<story><title>Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar</title><url>http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/28/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chton</author><text>Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he&amp;#x27;s grasping at straws.  A lot of the things he mentions are of the type &amp;quot;in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects&amp;quot;.  For example, I&amp;#x27;m sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects.  What it also means is that the planet would pass through the extremely hot accretion disk twice every orbit, killing everything and evaporating all the water.  And considering the speed that a stable orbit would require, that would be a very common occurrence.&lt;p&gt;The point is: don&amp;#x27;t claim that you&amp;#x27;re scientifically accurate.  Usually, a good sci-fi movie will set up rules for itself, and follow those rules appropriately.  If you make your ruleset &amp;quot;real world physics&amp;quot;, you have to be extremely accurate if you still want to make it believable.  The rules set up expectations, and breaking your own rules is an instant turn-off for science fiction fans.&lt;p&gt;The movie shows other cases where it doesn&amp;#x27;t follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters?&lt;p&gt;For the record: I like Interstellar a lot. It was a great film, and I&amp;#x27;ll definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD.  I just have my gripes with the lofty claims of accuracy that Hollywood films so love to make.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vacri</author><text>I liked Intersteller a lot as well, but its plot was horribly contrived in places and the science isn&amp;#x27;t as good as it was purported to be - even moreso if you include the behaviour of the scientists involved :). The science was certainly better than most other serious sci-fi films though. The real problem with the film is the needlessly long hour of character establishment.&lt;p&gt;(SPOILER) Rather interestingly, I&amp;#x27;ve seen very little discussion about the christ story in the film - the 33-year-old man, who is also the &amp;#x27;father&amp;#x27;, who is also the &amp;#x27;ghost&amp;#x27;; who disappears presumed dead, only to return; who has the only information that can save humanity (the &amp;#x27;quantum data&amp;#x27;) and also sacrificed himself to save humanity; and who was helped along by 12 others - one being the questionable [Dr] Man[n] who is weak of spirit. There&amp;#x27;s a few more other parallels, but the gist is there.</text></comment>
<story><title>Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar</title><url>http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/28/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chton</author><text>Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he&amp;#x27;s grasping at straws.  A lot of the things he mentions are of the type &amp;quot;in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects&amp;quot;.  For example, I&amp;#x27;m sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects.  What it also means is that the planet would pass through the extremely hot accretion disk twice every orbit, killing everything and evaporating all the water.  And considering the speed that a stable orbit would require, that would be a very common occurrence.&lt;p&gt;The point is: don&amp;#x27;t claim that you&amp;#x27;re scientifically accurate.  Usually, a good sci-fi movie will set up rules for itself, and follow those rules appropriately.  If you make your ruleset &amp;quot;real world physics&amp;quot;, you have to be extremely accurate if you still want to make it believable.  The rules set up expectations, and breaking your own rules is an instant turn-off for science fiction fans.&lt;p&gt;The movie shows other cases where it doesn&amp;#x27;t follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters?&lt;p&gt;For the record: I like Interstellar a lot. It was a great film, and I&amp;#x27;ll definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD.  I just have my gripes with the lofty claims of accuracy that Hollywood films so love to make.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>harshreality</author><text>I couldn&amp;#x27;t agree more.  I don&amp;#x27;t understand why Kip Thorne is so desperate to declare that the movie doesn&amp;#x27;t violate known physics, when it clearly does, just not in the areas he&amp;#x27;s most concerned with.  Planetary dynamics, propulsion systems... but as long as there aren&amp;#x27;t Na&amp;#x27;vi or dragons on the planets, I suppose they consider it realistic enough.  On second thought, Na&amp;#x27;vi or dragons might be more realistic than some of what&amp;#x27;s shown.&lt;p&gt;FTL travel is &amp;quot;possible&amp;quot; too, if quantum gravity provides some loophole for violating GR on scales where GR is currently assumed.  It seems like there&amp;#x27;s a reasonable basis for excluding it from the plot without declaring it impossible: if Earth technology was that advanced, they wouldn&amp;#x27;t need to travel to Gargantua&amp;#x27;s system.&lt;p&gt;I think Nolan&amp;#x27;s insistence on the extreme time dilation for the first planet in the plot is a mistake, because if they thought about what time dilation would mean for the readings sent back, they never would have investigated that risky planet first.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s great about Interstellar, though, is that it gets viewers talking and thinking about physics.  On that point, it&amp;#x27;s far better than Gravity.</text></comment>