Tan, Andrea Beverly I.

ABM 12A

 Interstellar

Murphy’s law suggests that “whatever can go wrong will go wrong.” With this in mind, Interstellar is a
2014 epic science fiction film directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, that takes us into the Earth’s future
where the human race is at the verge of extinction as the planet slowly becomes inhabitable with disasters,
famines, and droughts. N.A.S.A. finds former science engineer and pilot, Cooper, who stumbles upon their
base, as part of their last hope to save humankind. Together with a few scientists under the direction of
Professor Brand, he is asked to go on a mission through a wormhole and across the galaxy to search for answers
and find a new home. In order to save the human race, Cooper decides between staying or leaving his family to
possibly never see them again. The movie explores possibilities, space, time, gravity, and love between a father
and daughter.

The movie explores relativity which is the notion that the law of physics is the same everywhere at every
time, past, present and future. The universality of physics means that “time is relative”. The phrase came from
Einstein's Theory of Relativity that joined space and time and created the idea of a fabric that permeates the
whole universe: "space-time" and thus, creating different experiences in space-time. This means that observers
will see the timing and spacing of events differently. Depending on position and speed, time can seem to move
faster or slower to someone relative to another in a different space-time. Time passes slower the faster one goes.
The faster an object moves, the more massive it become. This relationship between mass and speed is often
expressed as a relationship between mass and energy: E=mc^2, where E is energy, m is mass and c is the speed
of light. This is the special relativity theory, based on the speed of light being constant for everyone.

Furthermore, there is a general relativity that tells us that gravity is not a force, but a curvature of space and
time. The force we call gravity is indistinguishable from being in an accelerating rocket. Space and time are
curved near a massive object, and this curvature is gravity. The equations of general relativity predict a number
of phenomena, such as gravitational lensing, gravitational redshift, and ripples in space-time fabric. An example
from the movie is when Cooper was listening to an explanation of space not being flat and the wormhole being
a sphere using a piece of paper as an illustration.

Given these, there is an extra dimension of the universe which could possibly explain the expanding
universe. In an Uppsala University article published in Physical Review Letters (2018), our universe is riding on
an expanding bubble in an extra dimension. In relation to string theory, reality consists of ten or more
dimensions, including time and three of space (Mann, 2019). Time dilation is the “slowing down” of a “moving
clock” with respect to a clock or a frame of reference that is not in motion with it (The Editors of Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 2019). An example from the movie is when Cooper sacrifices himself to ensure Plan B, but instead
of dying, he lands inside the wormhole’s gravitational singularity, where the laws of space and time become
infinite. People find him, but time has passed so much for them compared to him.

Gravity is an attraction that exists between all objects everywhere in the universe. The equation is a
mathematical description the way bodies attract one another such that the force of gravity is proportional to the
product of two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers of mass. In
other terms,

F=Gm1m2 / r2,
where G is called the Gravitational Constant. It has a value of 6.6726 x 10 -11 m3 kg-1 s-2 (The StarChild Team,
2001). In the movie, time is affected by gravity, because the curvature of space-time is gravity. Time appears to
move slower near massive objects because the object's gravity bends space-time. In other words, time moves
slower as gravity increases. An example from the movie is when Cooper and Brand felt like they spent an hour
or so on an planet, but find out that it was around twenty-three years by the time they come back to their
colleague in space. The same goes with the whole team and the people they left on earth.

Interstellar is possible to happen. If current environmental issues are not given utmost priority and a
sense of urgency, then there is the possibility in the future that a major option for humankind’s survival is to
look for a solution outside Earth. It is also possible to discover more dimensions aside from what we currently
know, because there are so many things that are yet to be discovered. One of my favorite lines from the movie
is “science is admitting what we do not know.” There is a certain order and design to the universe. This humbles
us to know that we do not know everything and that we are still bound to make mistakes of what we think we
know already.

Furthermore, in Interstellar, “Love is the one thing that we're capable of perceiving that transcends
dimensions of time and space.” It means that love is just as powerful and real—or even more, as the other
forces making up our universe. Interstellar seems to show that love is somewhat a universal constant built in the
fabric of our universe like gravity and time. In the movie, love pushes Cooper to survive against the odds
shoved in his way. In hopeless situations, love is a force that pushes us to go a little bit further, to do more than
we thought we could, and be more than we thought we could be. Love shapes us into a new being. I believe in
love, but belief in something, whether it is actually the truth or not, depends on how a person chooses to see it. I
believe love can exist in between gravity and other scientific space concepts, because love is more than a
personal biological occurrence that society gives meaning to. I believe we can perceive love, its influence, and
its effects, but like other concepts in our vast universe, we do not know everything about it.

Overall, Interstellar explores different concepts such as the Relativity Theory, Murphy’s law, the
possible future, and love. Furthermore, time works differently with position, speed, and gravity. This is also due
to the effects of time dilation that there are different experiences in space-time. In addition, although the movie
is a science fiction, our future depends the choices we make, which includes how we choose to treat people and
our environment. This is also where love comes into play as a force that influences us.

Resources:

Banerjee, S., Danielsson, U., Dibitetto, G., Giri, S., & Schillo, M. (2018). Emergent de sitter cosmology from

decaying anti–de sitter space. Physical Review Letters, 121(26). doi: 10.1103/physrevlett.121.261301

Mann, A. (2019). Our universe could be an expanding bubble in an extra dimension. Retrieved from

https://www.livescience.com /64417-universe-sits-on-extradimensional-bubble.html

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019). Time dilation. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/science/time-dilation

The StarChild Team. (2001). What is gravity?. Retrieved from

https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question30.html

Uppsala University. (2018). Our universe: An expanding bubble in an extra dimension. ScienceDaily. Retrieved
from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181228164824.htm