Contact

Contact is a movie that revolves around the first instance of human contact with aliens. These extra terrestrials transmit a blue print to a machine that can transport a human from earth to the Vega star and back. When discussing some tribulations about this machine the two main characters Ellie (Jodie Foster) and Palmer (Mathew McConaughey) discuss special relativity and the "Twin Paradox". In this conversation they discuss this concept correctly in that Ellie, traveling near the speed of light, would experience time slower than the time passing on earth, making her age at a slower rate.

Image result for twin paradox

At the climax of the movie however, the movie portrays her actual trip wrong. Ellie's transportation lasted an apparent 18 hours relative to her, but the time passed on earth was only seconds. According to the "Twin Paradox" more time should have passed on earth than the relative time of  Ellie's trip. This could have been easily revised if they just swapped the time difference. If the movie clocked Ellie's trip to only being seconds while 18 hours of earth time passed, the relativity concept would have been done in a more true fashion. Overall, Contact is a pretty good 90's sci-fi movie that tackles some difficult physics concepts in an interesting way.

Comments

  1. Prof. Chris FragileDecember 3, 2019 at 7:40 PM

    If you fix the relativity in this fashion, what have you done to the plot of the movie? Now Ellie would have doubted that she went anywhere. She wouldn't have had time to actually make contact with the aliens, while everyone else would have seen what? A ball suspended in midair for 18 hours? The ball disappear and reappear 18 hours later? I want you to think about these things.

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