“Tenet” Physicist thoroughly examines! What was this “retrograde” world? *Spoiler alert [CINEMORE ACADEMY Vol.9]

Physical accuracy and visual interest

Oguchi: Going back to ``Tenet,'' one thing I really didn't understand in the movie was the depiction of heat and light. If the direction of heat radiation is reversed, wouldn't the visual appearance also become a negative image?

In the first place, I'm a little unconvinced that infrared light and visible light are treated differently (lol). If heat were to act in the opposite way, internal combustion engines would stop working, and guns and explosives wouldn't work either.

Yamazaki: Personally, I think there are a mix of strange and not so funny parts. It's a movie, so if it's correct and interesting, it's expressed as is, and if it's boring, it's based on accuracy, but I interpreted it as a way to express it the other way.

Actually, I also made a table and put it in the pamphlet. In actual physics, we create items such as the direction of gravity, the direction of air, the flow of heat, the direction of wind, etc. when time is running forward, and what happens when time is running backwards. In fact, gravity acts downwards on both sides. However, the direction of movement is opposite. What comes from the right goes to the left, and what comes from the left goes to the right.

But air doesn't move backwards or forwards. In the movie, it is said that you cannot breathe air that is moving backwards, but because of time reversal symmetry, you can breathe normally whether the air is moving backwards or forwards. But I think that part was staged, and they thought it would be more interesting if they couldn't smoke, so they set it that way. It's true that ``the car won't run,'' but I think they had the idea that ``it would be fun to do a car chase with a car backing up,'' and they incorporated that idea.

Oguchi: Even if time is reversed, the arrow of time is not related to the vibration of molecules, so heat is still heat, right?

Yamazaki: Ah, that's right. In my pamphlet commentary, I purposely write a lie to match the movie (lol). Actually, even if the time is reversed, hot things stay hot and cold things stay cold. So don't worry too much about the scene where the car explodes. That was one of the weirdest scenes (lol).

Oguchi: It's obviously too much for the temperature to drop further than before the explosion (lol).

Yamazaki: I guess that was an exaggeration of the concept of entropy. Normally, when you mix hot and cold water, you get lukewarm water, but if entropy decreases, lukewarm water separates into hot and cold water.

Oguchi: So, rather than saying it's right or wrong, if children who watch it become interested and study it thinking, ``What is entropy?'' then it will be a very good teaching material.

Yamazaki: Yes, that's exactly right. I also think that science fiction is the best science teaching material. At lectures, etc., I have never pointed out things like, ``That's wrong,'' but rather, ``By doing this, I'm making it look more interesting.''

Oguchi: When it comes to ``Interstellar,'' people say things like, ``Why isn't it made into spaghetti ?''

Yamazaki: Yes, that's right. Even first graders ask me, ``Why didn't the spaghetti effect occur even though I entered a black hole?'' (laughs) Well, it's true that there are a lot of contradictions, but the science behind it is solid, as the 5-dimensional space that follows is also depicted as a developed diagram of a 4-dimensional cube. However, the fact that it leads to Murph's bookshelf is...well, it's a movie. It's not a textbook at all (lol). However, I think that Interstellar is the only movie where two stories intersect in the same scene: the cutting edge of science, where gravity transcends time and space, and the love between Murph and her father.

Oguchi: Well, I did something similar in `` Contact '' (1997), but I didn't have the same ideas. I had run away from the image of a beach on a southern island. In the case of Interstellar, it was amazing that the Tesseract was actually made as a set.

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