormholes Open: The Negative Mass Hypothesis
This paragraph delves deeper into the scientific challenges of traveling through wormholes. It explains the theoretical concept of negative mass and how it could keep a wormhole open, though no evidence of negative mass exists. Despite the scientific implausibility, the movie retains this element to drive the plot. The filmmakers even used complex mathematical models to visualize the wormhole, marking a significant scientific and cinematic achievement.
âł Gravitational Time Dilation: Real Science Behind Interstellar
The fourth paragraph evaluates the plausible science behind the depiction of time dilation in *Interstellar*. The crewâs experience of massive time dilation near the black hole Gargantua aligns with Einsteinâs theory of general relativity. Time slows down in stronger gravitational fields, a phenomenon observed in GPS satellites orbiting Earth. The only discrepancy in the film is the visual size of the black hole, which was altered for cinematic effect.
đłïž Journey into a Black Hole: The Tesseract Scene
This paragraph tackles the climactic scene where Cooper enters the black hole and encounters a five-dimensional space called the tesseract. The concept of moving through time as a physical dimension and communicating across time and space via gravitational forces is speculative, though some mathematical models hint at such possibilities. The description includes the potential dangers Cooper would face, like spaghettification and radiation, making survival highly improbable.
đ The Bootstrap Paradox and Time Loops
The sixth paragraph focuses on the film's use of the bootstrap paradox, where events in the future influence the past in a closed loop. Cooperâs actions in the tesseract directly affect his past, and future humans build the tesseract to ensure humanityâs survival. This paradox removes free will, as events are destined to happen the way they always have. The film embraces these complex, unresolved paradoxes, creating a mind-bending narrative.
đ Interstellar: A Blend of Science and Storytelling
In the final paragraph, the overall scientific accuracy of *Interstellar* is summarized. While the film takes liberties with certain scientific concepts, such as wormholes and time loops, it successfully introduces audiences to advanced physics concepts like time dilation and black holes. The closing acknowledges that there is still more to analyze from the film, teasing future discussions on the plausibility of the planets in *Interstellar* and inviting viewer feedback.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄBlack Hole
đĄWormhole
đĄTime Dilation
đĄGeneral Relativity
đĄGravitational Well
đĄSpaghettification
đĄTesseract
đĄBootstrap Paradox
đĄChronology Protection Conjecture
đĄEvent Horizon
Highlights
Introduction to the film Interstellar, focusing on its use of scientific concepts like black holes, wormholes, and time dilation.
Interstellar integrates real scientific theories, like Einstein's general relativity, into its storytelling, including depictions of black holes and time dilation.
The portrayal of wormholes in the film, using light distortions near Saturn, aligns with the theoretical understanding of wormholes as distortions in space-time.
Although wormholes are mathematically possible, creating or traveling through one remains science fiction due to current technological limitations.
The film explores time dilation near a supermassive black hole, a scientifically plausible phenomenon where time slows dramatically due to strong gravitational fields.
Gravitational time dilation is demonstrated on Earth through the difference in time experienced between satellites and people on the ground, affecting technologies like GPS.
The film's depiction of the black hole, Gargantua, is accurate in many respects, though its visual size in the sky was altered for dramatic effect.
The tesseract scene, where Cooper manipulates time as a physical dimension, introduces a speculative interpretation of physics beyond the event horizon of a black hole.
Spaghettification, a phenomenon where objects are stretched by a black hole's gravity, is touched upon as a real-life effect Cooper would experience near Gargantua.
The concept of negative mass is introduced as a theoretical necessity for keeping a wormhole open, though such matter has never been discovered.
Bootstrap paradoxes, where actions influence the past and future in a self-consistent loop, are a key narrative and scientific theme in Interstellar.
The visualizations of the wormhole and black hole were created using mathematical modeling from general relativity, making them scientifically accurate to a groundbreaking extent.
The film raises complex questions about free will and predestination within the context of time travel and paradoxes.
Kip Thorne, the filmâs scientific advisor, published papers after the film's release, highlighting new scientific insights gained during production.
Interstellar illustrates how advanced scientific concepts, such as time dilation and black holes, can be both scientifically educational and engaging for mass audiences.
