Thank You Jet Airways: Flash Sale

I would like to thank Jet Airways. Long time passed since I met my college friends. Given that we all get artificially busy in our lives; it has become impossible to meet albeit in the virtual world.

The recent flash sale by few airlines including Jet Airways gave me reason to meet. Not that flights tickets are too expensive but flash sale was the last push I needed. I booked the tickets and off I went to Bengaluru.

It was just for the weekend but a weekend that washed away 3 years of stillness. Three idiots from college met and talked and talked and talked for a long time. Although I don’t agree with the attritional pricing of airlines that result in huge losses, but without that I might not have travelled at all.

I could have met few other friends while I was there, but it all got lost in the excitement and the 5km walk that I was subjected too. My legs are still paining, but all in good measure.

Interstellar: Possible Explanations of Plot Holes

Q 1: When 12 Lazarus missions were launched. Why didn’t they send embryos with each of the mission. 3000/12=250. We could have sent 250 Embroys with each of them. No need to wait 10 years for them to study the worlds and ping back the results. Whoever find the right habitat, start the civilization.
A 1: Maybe when Lazarus were launched, the Embryo breeding technology was not there. They developed it in those 10 years.

Q 2: Cooper met her daughter roughly 90 years later in Cooper station. That makes it around 65 years since Murph broke the gravity deadlock (with help from Cooper in bookcase). The idea of Plan A was to transfer humans from Earth to new planet that Cooper would have found habitable. What Murph and all the humans did in those 65 years? They just made the satellite stations. Why didn’t she send a reconnaissance mission through the wormhole in search for her father and the habitable planet?
A 2: Maybe it took a lot of time to build multiple such Stations. Maybe stress was on creating such stations and transferring all humans to such stations. All resources were concentrated on that. And given the human population (nearing 7 billion), to create such stations and transferring humans would have easily taken 65 years and maybe some poor humans were still living on earth in dire conditions waiting to be rescued. However Murph made sure a station was docked near Saturn (near Wormhole) which can pick up on activity if any.

Q 3: How was Cooper able to get rescued after entering the black hole.
A 3: Not exactly plot hole, but one hell of a blockbuster ending. The explanation that I can come up with is that 5D beings made sure that he travelled back through the wormhole and was left near the Cooper Station so that other 3D humans can rescue him. Or Maybe the force of love (Cooper for his daughter) was so strong that Cooper broke through the dimensions himself, travelled back the wormhole to see his daughter once again.

Q 4: How did Cooper and TARS interact in Tesseract?
A 4: Seems simple wireless technology. It might not have worked in Tesseract. But I feel 5D beings made sure they interact easily so that TARS relays quantum data from singularity to Cooper who relays it back to Murph.

Q 5: Why Mann wanted to kill one and all? He could have just explained that he lied as he did not want to die and that he is Sorry. Lets now got to Edmunds together and breed the humans.
A 5: I can only say that his evil actions made him see evil in everyone. He might have thought that other people can kill him for his lie. Maybe he thought they are going back to earth and even if he tell them the truth, they wont stop. To save the race he decided to kill them all and also let his deception die with them. Or he just went nuts.

Q 6:How did dying Murph knew about Amelia estranged on Edmunds? 
A 6: Cooper might have been de-briefed and Murph would have come to know about adventures of Cooper via that. So she knew about sling-shoted Amelia’s landing on Edmunds.

Q 7: Why did Cooper go alone to Edmunds to look for Amelia and not with a whole new crew?
A 7: As to why Cooper went alone when Humans have to move to the new planet in the long term, I am really not sure. Maybe humans were happy with Satellite Stations and not want to got to another planet which can again die like Earth. Maybe it was that kind of politics. Hence Cooper had to go alone, not just for human race but also for his kindling love for Amelia who is the only thread left for him from the past.

Q 8: How old would be Amelia if Cooper did meet her again?
A 8: We can’t be sure as to how long in Edmunds time Cooper was in bookcase/blackhole. We can’t say how much did time slow down in blackhole w.r.t Edmunds. I leave this to experts.

Interstellar: 5th Dimension Explained

One thing that is left totally unexplained in the movie is the 5th Dimension. It talks of 5th Dimensional beings. It establishes Time as the 4th Dimension. But never lets out what the 5th Dimension is. It is just told that Future humans might have become 5-Dimensional beings.

1. Who are 5th Dimensional beings?
By referring 5-Dimensional beings, Nolan refers to beings for whom manipulating 4th-D (Time) is a piece of cake. They are beings who are no longer bound by the rules of 4D. They are not able to interact directly with the 3D people. They can only interact with people in 3D/4D, by manipulating gravity, which is explained as force that transcends dimensions.

2. Why has 5th Dimension not been explained in the movie?
Nolan has used 5D as a reference to people who have moved beyond 4D. Who can move across multiple 4D’s (Just like 3D people can move across multiple planes i.e. multiple 2D’s). Something like super humans. I think Nolan might not have wanted to over complicate already complicated fundas. Hence he just left at 5D beings who can manipulate 4D.

