Question: While en route to Miller's planet, Romilly explains that due to relativity, for each hour they spend on the surface, 23 years will have passed on earth. Romilly stays aboard the ship, orbiting the planet. The crew goes in, has a tragic accident, then goes back to the ship. Now, this is what I don't get - Romilly has aged 23 years while they explored the planet for a couple of hours. How come Romilly aged at all? He was just outside the planet. Not on earth. There should be no major time difference between the crew and Romilly.
Adi
3rd Sep 2018
Interstellar (2014)
Answer: It was actually 1 hour on the planet was 7 years outside of the time slippage. They spent a little over 3 hours on the planet, these a little over 23 years passed for Romilly. As an added interest, in the scene there is a "tick" in the background soundtrack. Each tick is the passage of 1 hour of Earth time.
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Answer: It was stated that the time dilation on Miller's planet was a result of its close proximity to Gargantua, the black hole. Romilly kept the Endurance out of range of Gargantua, whilst Cooper, Brand and Doyle went to Miller's planet, so he was not affected by the time dilation, and aged consistently with Earth. Had Romilly gotten the Endurance any closer towards Miller's planet, he would have been affected by the time dilation in the same way Cooper and Brand were, but he did not.
Casual Person
Thanks a lot :).
Adi