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Does anyone remember Interstellar. Their black hole simulation was based on hard science. Looks fairly similar

metalliqaz 8y ago
It doesn't look anything like Gargantua in Interstellar, but it's not really supposed to, except for the most prominent features. Interstellar showed what a black hole might look like in visible light while in orbit around it. This is a radio telescope image from a far away galaxy.
- SiempreViernes 8y ago
  Interstellar also turned off the doppler effect, maybe to get a boring symmetric ring instead of an awesome asymmetric one as nature intended it to be!
  - CharlesColeman 8y ago
    IIRC, the black hole in Interstellar was also rapidly rotating, which I think was significant to how it looked: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-blac... > Nolan's story relied on time dilation: time passing at different rates for different characters. To make this scientifically plausible, Thorne told him, he'd need a massive black hole—in the movie it's called Gargantua—spinning at nearly the speed of light. > ... > Von Tunzelmann tried a tricky demo. She generated a flat, multicolored ring—a stand-in for the accretion disk—and positioned it around their spinning black hole. Something very, very weird happened. “We found that warping space around the black hole also warps the accretion disk,” Franklin says. “So rather than looking like Saturn's rings around a black sphere, the light creates this extraordinary halo.”
    - m_mueller 8y ago
      I'm still wondering why the accretion disk from the released images isn't warped in a way we saw in interstellar. Are we looking at it top-down rather than from its orbital disk? would a differently oriented black hole look more like interstellar? Veritasium also has an explanation and I don't think it has anything to do with its spin.
      - SiempreViernes 8y ago
        Intersterllar chose to view the disk edge on, when the distortions got the most funky at all.
      - aurailious 8y ago
        I think the rotation from M87 is 15 degrees off from our perspective, so yes we are looking mostly "down" at it.
      - aurailious 8y ago
        Also, the following post on reddit might help you visualize this: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/bc343r/for_those_confused_about_the_orientation_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/bc343r/for_those_con...
    - SiempreViernes 8y ago
      Sure, the BH spin affects the photon orbits somewhat. But the effect of the rotation of the accretion disk itself is completely neglected despite being one of the mayor effects.
  - nikofeyn 8y ago
    just for people's reference, here is the more realistic picture: https://cdn.iopscience.com/images/0264-9381/32/6/065001/Full/cqg508751f15_online.jpg https://cdn.iopscience.com/images/0264-9381/32/6/065001/Full... i really feel they should have keep the more realistic one and dialed it up a bit. the more whispy distortions are much more awe-inspiring than the symmetrical, oversaturated version. the source paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065001/ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/06...
vxNsr 8y ago
just had my wife watch it and yea, that was the first thing I noticed, they really did a good job on the science of interstellar. When interstellar came out wired did a full magazine spread on the movie, covering its science, how they came up with the story and what the director did to make sure it was believable. idk what it looks like online but I've kept the magazine.
- etatoby 8y ago
  The visualization I liked the best in Interstellar was that of the wormhole, seen from the outside. (The "travel" through it was rubbish.) The thing would look like a mirror sphere, floating in the middle of space, reflecting the space around you. Except it would be the space on the other side of the wormhole, not that behind you, and the motion of the "mirrored" image would be opposite of that on a real mirror. (The apparent image on the wormhole's spherical surface would appear to move in your same direction, as you're moving around it, not in the opposite direction as it does on a spherical mirror.) It took me a while to reason about it and figure out that it was indeed what a wormhole would look like, if we could find or create one. https://youtu.be/f3ptQ0CPMmU https://youtu.be/f3ptQ0CPMmU
  - codethief 8y ago
    Relevant paper: https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1119/1.4916949?class=pdf https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1119/1.4916949?class=p...
- nikofeyn 8y ago
  this presentation by kip thorne is very detailed about the science behind the movie. it's one of the best presentations i have seen, and i have watched it multiple times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM-N0tbwBB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM-N0tbwBB4
ezekg 8y ago
Interstellar is one of my favorite movies in recent memory. If anybody else is interested in reading more, the book "The Science of Interstellar" is fascinating and very easily digestible even if you're not big on physics.

