[Physics of "Interstellar"]

Nate--

 

Negative energy - can't really wrap my head around that. Very cool.

 

Justin--

 

That stuff about the planet rotating under you and forcing you into fixed waves is even scarier than the idea of your traditional tidal wave. Awesome

[Physics of "Interstellar"]

After watching Interstellar, one can pretty much gather that Miller's planet is weird. On top of the aforementioned super-massive tidal waves and its close proximity to a rotating black hole, Gargantua, it has a very interesting property regarding its time "flow" - one hour on this planet equates to 7 years on Earth. So what does this mean? Are those on Miller's planet aging at a vastly accelerated rate? Is everything in slow motion? Well, the answer can be summarized like this: it's all about perspective.

 

On Miller's planet, the flow of time doesn't feel any different than it does on Earth. From their point of view, time is running normally, and they aren't aging any faster. It's not like if they spent a few days there, they'd come out looking way older, they'd just look a few days older (which is to say, not at all). However, after a few days, if they came back to Earth, everyone they know and love would be dead. Which is kind of a bummer, really, and that's why they wanted to get out of there so quickly - they were looking to save humanity, so time, like fuel and sustenance, was a valuable and irretrievable resource.

 

This time dilation is all due to gravity. Being so near the huge gravity of Gargantua means time would flow much slower (1 Earth hour is .06 Miller seconds). But if someone were to record a video for an hour on Miller and bring it back to Earth, it'd still only take an hour to watch. Now if somehow a live feed were set up, to watch those on Miller experience an hour, it'd take 7 years. So they'd be moving pretty slowly.

 

The second thing I wanted to touch on was quantum data. What was it, why was it so important, and what was it doing in a black hole?

 

The Earth is falling apart due to the blight, massive dust clouds causing lack of food and sickness among Earth's inhabitants. We need to get out of there and fast. So to do this, we need to harness the power of gravitation. With all the additional dimensions and nuances of the Universe as demonstrated in the film, the gravitational constant G is not necessarily true all over, so we need to investigate quantum gravity, the effects that massive gravitational fields have on subatomic particles. And the gravitational field that Gargantua exerts on subatomic particles would be a great way of analyzing quantum gravity and allow Murph back home to complete the equation.

 

Cooper and TARS fall into the black hole, and the quantum data they discover is sent back to Murph; with this data, she can finish the second half of the equation that the late professor failed to do during his lifetime. With the completion of this goal, humanity can finally leave the Earth - the answer lied within gravity. As you may recall when Cooper wakes up, he is inside of a dome-like structure with buildings hanging upside down. This was made possible with the quantum data that the characters in the movie were so fond of mentioning.