W. W. Norton & Company, 2014. — 396 p.
A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film, Interstellar, from executive producer and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne.
200 color illustrations.
Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar system. Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie’s jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science.
Foreword
A scientist in Hollywood: The Genesis of Interstellar
FoundationsOur Universe in Brief
The Laws That Control the Universe
Warped Time and Space, and Tidal Gravity
Black Holes
GargantuaGargantua’s Anatomy
Gravitational Slingshots
Imaging Gargantua
Disks and Jets
Accident Is the First Building Block of Evolution
Disaster on EarthBlight
Gasping for Oxygen
Interstellar Travel
The wormholeWormholes
Visualizing Interstellar’s Wormhole
Discovering the Wormhole: Gravitational Waves
Exploring gargantua’S environsMiller’s Planet
Gargantua’s Vibrations
Mann’s Planet
The Endurance
Extreme PhysicsThe Fourth and Fifth Dimensions
Bulk Beings
Confining Gravity
Gravitational Anomalies
The Professor’s Equation
Singularities and Quantum Gravity
ClimaxThe Volcano’s Rim
Into Gargantua
The Tesseract
Messaging the Past
Lifting Colonies off Earth
Where Can You Learn More?
Some Technical Notes
Figure Credits
Index of People
Index of Subjects