3. What is 5th Dimension?
My take is Parallel Timelines. In 5D we can’t just move back and forth in Time (Single line), but also adjacently (adding one more dimension). It means that 5th Dimension adds parallel timelines. In 5D we not just move through past-present-future but also different timelines of each moment of past-present-future. In Tesseract 5D humans, either rendered 3D projection of just one of the parallel timelines or there were all the timelines there, but Cooper concentrated only on one.

4. Why can’t 5D humans interact with 3D humans directly. Why toy with them indirectly?
Maybe they can. Maybe they can’t. Maybe they just choose not to interact directly. Just like StarTrek into Darkness’s opening sequence, where only observations of other evolving planets was allowed, but interference was outlawed. Or as Nolan explained, beings from different dimensions can only interact via manipulating Gravity. As Gravity is the only thing that transcends dimensions.

Interstellar: Time Travel Climax explained

Saw Interstellar last night; another one of the notebook movies. I call them notebook movies as you have to sit with a notebook and pen to understand the mind-bending concepts.

I liked the movie overall which has a repeat value for me on the entertainment quotient alone. First half is a bit lazy as it unfolds, but second half is an edge of a seat journey.

This movie is based on scientific nuances of Time Travel, Wormholes, Black holes, which humans know in theory but are yet to corroborate by experiencing physically. It contains directors take on such concepts. In the process it fringes on the boundaries of present scientific knowledge. Hence explanation of entire movie within the layman notion of science might not be entirely possible. However I will relate what I make of it. This post deals with the Time Travel Climax of the movie and the confusion thereof.

Let me call Two Coopers as Cooper farmer (who lives with child Murph) and Cooper bookcase (who went into the blackhole and emerged into the bookcase). Cooper bookcase gave Cooper farmer the coordinates to the NASA facility. Cooper farmer could not have gone to NASA and eventually become Cooper bookcase without knowing these coordinates. How did Cooper (any one of the two) come to know the coordinates in the first place? Someone other than Cooper would have told them right? How does the knowledge of coordinates become self sustaining? Cooper told Cooper, but who told Cooper?

This deals with the concept beyond what humans have experienced physically. The 4th dimension of Time. Post Miller mishap, a desperate Cooper asks Amelia, “Can’t we go back to past, change something to save people?” And Amelia replies, “Time flows in one direction. We can’t change what has already happened”. Her reply was perfect as far as our 3D world goes. But when Time becomes a dimension, we can travel though time too.

Just like we travel in 1D (ants moving in a single line), 2D (cockroach crawling the floor), 3D (insect flying in the room), we can travel through time in 4D (where 4th dimension is Time). In 1D, we can move back and forth on the line; in 2D we can crawl in any direction on the floor and in 3D we can fly in any direction in space. Similarly we can move in any direction in time.

Here comes the catch. Since we have understanding of just 3D world, we start asking questions about, “What will happen if someone goes in the past and kills his grandfather, thereby erasing his own birth?”, Or in the movie’s case, “The Cooper farmer got the coordinates from Cooper bookcase and went to NASA and ultimately reached the bookcase from where he relayed back the coordinates. How?”

Various scientists have tried to explain the Grandfather paradox from the 3D understanding,

• “A new timeline will emerge when he kills his Grandfather, a parallel universe”, Or
• “We can’t change anything. What will happen, has already happened. The rules of dimension make sure of it”.

Since we have never experienced the 4th Dimension of time, whatever science of today tells are mere guesses. Researched Guesses to be exact. But still guesses.

As I see in 3D, we can move from one 2D plane to another 2D plane, which would be mind-bending to a person who lives in 2D. Similarly in 4D, we can move through time, front and back. In fact past-present-future all exist simultaneously (don’t think of them as existing at the same time. Time has become a dimension now, not just a measure of past-present-future). The concept of PPP is no more in 4D. Hence Cooper bookcase and Cooper farmer can come to know of coordinate from each other as they both exist simultaneously in 4D.

Since time is not uni-directional in 4D, to think that Cooper bookcase came to know of coordinates only coz he was Cooper farmer in the past is wrong. It’s not Past-Preset-Future but Future-Past-Preset, Present-Future-Past anything. The only fact is that both Coopers has to come to know of the coordinates somehow. Information in 4D does not flow from Father to Son, but can be Son to Father too. In either direction.

Bookcase Cooper does not depend on existence of Farmer Cooper as time is not longer linear (Amelia was hence wrong). Bookcase Cooper came to realize this in Tesseract where he saw the entire timeline of the Murphs room all at once. Initially he tries to stop Cooper farmer by asking Murph to make him STAY. But he realizes it’s futile as laws of 4th Dimension are not allowing it.

What Nolan has portrayed is a 4th Dimension with a closed loop explanation, which says nothing can change. Cooper bookcase can tell anything to Cooper farmer; still he will end up in the bookcase. When he says “Stay”, Cooper farmer ignores the message, whereas he easily believes in Gravitational anomaly message from Cooper bookcase. Rules of universe made sure of it.

Similar is the explanation as to how future humans survived in the first place to be able to put wormhole to attempt saving past humans.

If and When humans conquer the 4D, they may find this explanation to be entirely wrong. Something we have never thought of could be the reality in 4D. Till then we are free to throw off our own hunches and punches just like Nolan has done.