Summary
- Compared to Earth, only 1.5 hours have passed on Miller’s planet since the release of Interstellar, indicating extreme time dilation.
- Seven years on Earth correspond to only one hour on Miller’s planet due to its proximity to a supermassive black hole, Gargantua.
- Cooper and his crew spent 3 hours and 17 minutes on Miller’s planet, but 23 years, 4 months and 8 days passed on Earth.
A frightening calculation opened my eyes to a Interstellar Detail that makes the depiction of time dilation in Christopher Nolan’s film even more disturbing. Christopher Nolan’s space opera is often and rightly touted as one of the best science fiction films of all time. Interstellarhas several memorable moments. From Mann’s betrayal to Murph’s discovery of her father’s watch, from Cooper’s trip into the black hole to his reunion with his daughter, I can still remember several of the film’s key plot points as if I had seen them yesterday.
But to this day, one of the most shocking scenes from Interstellar for me is when Cooper and the crew return to their spacecraft and realize that in Earth time they have been on Miller’s planet for 23 years, four months and eight days. I have seen Interstellar on several occasions, but it still breaks my heart when Cooper returns to Endurance and goes through the recordings his children left behind before they gave up on him. Ten years after InterstellarA calculation helped me understand the true gravity of the scene, which made it even more tragic.
Related
Interstellar’s Time Dilation Explained: Why Time Slows Down on Miller’s Planet
The depiction of time dilation on Miller’s planet in Interstellar involves complex scientific theories and concepts that require detailed explanation.
Compared to Earth, only an hour and a half has passed on Miller’s planet since the release of Interstellar
7 years on Earth correspond to only 1 hour on Miller’s planet
Interstellar notes that Miller’s planet experiences extreme time dilation due to its proximity to a supermassive black hole, Gargantua, as the black hole creates a massive curvature of spacetime. For this reason On Miller’s planet, seven years on Earth pass in just one hourThis explains why, although Cooper and his crew spend barely three hours and seventeen minutes on the planet’s surface, 23 years, four months and eight days pass on Earth before they return to their spacecraft.
It has been almost a decade since InterstellarPublication. Due to the relativity of time, however, approximately Since the film’s premiere in 2014, just under 1.43 hours (1 hour and 25.8 minutes) have passed on Miller’s planet. The planet may be fictional, but it really puts things in perspective. When I look back over the last decade, I’m struck by how much the world and the people around me have changed. Everything from a global pandemic to the Paris Agreement has happened in the last 10 years.
Everything that has changed in the last ten years has opened my eyes to how much Cooper and his crew must have missed after spending only 3 hours and 17 minutes (23 years, four months and eight days in Earth time) on Miller’s planet.
The world has also seen three Summer Olympics and the history-making moment when the United States legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Everything that has changed in the last decade has opened my eyes to how much Cooper and his crew must have missed after spending just 3 hours and 17 minutes (23 years, four months and eight days in Earth time) on Miller’s planet. The real-life comparison underscores how Cooper must have felt watching over two decades of his life flash before his eyes as he looked through his children’s videotapes.
Here is a more detailed calculation of the passage of time on Miller’s planet over the last decade:
- Number of hours in 10 Earth years: 87660 hours
- 1 hour on Miller’s planet corresponds to 7 Earth years, or 61,320 hours (7 x 365.25 x 24 = 61,320).
- Number of hours spent on Miller’s planet = 10 years Earth hours (87660) / Number of Earth hours per hour on Miller’s planet (61320) = 1.429 hours = 1 hour and 25.8 minutes
I finally understand how Cooper and the crew felt after returning from Miller’s Planet
Her sacrifice seems even more tragic
InterstellarThe portrayal of the shock and despair experienced by Cooper and Brand upon returning to the spaceship could not have been more perfect. The intensity with which Matthew McConaughey captures Cooper’s emotions brings tears to my eyes every time I rewatch the scene where he watches Murph’s video footage. However, I believe I never really understood how much Cooper and his crew had lost during their brief but disastrous visit to Miller’s planet.
I am sure that in ten years, two decades after the release of Interstellar in 2014, I will look back and understand even more fully the magnitude of their sacrifice.
A decade later InterstellarAfter the release of , I feel more than ever for Cooper and his team of astronauts because I understand how difficult their sacrifice is. The fact that they sacrificed more than two precious decades of their lives and achieved nothing makes the scene even more heartbreaking. I am sure that in ten years, two decades after InterstellarReleased in 2014, I will look back and have even better insights into the depth of their sacrifice. This makes me Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar all the more because it shows that the film will get better for me the more often I see it in the future.
Interstellar
3.5
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar imagines a future where Earth is ravaged by life-threatening famine and a small team of astronauts is sent to find a new possible home among the stars. Although Coop (Matthew McConaughey) puts the mission first, he races against time to return home to his family while they work to save humanity on Earth.
- Release date
- 7 November 2014
- Studio(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount Pictures
- Sales Partner
- Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
- Duration
- 169 minutes
- budget
- 165 million
