内容简介

A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film, Interstellar, from executive producer and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne.

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. Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself. In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne’s scientific insights—many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar—describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible.

Interstellar and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s14).

作品目录

CONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
1 A Scientist in Hollywood: The Genesis of Interstellar
I. FOUNDATIONS
2 Our Universe in Brief
3 The Laws That Control
4 Warped Time and Space, and Tidal Gravity
5 Black Holes
II. GARGANTUA
6 Gargantua’s Anatomy
7 Gravitational Slingshots
8 Imaging Gargantua
9 Disks and Jets
10 Accident Is the First Building Block of Evolution
III. DISASTER ON EARTH
11 Blight
12 Gasping for Oxygen
13 Interstellar Travel
IV. THE WORMHOLE
14 Wormholes
15 Visualizing Interstellar’s Wormhole
16 Discovering the Wormhole: Gravitational Waves
V. EXPLORING GARGANTUA’S ENVIRONS
17 Miller’s Planet
18 Gargantua’s Vibrations
19 Mann’s Planet
20 The Endurance
VI. EXTREME PHYSICS
21 The Fourth and Fifth Dimensions
22 Bulk Beings
23 Confining Gravity
24 Gravitational Anomalies
25 The Professor’s Equation
26 Singularities and Quantum Gravity
VII. CLIMAX
27 The Volcano’s Rim
28 Into Gargantua
29 The Tesseract
30 Messaging the Past
31 Lifting Colonies off Earth
Where Can You Learn More?
Some Technical Notes
Acknowledgments
Figure Credits
Bibliography
Index of People
Index of Subjects
· · · · · ·

作者简介

Kip Thorne is the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at Caltech, an executive producer for Interstellar, and the author of books including the bestselling Black Holes and Time Warps. He lives in Pasadena, California.

精彩摘录

地球的磁力线能够通过北极光显现。从太阳发出的质子，在经过地球时，被地球磁场捕获，并沿着地球磁场穿过大气层。这些质子与氧原子、氮原子相互碰撞，并使之发出荧光，这就是北极光。

——引自第30页

什么是超体场呢?物理学家们用“场”来描述那些在空间里延伸并对它碰到的事物施加一个力的物理量。我们已经见识过我们的宇宙膜中很多关于场的例子在第1章，有磁场(磁力线的集合人电场(电力线的集合)和引カ场(引力线的集合);在第3章，有潮汐力场(具有拉伸和挤压效应的拉伸线的集合

——引自第260页