It must be really difficult to be a prominent scientist and enjoy science fiction. Those blessed with a keen knowledge of our universe must always find flaws in works of science fiction.
The latest scientist to get his feathers ruffled by a popular science fiction movie is none other than Bill Nye the Science Guy. Nye was featured in a video for Business Insider where he discusses some of the problems he had with Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar.’ Take a look:
I suppose ‘Interstellar’ does downplay the miraculous triumph it would be if people were able to travel through a wormhole to reach other star systems. Perhaps many people are well-aware that the gravitational pull in a hypothetical tunnel through spacetime would cause a person to elongate like a piece of spaghetti. In fact, there was even a point in the movie where I was almost expecting ‘Interstellar’ Matthew McConaughey to stretch into ‘Dallas Buyers’ Club’ Matthew McConaughey given my only knowledge of wormholes and black holes comes from Wikipedia and ‘Cosmos.’
However, I think when it comes to filmmaking, story supersedes the need for accuracy, which I imagine Bill Nye is certainly aware of. I think one of the miraculous things about science fiction is that it does imagine the impossible and oftentimes encourages great thinkers and scientists to seek answers to the questions these creative endeavors pose.
What do you think? Should scientists let the fiction in science fiction prevail?
