From surviving a trip through the event horizon of a black hole to impossible
clouds made of solid ice, "Interstellar" went lighter on science than it did on fiction.
The main reason scientists are looking for a way off Earth in "Interstellar" is that
the atmosphere won't be able to support humans for much longer. Specifically,
it's stated that nitrogen is staying in the atmosphere and dropping oxygen levels,
making it difficult to sustain life on the planet. This is due to something referred to
as The Blight, a plague that is wreaking havoc with our food and threatening our air supply.
"The last people to starve will be the first to suffocate."
Sure, "Interstellar" is science-fiction, not a documentary, but could something like
The Blight actually happen? According to Physics Today,
"It is extremely unlikely that a single disease could wipe out the whole of humanity."
Astrobiologist David Grinspoon recorded an episode of "Inquiring Minds" with host David Corn after
watching the film, and commented on the various scientific inaccuracies he picked up on. He noted
that the whole thing about nitrogen staying in the atmosphere was problematic, telling his host,
"They say, 'Oh, there's this Blight and it's building up the nitrogen and
that's going to draw down the oxygen,' and anybody who knows about planetary
atmospheres is going to sit there at that point and go, 'That's a bunch of BS.'"
Bemoaning the fact that they didn't come up with
something more believable Grinspoon went on to say…
"Why couldn't they run it by somebody? It wouldn't change the plot. They could have
said slightly smarter things and more realistic things."
One of the central conceits of "Interstellar" is that the brave team of explorers can only
venture to the far reaches of the universe via a wormhole in the general vicinity of Saturn.
For those who don't know how wormholes work, let's allow Dr. Romilly to explain.
"So a wormhole bends space like this. So you can take a shortcut through…to a higher dimension."
It's widely theorized that, under the right conditions,
these shortcuts could be used as a sort of subway system through the galaxy. As
exciting as that prospect is, the truth is nobody has ever actually found an existing
wormhole, and as of the making of this video, they are purely theoretical.
Professor Martin Barstow of the Royal Astronomical Society was quick to point
this fact out in his critique of the film's scientific accuracy,
though he's also quick to acknowledge it's a solid storytelling device. Barstow told the Daily Mail,
"There's no direct evidence such things exist in the universe. We know about black holes,
but the idea of something connecting different parts of space is very much
an idea in its infancy. But, from a dramatic point of view you've got to
have something like this in the film like that otherwise it doesn't work."
In his interview with the Daily Mail, Lauded scientific author Lee Billings
was a bit harsher in his criticism of wormhole theory. He told the tabloid,
"Saying that we have to rely on borderline miracles of physics makes it easier,
but also makes it way harder. We have no idea if stable wormholes exist on a macroscopic scale."
Real or not, the wormhole in "Interstellar" remains one of
the film's most visceral and visually arresting creations.
It seems that another enthralling scene from "Interstellar" is not entirely
accurate. The moment comes in the third act of Christopher Nolan's film and finds Cooper
leaving the team's Endurance spacecraft in hopes of lightening the ship's load,
thus enabling Brand to orbit a supermassive black hole, using its gravitational pull to
visit several orbiting planets. Once inside "Gargantua," Cooper ejects from his spacecraft,
beginning a fully psychedelic journey on par with "2001: A Space Odyssey." At the end of the
journey, Cooper is still very much alive, and even lands near a shiny, planet-sized space station.
The moment makes for grand storytelling and adds some truly astounding visual elements. However,
as Professor Martin Barstow told the Daily Mail,
there's absolutely no chance Cooper could have survived inside a black hole,
let alone communicated with the outside world. Barstow explained,
"The gravitational field is extremely intense and changes very quickly. The
idea is that anything that falls into it becomes like spaghetti,
stretched out by gravity. So there's no chance that anything or anybody could
survive in a black hole. Communicating out of one is also impossible."
Lee Billings takes matters further, explaining that radiation from a black
hole would likely kill you before you ever actually got inside. He told The Daily Mail,
"I think if astronauts ended up getting as close to the accretion
disc around a supermassive black hole, as they did in the film,
in reality they would have a bad time. Those things are going to be pouring off hard
radiation from the super-heated material that piles up around the event horizon."
So it seems even if the film's black hole trip made for marvelously mind-melting cinema,
more than just Cooper's mind would've melted in reality.
It seems there may be a few problems with the bittersweet ending of "Interstellar" — the one
which posits that not only did Amelia Brand manage to traverse the orbit of a supermassive
black hole, but she actually found a habitable planet in its orbit. Once again, the concepts
behind such magnificent narrative twists aren't all that far-fetched. But, because we know so
little about black holes in general, let alone the spaces surrounding them, any and all depictions of
such conditions are purely theoretical, making habitable planets unlikely. Even Brand herself
says as much in the film, as she explains why life would never take root on such planets.
"When you're orbiting a black hole, not enough can happen. It sucks in asteroids
and comets. Other events that would otherwise reach you. We need to go further afield."
Professor Martin Barstow in particular wonders if
a planet could really survive near such a large black hole. He told the Daily Mail,
"There's no reason why they couldn't [orbit a black hole], although nobody's ever detected
one. [...] What's more likely is a star orbiting [a black hole], and a planetary system around
that star. Any planetary system associated just with a black hole would probably be consumed."
