Interstellar Movie Digital Graphics Led To Black Hole Discovery
This will certainly be the next movie I plunk $20 down to see. It’s actually coming out in digital, 35mm print, and 70mm (Imax-ish) print. I’ll be going to the Chinese Theater in Hollywood to see it in 70mm.
In the end, Nolan got elegant images that advance the story. Thorne got a movie that teaches a mass audience some real, accurate science. But he also got something he didn’t expect: a scientific discovery. “This is our observational data,” he says of the movie’s visualizations. “That’s the way nature behaves. Period.” Thorne says he can get at least two published articles out of it.
When Thorne discusses the astrophysics that he likes best—colliding black holes, space dragged into motion by a whirling star, time warps—he uses a lot of analogies. He talks about two tornadoes running into each other or rays of light cast about like straw in the wind. But metaphors can be deceptive; they can make people think they understand something when they only understand what it is like. But Thorne’s haloed, spinning black hole and galaxy-spanning wormhole are not just metaphors. Most Interstellar viewers will see these images—the wormhole, the black hole, the weird light—and think, “Whoa. That’s beautiful.” Thorne looks at them and thinks, “Whoa. That’s true.” And from a certain perspective, that’s beautiful too.
More: How Building a Black Hole for Interstellar Led to an Amazing Scientific Discovery