Transcripts
[Music]
black holes worm holes and time dilation
all concepts of general relativity that
Christopher Nolan wo into his 2014 film
Interstellar in a manner we had never
seen before while many loved its
groundbreaking scientific take on the
dangers of intense time dilation as his
group of astronauts in search of a new
home for Humanity found themselves
losing years in minutes there were
certainly elements of the film and its
ending that seemed strange
towering waves sweeping around planets
black holes that you can enter and use
to reach across time and space using
gravitational forces Interstellar at
times felt like it strayed from science
into science fiction but what is the
science and what is the fiction what did
the film get right where did it take
artistic license and diverge from our
current scientific knowledge can you
really use a black hole to communicate
ideas across space and time
I'm Alex molan and you're watching
astrom join me today as we learn the
truth about
Interstellar we will explore the
numerous scientific phenomena of this
film that underpin wormholes and black
holes and discover the realities of what
happens when you bend SpaceTime to its
extreme for those of you who need a
reminder let's begin with a quick plot
recap in the film a disease referred to
as the blight takes hold of crops on
Earth and starts killing them causing a
population collapse and technological
Decay as Humanity focuses on farming
instead of space
fairing our protagonist a former NASA
pilot named Cooper finds himself at a
hidden NASA base where they are working
on plans to save
Humanity hope has arrived in the form of
a wormhole a tunnel through SpaceTime
that they have detected near the orbit
of Saturn half a century ago which is
thought to lead to potentially habitable
planets in the film they show the
Wormhole not as a cliche portal but
through distortions of stars near Saturn
so here we have our first piece of
science to evaluate this portrayal of a
wormhole makes sense a wormhole is an
extreme Distortion of the fabric of the
universe similar to a black hole and
would only really be visible through the
light near its edges becoming warped
wormholes are interesting we have the
theory and Mathematics behind them
somewhat solved already thanks to
Einstein and relativity wormholes
connect SpaceTime to itself resulting in
a shortcut that joins separate points in
space and even time to one another the
film uses a classic analogy for this
showing a pencil piercing a short cut
through a piece of paper representing
SpaceTime sadly though although we have
the theory we don't actually have the
means to make them even if they can be
made at all there are a couple of
problems with with wormholes to begin
with their
creation the scientific adviser for the
film Kip Thorn released a few physics
papers after the film to discuss the
scientific advancements they made in its
production in a paper titled visualizing
interstellar's Wormhole he notes that it
is difficult to create a wormhole out of
nothing as it would require the
existence of backwards time travel you
see once the two ends of a wormhole were
linked they would stay linked then if
you could time dilate one end for
another by moving it very quickly
causing it to move slower in time than
the other end you could enter the end
further along in time and emerge at the
point further back in time thus entering
your own past you could then for
instance grab yourself and stop yourself
from entering the first portal in the
first place creating a paradox where you
both enter and do not enter the portal
breaking reality and also my brain there
are lots of mathematical arguments that
Advocate against this sort of thing such
as Steven Hawkings chronology protection
conjecture simply put it states that the
laws of physics would prevent wormholes
these closed Tim likee curves from
appearing in the first place admittedly
this hasn't been proven and relies on a
bit of an appeal to Common Sense Loops
can't exist because we would struggle to
imagine how they can exist this is a
problem we return to later in the film
however the time travel aspect isn't the
only problem with wormholes traveling
through them is theoretically tricky too
you see if a wormhole were to be created
the throat of the Wormhole would soon
pinch off and the shortcut through
SpaceTime would be sealed due to gravity
forcing it to close in on itself so the
moment Cooper tried to enter the
Wormhole it would instantly close ending
his mission before before it started
which would make for a boring film to
make a wormhole persist long enough that
people can travel through it we would
have to use a mathematical hack we
pretend as if some exotic matter exists
which has negative
Mass this negative Mass would then have
to be placed at the throat so that it
can create opposing curvature which
would counteract the tendency of the
Wormhole to close keeping it open in
perpetuity you might be thinking that
this sounds made up and you'd be right
we have never found negative mass and
have no idea how to make it so this
seems like a mere mathematical curiosity
so while worm holes are allowed for in
scientific fact actually traveling
through one is so far just science
fiction still without it the rest of the
