Is the movie "Contact" realistic? ?

Question

In the movie, "Contact", aliens send Earthlings engineering schematics for constructing a space capsule that will transport a human to another galaxy. The human race constructs it, but is not sure about what the capsule is designed to do.

A woman, was put into the space capsule. After that, the capsule was dropped and it landed on a safety net. Exterior Video Cameras outside of it saw the capsule disappear for 1second. Inside of the capsule, for 48hours, the interior video camera recorded. The USA government saw the capsule disappear for one second, but the interior video camera information was highly classified. The government questioned the woman about her voyage and thought she was ludacris because one government agency did not reveal to anyone that the interior video camera recorded for 48hours. The woman said she traveled to another galaxy and the USA government laughed.

Is that physically possible?

Answer 1

Yes in many ways I think it could be.I think wormholes do exist.Yes the layout of the movie is probably the way most would react,we are intrigued by what we don't know but at the same time we are fearful of really knowing it.Is it really possible well that is some future achievement or not,as of now its not.Yes our government has secerts and why not? What would you do with the info if you knew anyway? Its not as if we can check it out!Our world holds many secerts I am sure we will always be asking questions,its what science does.One of my favorite movies by the way.

Answer 2

It was entertaing, but, realistic, not a chance.

Answer 3

If the device was developed to create a temporary wormhole, then absolutely it would be posisble, the wormhole could bend the time space contiuum and drift her out of time for 48 hours and redeposit her where she left

so possible?

yes...but so incredibly remotely as to be almost laughable...

probable?

no

but how many things in movies today are probable?

suspension of disbelief

Answer 4

I found this to be a very entertaining movie,with a lot of techno-suspense. many of the technical props are very real.(aricebo,seti,the VLA at Socorro, etc)but the story is entirely fictitious

Answer 5

The sophistication of the whole bluemap of the machine could be realistic because it was encrypted in 3 dimensions which would require alien intelligence to devise in the first place.

Answer 6

You have accidentally stumbled on the coming 'pretext' to be used to manipulate the masses. The LHC will create a rip in spacetime or a mini blackhole that will form an Einstein/Rosen bridge (i.e. wormhole)with the abyss at the center of our galaxy called Sagittarius A*. This will let all sorts of extradimensional (spiritual) nightmares into our world. Just remember that 'they' can not really be material like us since they could not survive in Sagittarius A* before the wormhole was created. What if they were really already here? Google/youtube: "Project Bluebeam"

Type III 'aliens' and fake 'messiahs' just in time for 2012! Many will be fooled.

Think more along the lines of extradimensional beings or what some might call "The Fallen":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn6HSNHzY...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbONIQfQm...

Later, ask yourself how we knew all this in advance:

2 Thessaloinians 2:10-13

Answer 7

NO

Answer 8

Since Carl Sagan, who wrote the book and played a major role in developing the movie, it's very plausible that the technology involved and how it transported Jodie Foster deep into space via a wormhole is totally possible.

The time discrepancies you noted are also possible since Foster's "velocity" relative to Earth were in effect relativistic...time dilation and all that.

How the government reacted is another question entirely. I suspect that since only the US and Japan supposedly were the only nations with their hands on the alien technology that they would try to keep it under tight wraps.

Answer 9

She didn't go to another galaxy, she stayed in ours - the Milky Way - and travelled to the star Vega. In galactic terms, this is like popping down the street to the newsagents. In terms of realism, a lot of work was done for the book and subsequent movie of Contact to come up with a feasible method of travelling interstellar distances in a short period of time. Carl Sagan asked the great physicist Kip Thorne to devise a feasible means of using a wormhole to traverse the distance between the Sun and Vega. What you see in the film is the result of his calculations.

We still don't know if we will ever be able to traverse wormholes, or even make them ourselves, but theoretically they could provide a means for instantaneous travel. Furthermore, they could be used to travel to the past.  

Answer 10

Up to the point that Ellie hears the signal from space, you could easily see everything that happened as exceedingly plausible.  The woman driven on a scientific "mission" to discover something in which she thorougly believes.  Funding issues.  Being called a crackpot.  Having to scramble for funding.  Finding your over-arching agency is trying to move you out because they don't believe in you either.  Then calling darned near the whole world to verify the signal when you get it.  That much was very realistic.

After that, Carl Sagan's little story takes a wild leap.  His view that the religious crackpots of the world would react violently is a nice touch that I think adds considerable verisimilitude.  On the other hand, the wormhole and the other side of the wormhole are just storyline props to get across this point:  When you have a profound experience, whether scientific or religious, it changes you forever and can even haunt you.  But in the final analysis, it will be faith in one form or another that drives how you react.  Faith in God, or faith in science.  Either one gives you a viewpoint that is relevant to the ending.

Is it physically possible?  When you write a good story, that is the wrong question to ask.  What it says is that you didn't buy in.  I.e. if you have to ask if it is possible, you already don't think it would be.