The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne: Book Review

Part One elaborates laws that consider:

• big bangs, intense gravity, time travel;
• black and worm holes, expanding universes, warped space-times;
• galaxies, planets, stars; and
• quantum-fluctuating atoms, molecules, particles.

It functions as introduction to and review of:

• motion laws by Sir Isaac Newton (December 25, 1642 – March 20, 1726/7);
• quantum laws by Niels Bohr (October 7, 1885 – November 18, 1962), Werner Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976), and Erwin Schrödinger (August 12, 1887 – January 4, 1961);
• quantum gravity laws by Michael Green (born May 22, 1946) and John Schwarz (born November 22, 1941); and
• relativistic laws by Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955).

It generates discussion on four space-related challenges:

• super-fast;
• super-intense;
• super-large; and
• super-small.

Parts Two, Five, and Seven handle travel near and within black holes. Black holes inhabit galactic centers. They jam all matter from their respectively burned-out, dead, imploded, massive, nuclear fuel-spent, spinning stars into warped space-times. They thereby keep everything hidden at their singularities (centers), orbiting at their circumferences (uppers), and timeless at their horizons (surfaces).

Parts Three, Four, and Six link Earth and Gargantua through:

• the impetus of impending asphyxiation and starvation on crop-blighted, oxygen-depleted Earth;
• the means of extra-solar system-built tesseracts (cubes within cubes) and wormholes; and
• opportunities of colonies on Edmunds’, Mann’s, and Miller’s exo-planets and stations off Saturn.

Their plausibility manifests Earth’s four-dimensionalism within space’s curled-up, curved, ten-dimensionalism. Resolution necessitates dominating gravitational anomalies. 

Gravitational anomalies operate outside good-faith predictions on:

• Mercury’s furthest distance from the Sun;
• relative galactic brightnesses and speeds; and
• universal crunches and rips.

Warped space-time problem-solves the 0.1 arc second of orientation change with each of Mercury’s completed orbits. Galactic and universal accelerations likewise quantify respective presences within estimated universal masses as:

• 5% visible matter;
• 27% gravity-lensing, image-distorting, light-bending dark matter; and
• 68% expansion-slowing, gravity-repelling dark matter. 

So The Science of Interstellar nudges science fiction-loving movie-goers through culturally enriching, educationally entertaining, geo-historically enthralling adventures, thanks to:

• Courier Kendallville, manufacturer;
• Julia Druskin, Joe Lops, production managers;
• Bjorn Holland, photographer;
• Christopher Nolan, forewordist;
• Kip Thorne, author;
• W.W. Norton & Company, publisher;
• Devin Washburn, cover designer; and
• Chris Welch, book designer.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Humans are thought to be able to live only in four dimensions.
Artist concept depicts Gravity Probe B orbiting the Earth to measure space-time, a four-dimensional description of the universe including height, width, length, and time.
The Relativity Mission; Gravity Probe B and Space-Time: NASA, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GPB_circling_earth.jpg

intriguing possibilities of shortcuts via wormhole travels
1998 digital art by Les Bossinas (Cortez III Service Corp.), illustrator (1984 - 2001) at NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, northeastern Ohio
artist's conception of wormhole travel: NASA, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wormhole_travel_as_envisioned_by_Les_Bossinas_for_NASA.jpg

In "Interstellar" neighborhood of gas giant Saturn, with the most complex and largest ring system in the Solar System, is favored for colonies on Edmunds’, Mann’s, and Miller’s exoplanets and stations.
Mosaic of 75 exposures of Saturn taken over 8 hour timespan from a distance of approximately 847,000 kilometers (526,000 miles) by Cassini-Huygens unmanned spacecraft on August 12, 2009, beginning about 1.25 days after Saturn's equinox.
Saturn's equinox occurs once in about 15 Earth years; PIA11667 The Rite of Spring: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saturn,_its_rings,_and_a_few_of_its_moons.jpg

Wormhole travel could occur much closer to home: As travelable shortcuts, wormholes may connect not only two universes but also two distant regions in the same universe.
Image depicts wormhole connecting place in front of Tübingen University's physical institutes with sand dunes near Boulogne sur Mer, northern France (panorama of the dunes: Philippe E. Hurbain).
Wormhole of Tübingen University by Corvin Zahn, Institute of Physics, Universität Hildesheim, Space Time Travel (http://www.spacetimetravel.org/); panorama of the dunes by Philippe E. Hurbain, CC BY SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wurmloch.jpg

Ad astra per aspera ("to the stars through hardships"): Terrestrial challenges impel main characters of "Interstellar" into interstellar overdrive.
interstellar overdrive; view of starry nighttime sky from downtown Pittsburgh, southwestern Pennsylvania: Brian Donovan (brdonovan), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/58621196@N05/6933849919/

Thorne, Kip. 2014. The Science of Interstellar. New York, NY, U.S.A.; and London, England, U.K.: W.W. Norton & Company.