film couldn't really happen so you can
understand why Nolan decided to keep it
in whether or not this conjecture is
true this backwards causal relationship
is baked into the movie not just because
of the existence of the Wormhole which
implies it but also with a reveal at the
climax of the film which we will return
to later while the existence of the
Wormhole require some suspension of
disbelief the stunning visuals of the
Wormhole do not in fact the team behind
the film used the theory of general
relativity to mathematically model what
a real Wormhole would look like which
was in fact an impressive breakthrough
of mathematical modeling in a bonus
scene for patrons and members we explain
how they were able to bring the Wormhole
and black hole from Mass equations to
the IMAX screen make sure to check it
out now let's move on to the next piece
of science to
evaluate after the crew makes their Way
Through the Wormhole they arrive near a
super massive black hole called
Gargantua orbiting Gargantua are two
promising PL planets that may be able to
Harbor life the first one Miller's
planet is deep in the gravitational well
caused by the black Hall some of the
crew go down onto the planet but within
just a short couple of hours have
skipped forward decades into the future
much to The Misfortune of the crewmate
they left behind who had to live out
those years at normal
speed this part of the film is
absolutely
plausible this is gravitational time
dilation in action and is Thoroughly
proven
experimentally gravitational time
dilation is a result of the bending of
SpaceTime caused by Massive objects time
itself runs slower when you are gripped
by stronger gravity it even takes place
here on Earth between us and our
orbiting satellites much like the
crewmate left outside the gravity well
experiencing faster time a clock placed
at the orbit of GPS satellites records
45 extra micros seconds per day day
compared to a clock on the Earth's
surface GPS must take this effect into
account to get calculations of your
position right if they didn't your
Google maps location would quickly
diverge from your actual position it's
crazy to think that the same underlying
theory that explains black holes and
time travel also helps us find our way
home when we are lost that in itself is
Nobel Prize
worthy of course in interstellar the
time dation effect is taken to the
extreme in the ultra strong
gravitational well of a super massive
black hole an orbiting Planet could be
experiencing severe time dilation
compared to an observer much further out
so really the only thing to nitpick here
is the size of the black hole in the sky
from the view of the planet in the
science of interstellar Kip Thorn states
that Gargantua is 100 million times the
mass of our sun and that this would mean
that the black hole would take up half
of the entire entire Sky of Miller's
planet to make the calculations work out
however Nolan decided to make it look
smaller in the sky so that it would
appear more striking when it's the focus
of the story later on here is an example
of where Aesthetics went out over true
scientific
exactitude now much like the crew down
on the water Planet let's jump further
ahead in time we have the strangest most
mindbending scene of the whole film to
explore the part where Kuba and enters
the black hole in a bit to save the
mission and to get at least some of the
crew to the final Planet Cooper has to
sacrifice himself catapulting himself
into the heart of the black hole to give
others enough momentum to escape its
gravity ironically though this isn't the
certain Doom it first appeared at the
heart of the black hole Cooper finds a
tesseract a representation of five
dimensional space where time is a
physical Dimension that he can move
around in he's able to use gravitational
forces here to reach out to his daughter
back on Earth across space and time and
bizarrely is able to give her the
knowledge she needs to start the mission
to the other planets in the first place
so let's ask the big question here is
any of this theoretically possible let's
start with simply the concept of
entering the black hole in a previous
video I've made about black holes I
spoke about how they're actually quite
hard to get into angular momentum can
become near relativistic the closer you
are to the black hole requiring you to
shed momentum before you can fall any
deeper that accretion disc you see
around Gargantua is matter that is doing
exactly that spinning so fast as it
tries to shed momentum to fall deeper
into the abyss that the friction
involved has turned it into a bright
plasma seeing as this plasma can reach
temperatures of millions of degrees C
this might prove fatal for poor Cooper
but let's say that Cooper manages to
find a route that does not turn him into
superheated plasma on the way in what
would happen firstly as he crossed the
Event Horizon the boundary after which
even light can't escape the light
bouncing off his body would make it
appear as if he were moving slower if
you were viewing this from the outside
you'd see the image of his body freeze
and persist on the Event Horizon before
gradually turning
invisible because the light is being
stretched by the EXT ex Distortion of
SpaceTime its wavelength would increase
