Neil deGrasse Tyson is known as a science communicator, host of COSMOS, and an uber-pedant. He chastised Jon Stewart for having a globe that spun the wrong way at the opening of The Daily Show, and got a hold of James Cameron to tell him that Titanic‘s night sky didn’t have the right stars in it. This weekend, he took to Twitter to give his thoughts on Interstellar. Far from pedantry, the tweets were spoiler-free, mostly positive brain droppings.
Tyson made sure to note that as far as the theories go, Interstellar is unprecedented in its incorporation of science:
In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein’s Relativity of Time as no other feature film has shown.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
As for the visuals, black holes and wormholes have never been seen so clearly:
In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein’s Curvature of Space as no other feature film has shown.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
More so than Gravity, the astronauts moved around in space very accurately:
In #Interstellar: The producers knew exactly how, why, & when you’d achieve zero-G in space.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
That floating, mirror-like orb you’ve seen in the trailers? That’s theoretically what a wormhole would actually look like:
In #Interstellar: You enter a 3-Dimensional portal in space. Yes, you can fall in from any direction. Yes, it’s a Worm Hole.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
Some scientists have recently disagreed about the specifics, but being so close to a black hole would create huge tides:
In #Interstellar: You observe great Tidal Waves from great Tidal Forces, of magnitude that orbiting a Black Hole might create
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
Tyson notes the similarities to past space epics:
In #Interstellar: They reprise the matched-rotation docking maneuver from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but they spin 100x faster.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
It’s also worth mentioning that the portrayal of women in science was better than most movies:
In #Interstellar: Of the leading characters (all of whom are scientists or engineers) half are women. Just an FYI.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
But sometimes the tropes come through:
In #Interstellar: On another planet, around another star, in another part of the galaxy, two guys get into a fist fight.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
There are resources if you want to learn more (book link here):
In #Interstellar, if you didn’t understand the physics, try Kip Thorne’s highly readable Bbook “The Science of Interstellar”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
Perhaps the scientific mind behind Interstellar‘s theories had a cameo, in his own way:
In #Interstellar: There’s a robot named KIPP. One of the Executive Producers, a physicist, is named Kip. I’m just saying.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
Without being too spoilery, some major aspects of the film do check out:
In #Interstellar: And in the real universe, strong gravitational fields measurably slow passage of time relative to others.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
But maybe getting near a black hole is a bad idea in any universe:
In #Interstellar: They explore a planet near a Black Hole. Personally, I’d stay as far the hell away from BlackHoles as I can
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
He’s just sayin’.
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Want more Interstellar science? Check out my latest video on how to turn wormholes into time machines!
HT Salon
I asked him on Twitter, and he didn’t answer, but maybe someone here can: Do ALL supermassive black holes lead to a secret five-dimensional room behind a child’s bookcase, or just SOME supermassive black holes?
Totally agree on the last bit about the planet by the black hole. That was a huge problem for me in the movie, it was a horrible choice and they should have known the problems they ran into would have been an issue.
In #Inner Stella: They explore Stella’s sexuality near her Black Hole. Personally, I’d stay as far the hell away from BlackHoles as I can
— Neal deGrappe Tyrone (@noreally)
check out ” Top o Narae” or “Gunbuster,” as it’s called, in English. It’s an amazing 6 part anime from the 90s. I have never felt the heartache of faster than light travel more than this series. “Interstellar” is a far second.