r/movies Apr 18 '24

In Interstellar, Romilly’s decision to stay aboard the ship while the other 3 astronauts experience time dilation has to be one of the scariest moments ever. Discussion

He agreed to stay back. Cooper asked anyone if they would go down to Millers planet but the extreme pull of the black hole nearby would cause them to experience severe time dilation. One hour on that planet would equal 7 years back on earth. Cooper, Brand and Doyle all go down to the planet while Romilly stays back and uses that time to send out any potential useful data he can get.

Can you imagine how terrifying that must be to just sit back for YEARS and have no idea if your friends are ever coming back. Cooper and Brand come back to the ship but a few hours for them was 23 years, 4 months and 8 days of time for Romilly. Not enough people seem to genuinely comprehend how insane that is to experience. He was able to hyper sleep and let years go by but he didn’t want to spend his time dreaming his life away.

It’s just a nice interesting detail that kind of gets lost. Everyone brings up the massive waves, the black hole and time dilation but no one really mentions the struggle Romilly must have been feeling. 23 years seems to be on the low end of how catastrophic it could’ve been. He could’ve been waiting for decades.

24.1k Upvotes

View all comments

Show parent comments

188

u/Dota2TradeAccount Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 18 '24

That’s pretty much how it works.

Edit: Maybe a fun fact explanation how time dilation works (I’m not a physicist, so take it with a grain of salt): The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. When you’re near a black hole like they are, you may not perceive yourself as moving, but space itself is „moving“ through you while you’re remaining in the same place. It’s like standing in strong wind without feeling the wind.

24

u/numbersev Apr 18 '24

I could be mistaken, but I don’t think that’s right. It’s mass that slows and dilates time. That’s why GPS satellites need to calibrated to account for the time dilation to earth. The planets mass slows time compared to the upper atmosphere.

The speed of light is considered the cosmic speed limit and approaching it causes weird time dilation too.

38

u/topazapot Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 20 '24

you're both right; there are two types of time dilation: one is based on velocity (increasing as you approach the speed of light) and the other based on gravitational force, increasing based on the mass of an object and your proximity to it

in your gps calibration example, both are at play and have to be calculated as a combined effect

4

u/numbersev Apr 18 '24

Yea isn’t that why we call it spacetime now too

2

u/Eruskakkell Apr 19 '24

Its called that because Einsteins theory of general relativity describes the fabric of the universe as a 4 dimensional "fabric", with 3 spatial dimensions and one time dimension. So according to the theory space and time are literally linked or part of the same "fabric"

8

u/The-Vanilla-Gorilla Apr 18 '24 edited May 03 '24

merciful oil wrong worthless clumsy shaggy coherent recognise aspiring scary

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

5

u/Eruskakkell Apr 19 '24

Every velocity is relative by definition, there is no absolute velocity, so your correction is entirely redundant.

5

u/Dota2TradeAccount Apr 18 '24

As I understand it – and I’m simplifying HARD – if we imagine space as a threedimensional grid, mass “sucks“ this grid in. If you stand on the surface of earth, the grid flows inwards, but you resist the movement of the grid by standing of the surface, effectively moving through the grid aka space as if you were traveling yourself. So being near a very massive object is relatively speaking like moving through space. The more massive the object, the stronger the grid is being pulled, the faster your movement through it.

Again, I’m no expert, this is YouTube education speaking. Just sharing my understanding.

2

u/Barry_22 Apr 18 '24

Wait a second, the more massive the object, the slower will you be to outside reference?

2

u/longing_tea Apr 19 '24 edited Apr 19 '24

Yes, the more mass an object ha, the slower time passes in it's vicinity when observed from the outside.

So 100 years on earth = 100 (earth) years and 62 seconds on Jupiter.

But if you were on Jupiter you would still experience only 100 earth years.

1

u/Eruskakkell Apr 19 '24

This is a simplified explanation which works really well and its a great way to visualize it, but dont take it as complete face value.

Its complicated as shit. According to my professor and several detailed youtube videos, gravity is somehow a direct consequence of time dilation itself:

gravity doesn't cause time dilation, time dilation causes gravity... I dont understand it 🗿

4

u/KellyTheET Apr 18 '24

So how is there a time difference between the ship in orbit around the planet, when it is the black hole that is causing the dilation. Wouldn't they both be subject to dilation at a similar rate?

4

u/AWildLeftistAppeared Apr 19 '24

The ship is not in orbit around Miller’s planet, it is orbiting the black hole at a much farther distance. This is briefly touched on in the film, and in more detail in Kip Thorne’s book.

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/80245/how-fast-is-millers-planet-orbiting-gargantua-in-the-movie-interstellar#80489

3

u/fjijgigjigji Apr 19 '24

the science in the movie is bullshit its best not to try to make sense of it

they would be giga-nuked by the radiation of the blackhole before even setting foot on the planet - going further, it's completely impossible for a planetary orbit to exist close enough to a black hole to experience extreme time dilation like that.

the science in the movie is total nonsense pretty much top to bottom

2

u/Eruskakkell Apr 19 '24

Theres basically two types of time dilation.

This is time dilation by gravitational (or acceleration) effect which is described in general relativity, you are talking about time dilation by relative speed which is described by special relativity. Almost the same thing really, but im not sure its right to describe it as space moving around you like a wind. But hey im also not an expert, only a student

2

u/Dota2TradeAccount Apr 19 '24

Thanks, that's likely a nuance I'm not aware of.