It doesn't look anything like Gargantua in Interstellar, but it's not really supposed to, except for the most prominent features. Interstellar showed what a black hole might look like in visible light while in orbit around it. This is a radio telescope image from a far away galaxy.

SiempreViernes 8y ago
Interstellar also turned off the doppler effect, maybe to get a boring symmetric ring instead of an awesome asymmetric one as nature intended it to be!
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  IIRC, the black hole in Interstellar was also rapidly rotating, which I think was significant to how it looked: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-blac... > Nolan's story relied on time dilation: time passing at different rates for different characters. To make this scientifically plausible, Thorne told him, he'd need a massive black hole—in the movie it's called Gargantua—spinning at nearly the speed of light. > ... > Von Tunzelmann tried a tricky demo. She generated a flat, multicolored ring—a stand-in for the accretion disk—and positioned it around their spinning black hole. Something very, very weird happened. “We found that warping space around the black hole also warps the accretion disk,” Franklin says. “So rather than looking like Saturn's rings around a black sphere, the light creates this extraordinary halo.”
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    I'm still wondering why the accretion disk from the released images isn't warped in a way we saw in interstellar. Are we looking at it top-down rather than from its orbital disk? would a differently oriented black hole look more like interstellar? Veritasium also has an explanation and I don't think it has anything to do with its spin.
    - SiempreViernes 8y ago
      Intersterllar chose to view the disk edge on, when the distortions got the most funky at all.
    - aurailious 8y ago
      I think the rotation from M87 is 15 degrees off from our perspective, so yes we are looking mostly "down" at it.
    - aurailious 8y ago
      Also, the following post on reddit might help you visualize this: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/bc343r/for_those_confused_about_the_orientation_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/bc343r/for_those_con...
  - SiempreViernes 8y ago
    Sure, the BH spin affects the photon orbits somewhat. But the effect of the rotation of the accretion disk itself is completely neglected despite being one of the mayor effects.
- nikofeyn 8y ago
  just for people's reference, here is the more realistic picture: https://cdn.iopscience.com/images/0264-9381/32/6/065001/Full/cqg508751f15_online.jpg https://cdn.iopscience.com/images/0264-9381/32/6/065001/Full... i really feel they should have keep the more realistic one and dialed it up a bit. the more whispy distortions are much more awe-inspiring than the symmetrical, oversaturated version. the source paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065001/ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/06...

vxNsr 8y ago

just had my wife watch it and yea, that was the first thing I noticed, they really did a good job on the science of interstellar. When interstellar came out wired did a full magazine spread on the movie, covering its science, how they came up with the story and what the director did to make sure it was believable. idk what it looks like online but I've kept the magazine.

etatoby 8y ago
The visualization I liked the best in Interstellar was that of the wormhole, seen from the outside. (The "travel" through it was rubbish.) The thing would look like a mirror sphere, floating in the middle of space, reflecting the space around you. Except it would be the space on the other side of the wormhole, not that behind you, and the motion of the "mirrored" image would be opposite of that on a real mirror. (The apparent image on the wormhole's spherical surface would appear to move in your same direction, as you're moving around it, not in the opposite direction as it does on a spherical mirror.) It took me a while to reason about it and figure out that it was indeed what a wormhole would look like, if we could find or create one. https://youtu.be/f3ptQ0CPMmU https://youtu.be/f3ptQ0CPMmU
- codethief 8y ago
  Relevant paper: https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1119/1.4916949?class=pdf https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1119/1.4916949?class=p...
nikofeyn 8y ago
this presentation by kip thorne is very detailed about the science behind the movie. it's one of the best presentations i have seen, and i have watched it multiple times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM-N0tbwBB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM-N0tbwBB4

ezekg 8y ago

Interstellar is one of my favorite movies in recent memory. If anybody else is interested in reading more, the book "The Science of Interstellar" is fascinating and very easily digestible even if you're not big on physics.