The Science of Interstellar

"The Science of Interstellar" is a great book that serves as an insightful companion to the film. The movie is very entertaining, and it left me curious to find out more about some of the scientific aspects. The movie was marketed as being based on "real science" - after watching the film, it's clear that it is not that simple. Some of the film (particularly the latter part of it) hinges on theories that have not been proven by any means; nor have they been disproven, so in some sense the film may be accurate to what some of our "best guesses" are when it comes to current science. Kip Thorne, whose work on theoretical physics is featured in the film, authors this book. He elaborates on the science seen in the movie, and aims to increase the audience's understanding of the theories within. It's a well-written text that does a good job explaining things to an average reader. He includes a number of charts, diagrams, and illustrations which definitely helped me to understand some of the more difficult concepts. I look forward to seeing the film again now that I have read the book; I think it will certainly allow my appreciation for the movie to grow. Some examples of what is discussed in the book: - The physical laws of our universe - The physics of wormholes and black holes - Gravity & time dilation - Details of the spacecraft Endurance - Blight, food/oxygen shortage on Earth - The equations on the chalkboard - much more, including spoilers. For more reviews of Film & TV related books, visit MovieArtBook(dot)com ** Note: If you want to learn more about the making of the movie, I also recommend this book: Interstellar: Beyond Time and Space

From Dr. Vernon M. Dolphin This book is well-crafted, with a solid foundation in astrophysics. The author, Kip Thorne, is a professor of the subject at the California Institute of Technology. That hooked me. I was tired of being zipped about the universe on sheer imagination with no roots in fact. Imagination of our century is soaring as the master gear of social change. The writer of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, wants you to soar with him. I believe Interstellar will touch your brain and launch your imagination. An admirer of H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, Kip Thorne follows the best of the best. As a bona fide scientist at Cal Tech, and meticulous writer, he earns your credence from page one. For me, as a retired professor of the philosophy of science, logic and the philosophy of mathematics – I tire of the mishmash of wannabee Sci-Fi writers. We can’t fly high with high school gimmicks. We need to believe what we see, hear and believe what we read. So I’m glad Interstellar was born. I feel the plausibility. If your sky’s the limit. Go For it. Also, Interstellar is also an excellent desk book for teachers of advanced high school, or college. Students will lap up Thorne’s carefully crafted descriptions of the four energies in the universe. Students will stand on the shoulders of Newton, Einstein et al. just as Newton himself said he did with his math teacher. Last point. The discipline of writing and of reading requires a sense of limits. Kip Thorne’s book reminds us of a vital intellectual responsibility. Martin Cruz, an eminent author said it: “Just don’t fake it.” With but a small bow to the Hollywood moguls, Kip Thorne’s succeeds. You may or may not fly high with the movie, but as for Thorne’s book, I’d say go for it. Dr. V.M. Dolphin

The imagery in Christopher Nolan's movie Interstellar is breathtaking in IMAX. One of the most memorable scenes is of the massive black hole named Gargantua. In this scene we view something that mankind will not see in reality in the foreseeable future. In Kit Thorne's book the reader learns that in making the movie Nolan stayed as close to known science and scientific speculation as possible. This science can be difficult, but Thorne writes well and provides a number of diagrams that illustrate the points he is making. Prof. Thorne worked on the movie from it's early beginnings in 2005, when Christopher Nolan's brother Jonathan worked on the early screen play. At one time Steven Spielberg was slated to direct the movie. We can be glad that he dropped out, because he would not have made the breathtaking movie that Nolan did. Thorne covers the science from the beginning of the movie to the end, where Cooper falls through the black hole into the tesseract structure. As Thorne warns at the start of the book, some sections can be heavy going. If you don't know what an event horizon is, the book may be especially difficult. What makes black holes so difficult is that their physics is far outside any normal experience. For example, at the end of the movie, Cooper, in one of the landing craft, falls into the black hole. In a massive black hole the tidal forces (the difference in gravity between your toes and the top of your head) are small so he can survive the trip across the event horizon. Thorne mentions several times in the book that as an object approaches the event horizon, time, relative to the rest of the universe, slows toward infinity. To the outside observer, an object becomes trapped at the event horizon (although it cannot be seen). What is hard to understand is that the object, in its own frame of reference, does cross the event horizon. Thorne does not succeed in fully explaining exactly what is happening in this strange region that is outside of our universe. For example, looking out of the hole, in the direction he is falling, does Cooper see all of time come to an end? How fast is he traveling? If he orbits just below the event horizon, is he traveling near the speed of light? Why, exactly, is it so important that Cooper intersect the out falling singularity? Simply stating that this is "historical light" is not an obvious explanation. I suspect that the problem is that many of the answers to these questions exist in mathematical equations, which are Thorne's old friends, since he has spent a lifetime with them. These complexities make the book both fascinating and difficult at the same time. Einstein once said that ideas should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Thorne is dealing with complex material and has done a good job of trying to live up to Einstein's dictum.

Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I bought everything about it in book form. I'm obviously a sci-fi nut. My own difference from the intended Hollywood-defined Mass Audience (Slam!) is that I have been studying gravitation theory, high-energy particle physics (Wheeler), and advanced math since the 1960s, worked at UCSD in high-energy physics, and gee whiz, got lectured by people at Cal Tech like Feynman. There, take that--I can drop names too, which this book does a helluva lot. I'm delighted to read about the people who make movies. Watching an Extra on the BLADE RUNNER Blu-ray disc yesterday reinforced what Kip Thorne says about Directors: they are gods. The Director goes with Mass Audience appeal over Truth, beauty over Truth, which is how to make money and get an Oscar for Special Effects. Nothing wrong with that. Unusual to read that Truth in a science book, however. I appreciate the updates in cosmology theory, even when they have to be labeled truth, educated guess, or speculation. There should have been a fourth circled symbol OG for when explanations were meant for Old Geezers like me. All the emphasis on colorful black boards full of symbols takes me back to the obviously-Einstein character in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, although his blackboard was just plain chalk on slate probably. In both movies, that DAY ESS and INTERSTELLAR, a blackboard full of incomprehensible (to The Mass Audience) are as much Eye Candy as the actresses. One of my Professors wrote equations with his right hand and simultaneously erased them with his left hand. Thanks to this book and its internet links, at least we can study the equations longer, until our brains float thru the branes. Funny how INTERSTELLAR has a religious or occult theme, like CONTACT bringing Arroway to her dead father, and GRAVITY bringing its heroine to prayer and thanksgiving at the end. Is it fair to ask if that trope should be labeled S? Mass Audience again will answer.

Great book explaining all the science behind the movie. However in the book there are some conflicting claims about the properties of black holes that should be cleared up. In Chapter 5 on Black Holes on page 45, Dr. Thorne writes "First, a weird claim: Black holes are made from warped space and warped time. Nothing else - no matter whatsoever." Then in Chapter 6 on Gargantuan's Anatomy on page 57, Dr. Thorne writes "If we know the mass of a black hole and how fast it spins, then from Einstein's relativistic laws we can deduce all the hole's other properties:". If there is no matter whatsoever in a black hole, how can we calculate the mass? The equation w (weight, matter) = m (mass) x g (gravity) doesn't hold since Einstein's relativistic laws are used to calculate the mass where m (mass) = c2 (speed of light squared) / E (energy). I think this should have been made clearer with some simple examples and calculations to reduce confusion for the average person between mass and matter and where and how the Energy is measured for a black hole. I do like the quote about black holes to indicate that there are no extra, independent properties beyond its mass and spin on page 57: "A black hole has only two hairs, from which you can deduce everything else about it." One question though, what about non-spinning black holes, are these just "single hair" black holes? I also really like Dr. Thorne's labeling of the status of the science for Interstellar on page 33 where "T" stands for Truth (green), "EG" stands for Educated Guess (purple), and "S" stands for Speculation (red) and this is labeled in color at the beginning of a chapter or section so the reader is aware of where science stands today on the particular subject in the movie. Overall a great book on black holes and explaining all the science behind the movie which couldn't be explained well in the movie's limited time. Well worth the read and furthering of science education.

This book is amazing! Interstellar is my favorite movie, and this was the perfect book to "nerd out" with and dive deeper into the scientific theories used to develop the film. It is super interesting and very easy to understand. Kip has a way of making even the most complex theories easy to understand through his writing and illustrations .

Noble prize winning Kip Thorne back at it again with yet another Great book. This book has alot of pictures to help with the concepts. Get book to go along side the movie. Great quality i wish it came in hardcover but the paperback is build well.

There's only so much that you can cram into a few hours of screen time and very little that you can actually explain. This book makes up for that. Kip Thorne is an esteemed physicist (and an old friend of Stephen Hawking) who has made major contributions to the theoretical study of black holes and he certainly knows what he's talking about. Thorne has a clear, accessible style and there are plenty of illustrations and diagrams. It is challenging - one doesn't come across black holes every day of course and they behave very, very strangely - but his job is to teach and amaze you and if you pay attention (sometimes skipping back to reread), you'll learn a lot and have fun doing it. In addition, there is a lot to learn about the film-making process. Inevitably, things have to be simplified or altered to tell a story on the screen and some elaborate and improbable circumstances have to be arranged for the characters to be able to do what they do. In this case, we see the interplay between the consultant and producer and the director. If Christopher Nolan says "I want a planet where one hour passes while seven years pass for a distant observer and I want mile-high waves as well", then Kip Thorne works out how that might just happen and actually shows us. There's a lot of physics and absolutely no Treknobabble.