[Physics of "Interstellar"]

Rachael- I also thought the idea behind the changing of G was very interesting and how by mastering the impact of the 5th dimension on them they could influence it, also how when they did it the earth itself probably would have fallen apart like the crust and inner core from the change in gravitation.

 

Nate- Wormholes really blow my mind just imagine what we could do with them if we had them mastered, obviously the hole negative energy thing is a problem though, I wonder if we will be able to learn enough about dark matter or energy to solve this conundrum 

[Physics of "Interstellar"]

Yet another interesting point from Interstellar was the ending, which many of us have avoided because of the fact that a 5th dimension is very confusing indeed. Now obviously the movie took some creative freedom in this scene but the physics behind the 5th dimension was plausible even though it was a stretch.

 

The idea was that Cooper was sent into the blackhole to be saved by the 5th dimensional beings using a tesseract of sorts. A tesseract is a 5th dimensional object, just as a cube is 3 dimensional or a square is 2 dimensional and so forth. The explanation for the object is that you "add" another dimension by adding on lines at 90 degrees. So from a point you add a line to get a line, then more to get a square, then again to get a tesseract. The only catch is that we cannot actually see a tesseract in its truest form in our 3, technically 4, dimensions, we can only see reflection of it. Just like if we draw a cube in 2 dimensions we can only see it's reflection, and you can't tell that the lines are added on perpendicularly. So in this 5th dimensional object they create a way to transport Cooper from his position inside Gargantua back to our galaxy while at the same time giving him the ability to view the 4th dimension (time) to save the earth.

 

This point is also interesting since the idea used in the movie for the 5th dimension, is that the "bulk" as it is called is wrapped around our universe, this means that the 5th dimensional beings can then travel into ours using the tesseract, even a blackhole, and save Cooper, transporting him back to safety in our own solar system.

 

There is ofcourse much more to this idea but this gives a good idea on the idea behind the 5th dimension in Interstellar. Included below is a picture of a tesseract (in our dimension). 

[Physics of "Interstellar"]

One thing that i found interesting in Interstellar was the point made by Anne Hathaway's character that Mann's planet had less a chance at harboring life because the black hole it closely orbited it prevented too many accidents to happen that would start life. In reading Kip Thorne's Physics of Interstellar he goes through the physics of why this statement is very wrong.

 

The main point made by Thorne is that for something to be sucked into the black hole it has to be going right almost at it, otherwise the centrifugal force of say a passing comet would be strong enough to prevent it from being sucked in and instead would be placed in an orbit, just like Mann's planet, around the blackhole. The strong pull by the blackhole would pull many of such objects into the strange orbits like it did. These orbits are far from normal to our standards and are also more 3D in nature as they make almost spherical orbits such as shown below. 

 

This also leads to the point that when they are in orbit around Mann's planet, which they had to travel a long way to get to, an explosion sends them directly into the blackhole so much that they are in danger of being pulled all the way into it. This is because of the nature of black hole orbits, Dr. Thorne made an orbit for Mann's planet which at one point is far away from gargantua and then later travels very close to the blackhole so that an explosion could plausibly send them into the grasp of the black hole. A depiction is shown below.