The ‘Mary Project’ Relationship Problem is more complicated than you think

When Ryland Grace arrived at Tau Ceti in Ahe Mary projectalmost four years have passed for his human body and weak mind. But, due to the effects of time dilation, about 12 to 14 years have passed on Earth. And that’s just the beginning of the story. At the end of the Ahe Mary projectdecades have passed on Earth, but Grace has grown up. In that book, he says he is 54 years old, even though 71 years have passed since he was born. In the book and the movie, Grace is younger than she should have been considering how much time has passed on Earth.

For those who haven’t read Andy Weir’s book, there is a lot more math and science-y explanation about Grace’s journey in prose than the film reveals. As Grace tells us at the end of the book: “I’ve taken many long journeys.” This means traveling in very high gravity, or approaching the speed of light, which causes time to slow down for the traveler. So, do the numbers come in Ahe Mary project? How does this all work? And, doesn’t Rocky understand anything about relationships?

Different he contacted Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astronomer at the University of Oxford, author of A Brief History of Black Holes, and popular YouTuber, to answer your burning questions about the time difference at Ahe Mary project and how physics can explain it all.

Why Time Is Not the Same Everywhere

One of the basic principles of Ahe Mary project it depends on something called the Lorentz transformation, which helps to calculate the time difference as one approaches the speed of light. As Smethurst said to Ryan Gosling in one of his interviews, the main way to understand time dilation in the film is that “space and time are measured, and it depends on how fast you go.” The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time moves for you. But for those traveling at very low speeds – like, say, the 67,000 mph (0.00999104 percent of the speed of light) we on Earth travel around the sun, time will travel at a faster rate.

Even with a million and one YouTube pop science explanations about this aspect of the relationship at our fingertips, the concept still boggles the mind. Doc Brown traveling at a speed of 88 kilometers per hour allowed you to reach the past Back to the Future movie, but really, the faster you move, the more likely you’ll end up in “the future,” because time will slow down for you. Atomic clocks in orbit have proven this phenomenon exists, and if it didn’t work GPS wouldn’t work at all.

However, most of our brains are hardwired not to accept the idea that an increased speed approaching the speed of light can change the experience of the passage of time. In this book, Weir emphasizes this idea by revealing that Rocky and all the Erdians “don’t know about the physics involved.” In the book, Rocky says, “of course, time is the same.”

Rocky views are common, even in sci-fi stories like Star Trek, whose Stardate details expose false science, even as they provide relatable explanations. When asked about it, Dr. Smethurst actually asserts that the opposite of this trope is true. “I think it’s interesting to think that way [sci-fi lightspeed tropes] it gets into people’s minds,” Smethurst tells Inverse: “Because even though people are looking for an extraordinary life, they don’t realize how long that has to do with it.”

So, when Rocky and Grace meet by chance, Smethurst also points out what makes Ahe Mary project get to that point without overdoing the space science.

It is clear that the near limitless potential of astrophage as a fuel source is creativitybut if we accept that astrophage-powered spin drive by Hail Mary it may continue to accelerate, approaching 94 percent the speed of light, then, Smethurst asserts, yes, this all makes sense in the realm of speculative science. “The time period of the book, in terms of what actually happens, and the fact that in terms of age related to Ryland and Stratt, at the end of the book, it explores in detail,” Smethurst says.

Ryland Grace has spent about four years of his experience visiting Tau Ceti, while about ten and a half years have passed on Earth. Weir got these numbers by looking at the Lorentz transformation, but again, he had to dig into the weeds of how the constants in that equation changed due to the constant acceleration of the Hail Mary itself. If the ship was moving at a constant speed, the time dilation equation, from a sci-fi perspective, would have been simple. But, Weir, making it real also made it more difficult.

“Congratulations to Andy for doing those numbers and not just the latest numbers,” Smethurst explains. He would have thought that Grace was going this fast the whole time, but in reality, we know she’s not…

Be an Expatriate in the Department Really Don’t Understand Relationship?

Although not fully explored in the film, in the book, the fact that the Erdians have no sense of kinship is a major plot point that helps define Rocky’s background. But how realistic is this idea? How is it that a space-faring species can build an amazing spaceship and use the power of an astrophage without knowing the effects of gravity and speed on time?

Smethurst says Different that it is actually easy to imagine this kind of knowledge gap, and that is because technological knowledge is not the same as scientific discovery.

“We sent people to the Moon before we knew there were black holes,” Smethurst points out. On Earth, science has almost overtaken engineering, while on Rocky’s planet, engineering has outpaced science.

So, even though Rocky himself may not exist in real life outside of the planet Erid, it is possible that his scientific and technological problems do. And, if you’re looking Ahe Mary projectand you start to wonder if Rocky and Grace are really as good at math, engineering and science as they seem, the answer is yes. But everything is related.

Ahe Mary project is in theaters now.