(And no, I still haven't seen Inception. Pls see mgmt with any complaints).
Very interesting movie and one that I'm really glad I was able to remain spoiler-free. Not because of any amazing PLOT TWEESTS, but so I could let the movie unfold as the story it was meant to be, rather than waiting for the other shoe to drop.
What I'd like to ask about is some very basic science used in the movie. It appears to be a bone of contentious discussion on the Interwebz, and I have a feeling this is one of those things I'm too dumb to understand. I invite anyone smarter than me (and they are legion) to disabuse me of my simple notion.
Mild spoilers and "scientific" discussion after this cut.
So, here's the thing. My basic understanding of time travel is this: time is not linear, though we perceive it to be. If time travel were ever possible, it wouldn't be transcending or going back or forward or whatever.
It would be about finding the exact right spot, the right location, that you wanted to travel to. Like, if you want to visit Nazi Germany, it's not about going back in time, it's about finding out where Earth was in time and space at that moment, and traveling there.
Like time is just another coordinate that determines location. Does this make any sense to anybody else? I thought I got this idea from my rudimentary grasp of relativity, but I honestly don't know.
To put it another way, if you had the capability to manipulate time, as we do our ability to manipulate other factors (speed, relative height, relative distance, etc), then it would go something like this:
You observe time from outside itself. I guess this is where 5th and further dimensions come into play? Anyways, you can see a timeline--you can see not only the trajectory Earth has traveled, but you can see Earth actually existing in each of those spaces. I guess that means maybe that everything is existing all at once? I don't know. But the point is, you see all the places Earth has and will be--like a bajillion earths laid out before you--and you pick the one with the right coordinates and that's how you time travel.
Am I just full of deluded Hollywood urban legend nonsense? Everyone, feel free to educate me.
tl;dr - Interstellar's time travel concept made sense to me, but that's probably because I have no idea how this shit works.
I have my solution handy:
I just watched this movie last night and wanted to come back to your post about it!
ReplyDeleteOkay, okay, so the movie isn't perfect, it practically begs to be destroyed because of how much it strains to be taken seriously, and yet for all that I enjoyed it. It's great to see people attempting big science fiction in Hollywood—and how can’t I appreciate a movie whose faults are a consequence of its own ambition? I appreciate that ambition and it puts me in a forgiving mood.
I have no doubts people on the Internet hated this movie with a passion, but I loved it.
I was entertained, even by the bits that made no sense. Here I am the next day thinking of Miller’s planet, where the tidal forces were so strong that enormous waves raced across the surface. Of all the parts in the movie, this sequence was the most striking for me. I know that a well-known physicist consulted on this movie, but Miller’s planet pushes plausibility past the breaking point for me.
And I don’t really care. The implausibility interests me. And the planet’s atmosphere—figurative atmosphere—was so forlorn and ominous. It is one of the most effective and evocative settings I’ve encountered in fiction. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
Re: time travel. Okay, no one’s going to mistake me for a physicist. But what you are saying is familiar to me. It’s what I assume when I’m presented with time travel until the story starts insisting otherwise (and often stories do, getting caught up in paradoxes and making dramatic hay of them).
You are describing Earth in four dimensions (where Earth was and will be) as seen from a vantage point in five dimensions, I think. The interesting thing about that is, following the same logic, if you were to take a vantage point in six dimensions, you would then see where Earth could have been and might be (many timelines instead of the one).
Hope you are doing well!
Love, your sister person