The Science of Interstellar

+ Hawking Radiation

Gab and Max

Kip Thorne
● Caltech physicist, nobel prize winner, lead scientist for Interstellar
● The Science of Interstellar
● FREE HERE- https://www.scribd.com/document/338839584/The-Science-of-Interstellar-pdf
Special Relativity
Special Relativity Example
● Actually from my textbook!
● Gamma= mathematical quantity NOT

physical, how it manipulates time

● Proof? Satellites have faster time

than sea level

Questions?ons?
Special Relativity
Basics of Special Relativity

● Spaceship example, faster things move the less

time passes
● Miller's Planet- gravity, at sea level you age less

because of gravitational time dilation

Spec Rel Cont./Black holes
● Minkowski spacetime- space is flat! very far away vs. close
● Could you survive falling in? Matthew Mcconaughey did!
● 1. Infinite time 2. Redshift 3. Disappear
Questions?
Wormholes
Can they exist?
Wormholes
Dark matter vs. Dark energy

● Dark matter= 27% of the universe, we don't know (WIMPs and MACHOs)
● Dark Energy= repulsive force, 68% of the universe (Newton's law of
gravitation)
● Can wormholes exist?
Wormholes cont.
Can’t exist w out being propped open

● Einstein–Rosen bridge
● White holes versus black holes
● Time travel?
Time travel
● If wormholes are possible, time travel is too! Only backwards tho
● Faster than the speed of light! Yes and no
● Grandfather paradox bootstrap paradox
Questions?
Black Holes
Black Hole Formation
● When a star runs out of fuel, its
core begins to gravitationally
collapse under the weight of the
heavier elements (iron)
● NO FORCE able to prevent the
core collapse of stars with cores
that weigh > 3 solar masses.
● all of the mass of the star to shrink
and condense to a single point,
known as a singularity
Singularity
● Singularity = a point with 0 radius that has
infinite density (and infinite gravity at the
singularity)
● Surrounded by a region of space where the
speed of light isn’t fast enough to prevent
gravity from pulling objects into the singularity
● This region has a radius known as the
Schwarzchild radius
Schwarzchild Radius
r = 2GM/c2

● The Schwarzchild radius= radius where the speed of light is < the escape
velocity of the object
○ It can be determined by rearranging the escape velocity equation to solve for radius, and
replacing escape velocity with the fastest possible velocity, which is the speed of light.
● This is known as the event horizon, where not even light can escape the
gravitational pull of the black hole (when they aren’t rotating)
● So how do we know they exist?
Existence and Detection of Black Holes
● Matter is continuously falling into a black hole, and the energy of this matter is
radiated away in the form of X-Rays
○ The accretion disk of a black hole is composed of matter that is being pulled into the event
horizon
○ 100 days to render every second black holes to be on screen
Existence and Detection of Black Holes
● The strongest evidence for black holes is the existence of gravitational waves
detected by LIGO
Lifetime of a Black Hole
● It seems as though a Black Hole is permanent, but Stephen Hawking
theorized that black holes not continuously consuming matter will actually
evaporate.
● This theory has been called Hawking Radiation
Questions?
Hawking Radiation - QFT Background
● Spacetime is flat
● Quantum Field Theory tells us space is filled
with intersecting quantum fields with vibrational
modes corresponding to their direction in time
● QFT states that these waves have quantized
energy that can be interpreted as “virtual
particles”
● Quantum fields cancel out in vacuum, modes
interfering destructively https://www.dw.com/en/10-or-so-things-you-should-know-about-al
bert-einstein-and-his-theories-of-relativity/a-18875068
○ The annihilation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs
Hawking Radiation - QF Disruption
● Massive objects exert a gravitational field that can
be thought of as curvature in spacetime
○ follows from general relativity, and contributes to the
“gravitational lensing” of light around massive object
● Black Holes cause spacetime curvature dependent
on their mass
● Quantum fields crossing this curved region in space
for a Black Hole will be disrupted at the event
horizon, and unable to cancel out like they do in
perfect vacuum
Hawking Radiation - Particle/Antiparticle Annihilation
● The virtual particle-antiparticle annihilation that
defines “normal” vacuum is disrupted at the event
horizon, and the modes of the quantum field will be
scattered
○ Since these modes/particles are lost to the black hole, the
remaining “scattered” modes must annihilate outside the
surface of the event horizon to maintain vacuum
● The energy produced from this annihilation is called
Hawking Radiation, and comes at the expense of
the black hole’s mass/energy
Hawking Radiation - BH Size vs. Energy
● Hawking Radiation is inversely proportional
to Black Hole size
○ Larger Black Holes disrupt longer wavelengths,
which have lower energy
● The energy released by Hawking radiation
would have the same frequency
distribution spectrum as a black body, or
an object at high temperature
○ The larger the black hole, the longer its lifetime,
and the slower its evaporation
○ The evaporation accelerates over time, smaller
black holes radiate more energy faster
Hawking Radiation - Realistic Theory?
● This radiation is not localized however,
and hasn’t been observed yet
● Source of Hawking Radiation is also
controversial
○ Scientists have formed theories that
arrive at similar results with a different
source of the radiation, such as
quantum tunneling.
Hawking Radiation - Realistic Theory?
● It is experimentally unfeasible to create
small black holes in a lab that would
radiate extremely brightly and be easy to
detect
● However, some experiments with sound
wave event horizons have shown similar
optical analogues to this effect,
characterized as phonons, but it is
unknown if this is the same effect

https://www.quantamagazine.org/philosophers-deb
ate-new-sonic-black-hole-discovery-20190625/