Lee Billings has similar issues with the film, telling the Daily Mail...
"I think 'Interstellar' is a movie for physicists, not for planetary scientists.
And I think you can see that in what they emphasize what's accurate and true science,
and what's not. There are a lot of problems with the planets."
To better illustrate his point Billings went on to say...
"For example, there's that planet with huge tides, but the water itself is no shallower than
your ankles or your knees. It's not clear what's causing those crazy tides, maybe the black hole,
but if it's pulling that hard then it would manifest in other ways beside mile-high waves."
Frankly, if you've got to bend the rules a bit to make that water planet
happen in "Interstellar," we're happy to allow it because it remains one of
the most thrilling creations in modern cinematic history.
Dr. Mann is the scientist the team tries to rescue second because his planet can supposedly
maintain life. Of course, this is a lie — frustrated at how inhospitable the place is,
he hacks into KIPP and corrupts the data in order to fool his colleagues into thinking
it could be a new home for humankind. One of the most curious things about the planet is
that it has clouds made of solid ice, which is where Dr. Mann is located.
Are floating ice clouds something based on real science? Far from it,
according to astrobiologist David Grinspoon.
"There are clouds made of ice on Earth as well as other planets, but they're little particles
of ice and if you got up to the cloud it would be all fluffy and you could fly through it."
Grinspoon told his friend and colleague David Corn
during his interview on the "Inquiring Minds" podcast,
"You couldn't stand on it and land a ship on it. It's not like it's going to be solid ice,
something like that would fall because of gravity."
While Grinspoon praised the movie for getting people interested in black holes and bringing
climate change to the forefront of conversation, he couldn't help but
express annoyance at this part of the movie. Discussing the ice clouds on Mann, he said:
"Is that so crucial to the plot that they couldn't run it by a planetary scientist?"
One of the few elements that most scientists can agree on in "Interstellar" is the design of the
film's spacecraft, Endurance. In particular, those scientists agree the ship's circular,
spinning design would be a great way to help generate the necessary artificial gravity to make
interstellar travel both possible and livable. Endurance's design was hardly speculative,
however, as it was apparently modeled directly from aspects of the International Space Station.
But while the craft itself appears to be a realistic means of traversing open space,
Lee Billings believes the ease with which the Endurance and its detachable crafts take off from
planets is more than a little bit problematic. He noted in his interview with the Daily Mail,
"Endurance seems quite plausible, in terms of artificial gravity spinning around
to give you that force that prevents bones from decaying in microgravity."
But despite offering the filmmakers some credit for getting one detail correct,
he would go on to criticize the unbelievability of the landing craft's propulsion system, saying,
"The main thing that seemed unrealistic was whatever propulsion they had,
to escape the extreme gravity wells of a planet that caused men to age a decade in an hour."
Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society would go on to equate the ship's miraculous propulsion
to the sort of problem even "Star Trek" found a way to cleverly side-step, telling the tabloid,
"Gene Roddenberry said he created transporters for
'Star Trek' because he didn't want to waste time getting to the surface and back."
We're happy to forgive Nolan for possibly using the miraculous propulsion as a
means of expediting the action in "Interstellar," given the film's
nearly three-hour runtime. But given his dedication to hard science in the film,
it seems like he probably could've indulged a bit more in this particular time construct.
Much of "Interstellar" focuses on finding a new planet, and artificial intelligence plays
a significant role in helping scientists locate humanity's next home. Three different robots are
shown throughout the film, and they all look like something from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but there
is much more to them than their appearances. The robots move with great speed, perform scientific
tests, and save their human partners from waves on aqua planets. Is that type of AI realistic?
As it turns out, it would take an immense amount
of power to run a machine of that nature. According to Science ABC,
"Aside from the power, there's the man-hours that would go into programming everything from
its vocabulary to the humor setting, which is just not possible in a single product today,
at least not in a version as refined and deterministic as TARS."
There are robots running tests out in the real world, but they are not communicating with humans
and they certainly aren't commenting on the fact that they have to follow human orders.
"Can you do this for us?"
"Before you get all teary, try to remember that as a robot, I have to do anything you say."
"Your cue light's broken."
"I'm not joking!"
Of course, the supermassive black hole Gargantua is, in and of itself, one of the film's most
spectacular creations. Nolan actually turned to renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Kip
Thorne to help bring Gargantua to life on screen. The film's jaw-dropping creation
was instantly hailed as one of the most accurate depictions of a black hole in the history of film,
particularly in rendering the refracted lensing of light. And if you follow space-related news,
you'll know that the film's black hole looks shockingly similar to the real thing.
But, while Gargantua appears to be quite authentically depicted,
it seems Mat Kaplan takes issue with the concept of its "gentle singularity" —
"Gentle?"
"They're hardly gentle."
This theoretical concept explains why the space surrounding the black
hole is surprisingly stable. Kaplan does acknowledge that
there is a theoretical basis for such a concept, saying to the Daily Mail,
"I think they are fairly certain with a black hole the size of Gargantua,
you can get things like that if it's large enough. But until we actually get to explore one,
if that ever happens, or have some instruments that can examine it, it's really all theory."
Even if there's not a ton of actual evidence to support Nolan's "gentle
singularity" twist in "Interstellar," it seems it's now up to the scientific
establishment to either prove or disprove one of the film's more radical theories.