I watched Interstellar on the first day of its release. The audience showered a good applause at the end of the movie. I was not surprised by that as it is very common for the guys who manage to grab the first day tickets. But what surprised me was the fact that there was a similar round of applause even on the second day. Nolans are known for their technical brilliance in handling dizzying subjects. Be it Memento or Inception, their movies transport you to a different world or to an untouched zone within the human brain. Interstellar fits perfectly in the Nolans' mould. The movie is about space, time and gravity. Human emotions and qualities like love, betrayal, sacrifice, family bonds, hope, etc. are a part of this breathtaking journey across the galaxies. But more than the craft I was impressed by the apparent scientific acumen and astronomical levels of awareness our audience has. I hear the Indian Twitter and Facebook worlds are full of awe for this movie probably due to the same reason of heightened awareness about the stuff behind black holes, space travels, and the like.
While watching the movie I was reminded of our late Prof.Suresh Ramasamy, who taught us Modern Physics in our second year of grad. Modphy was one of the darkest and strongest giants in the den of tough courses, though the formulas in this course were pretty simple and less of Greek and Latin symbols and more of English when compared to most other Physics courses. Time dilation and length contraction are the famous twins of Modphy. Even now a bizarre feeling sets in if I think of time dilation. Simply put, one day in earth will be less than one day in space (Please mind, this variation has not got anything to do with the time taken by the earth to go around itself). Or say, if one of the twin brothers of the famous Appu-Raja duo, Appu is sent on a long, long space trip, when he comes backs to earth he will be younger than his twin brother Raja. Or if you sync two clocks before sending one of them to space, the clock in space will be moving slower than the earth clock. It moves slower because the time expands or lengthens in space. As the time expands in space, each second in space is of more duration than each earth second. So Appu ages slower than Raja and he is bound to get surprised when he gets back to earth to see Raja greying and balding like their father, while Appu himself is still fit for duets with those circus elephants and dogs. (But not to worry about length contraction here, Appu is anyway too short to contract further.)
Albert Einstein confused the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with all this and much more deadly stuff that they had no choice but to not hand out the Prize to him for these over-the-head theories. But how can you leave such a brain without the Prize? Luckily for the Committee, around the same time when he unfolded these surreal concepts of relativity (1905, when he was barely 26 years old), Einstein had done a lot of work even in the readily tangible domain of photoelectric effect; Thus, the Academy was spared of a popular backlash that we still associate with Gandhi not getting the Peace Prize in spite of repeated nominations, while Obama clasped it rather too quickly. Years and years have rolled since that game-changing day in the year 1905 - still many engineering and physics students end up with a D or E in Modphy.
In the mean time, the brilliant Stephen Hawking with his A Brief History Of Time has also chipped in to get us into that magical world of time travel, worm holes, etc. But still I find it difficult to come to terms with the reality (?) when you say Appu is going to be younger than Raja after his space travel. It was well past one hour beyond midnight that we stopped for cups of hot tea from the bicycle vendor at the tri-junction. There is a specific point in time-space when you can't really say you over-heard someone or heard someone, and this point of inflection between hearing and overhearing varies between the day and night - but we did actually hear two guys in black jerseys and goatees discussing Isaac Asimov and Interstellar. These two were a part of the audience that clapped at the end of the movie. I was not just surprised, but simple awed. Mera Bharat Mahan!
But talking about the movie itself, I would rather vouch for Robert Zemeckis' classy Contact (1997). Incidentally, Matthew David McConaughey plays an important role in Contact too. And just like in Contact, even in Interstellar it is a father-girl combination of explorers (give me a break please!) and it is the same super brain behind both these movies - Kip Thorne.
While watching the movie I was reminded of our late Prof.Suresh Ramasamy, who taught us Modern Physics in our second year of grad. Modphy was one of the darkest and strongest giants in the den of tough courses, though the formulas in this course were pretty simple and less of Greek and Latin symbols and more of English when compared to most other Physics courses. Time dilation and length contraction are the famous twins of Modphy. Even now a bizarre feeling sets in if I think of time dilation. Simply put, one day in earth will be less than one day in space (Please mind, this variation has not got anything to do with the time taken by the earth to go around itself). Or say, if one of the twin brothers of the famous Appu-Raja duo, Appu is sent on a long, long space trip, when he comes backs to earth he will be younger than his twin brother Raja. Or if you sync two clocks before sending one of them to space, the clock in space will be moving slower than the earth clock. It moves slower because the time expands or lengthens in space. As the time expands in space, each second in space is of more duration than each earth second. So Appu ages slower than Raja and he is bound to get surprised when he gets back to earth to see Raja greying and balding like their father, while Appu himself is still fit for duets with those circus elephants and dogs. (But not to worry about length contraction here, Appu is anyway too short to contract further.)
Albert Einstein confused the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with all this and much more deadly stuff that they had no choice but to not hand out the Prize to him for these over-the-head theories. But how can you leave such a brain without the Prize? Luckily for the Committee, around the same time when he unfolded these surreal concepts of relativity (1905, when he was barely 26 years old), Einstein had done a lot of work even in the readily tangible domain of photoelectric effect; Thus, the Academy was spared of a popular backlash that we still associate with Gandhi not getting the Peace Prize in spite of repeated nominations, while Obama clasped it rather too quickly. Years and years have rolled since that game-changing day in the year 1905 - still many engineering and physics students end up with a D or E in Modphy.
In the mean time, the brilliant Stephen Hawking with his A Brief History Of Time has also chipped in to get us into that magical world of time travel, worm holes, etc. But still I find it difficult to come to terms with the reality (?) when you say Appu is going to be younger than Raja after his space travel. It was well past one hour beyond midnight that we stopped for cups of hot tea from the bicycle vendor at the tri-junction. There is a specific point in time-space when you can't really say you over-heard someone or heard someone, and this point of inflection between hearing and overhearing varies between the day and night - but we did actually hear two guys in black jerseys and goatees discussing Isaac Asimov and Interstellar. These two were a part of the audience that clapped at the end of the movie. I was not just surprised, but simple awed. Mera Bharat Mahan!
But talking about the movie itself, I would rather vouch for Robert Zemeckis' classy Contact (1997). Incidentally, Matthew David McConaughey plays an important role in Contact too. And just like in Contact, even in Interstellar it is a father-girl combination of explorers (give me a break please!) and it is the same super brain behind both these movies - Kip Thorne.