and the light you receive later on would
be more and more red shifted until
Cooper vanished from your view entirely
Cooper meanwhile depending on his angle
of Entry would start to experience an
effect known as
spaghettification essentially as parts
of his body started to experience the
passage of time slightly differently due
to the gradient of gravity he was
falling into he would find himself
slowly becoming more and more
stretched this pull would eventually
snap him in half as the force of it
overcame the bonds between his molecules
this would happen again and again until
he was just a stream of molecules
falling into the black hole's
heart this would not necessarily happen
exactly at the Event Horizon The Event
Horizon itself is not truly a physical
object but rather is simply the
mathematical point between gravity that
is escapable and gravity that is
inescapable Cooper might not notice he
was crossing it if it weren't for an
obstacle known as the
Photosphere there is a point in space
along the edge of the Event Horizon
where gravity pulls just the right
amount to not let any light escape the
black hole but also doesn't pull enough
to drag it in deeper in effect at this
precise distance from The Singularity
any photons of light that arrive enter
an orbit they never leave over time the
amount of light here would gradually
increase and increase most likely when
Cooper entered this specific Zone he
would suddenly encounter a previously
invisible massive Spike of radiation
that could very easily kill him assuming
he wasn't already dead from the accan
disc plasma or the
spaghettification there are lots of ways
you can die when falling into a black
hole but let's say that he manages to
get past all of that could he then
actually attempt that last point to
speak across time and space using
gravity honestly it's a little unclear
the physics Beyond The Event Horizon is
murky at best so scientists don't really
know for sure what happens down there
but strangely it does bear some passing
resemblance to our current mathematical
Solutions on the subject our maths as it
stands says that space curves so much
that all the paths you can travel Just
Lead You Down Deeper into the black hole
but there are some weird scenarios where
you can end up arriving at points in
your own past which could allow you to
influence what you do there which brings
us once again to the idea of
paradoxes paradoxes are all through the
film Interstellar what if Cooper did
something in the black hole that killed
his past self that's four kinds of dead
now for those keeping track thus
stopping himself from going back in time
later then he would never have gone back
to kill his past self thus saving his
past self's life but that would mean he
was able to go back so could kill
himself and on and on it goes in a
circle the film attempts to get around
this circle using something known as a
bootstrap Paradox where everything in
the film always happened the way it was
once it was influenced Through Time
Travel Cooper used the black hole to
teach people back on Earth data that
they needed for a gravity equation which
allowed them to launch Cooper's ship in
the first place but the film showed that
Cooper's interdimensional fumblings were
present at the start of the film too
Cooper did what he did and he had always
done it in a way this closes the loop
but this is a little unsatisfying as it
still opens the question of what would
have happened if Cooper had decided not
to share gravity equation data with the
past it removes free will as soon as
Cooper realized that he was in a
bootstrap Paradox he had to do what he'd
always done or the whole thing would
collapse this happens even more broadly
as we learn that future humans now
sufficiently Advanced were the ones who
created the Tesseract that allowed
humans to be saved in the first place
but what if they decided to not create
it then we're back in Paradox territory
where the universe has to solve a thing
happening and not happening at the same
time time we don't really have an answer
in physics for what happens with that so
this is an area where Interstellar
becomes less scientifically certain
however it does make for a mind-bending
story in the end despite some
divergences from science taken for
dramatic purposes interstella helped
showcase the fascinating Concepts from
Modern physics to a mass audience it was
able to show how time isn't just a rigid
Arrow but rather as the doctor said a
wibbly wobbly timey wiy thing going at
different speeds depending on what
gravity Fields you are moving through
there is actually too much in this film
to fully evaluate in one video so I may
return to this film one day in that
second part I'll discuss the planets of
interstellar and how plausibly habitable
they really are what did you think about
Interstellar and the signs it portrayed
what was your favorite concept from the
movie let us know in the comments
below sadly we can't go back in time to
fix things that have gone wrong or pains
we felt in the past but that doesn't
mean that some reflection on our lives
isn't helpful with the right advice we
can change the trajectory we're on and
Achieve great things today's video is in
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