Defending my main man, Carl Sagan.

I guess I understand the point of this week's assignment, and I know we're looking at it explicitly from a special relativity standpoint, but I'm a little upset that everyone thinks my main man Carl Sagan (despite passing away before the film's completion) would have messed up something like this. So with my limited knowledge, I'll do the proposed assignment in regards to special relativity, and then try and defend why I think Carl Sagan was correct in the long run. (After all, this same thing happened in the novel he wrote and wasn't altered in the film version). Besides, you obviously already know this, Dr. Fragile. Is this a test? Do I win? I hope so.

The Saroni Paradox

The "Saroni Paradox", as it is will now forever be called, is a paradox concerning time dilation and near-light speed travel. On its most basic level, without adding in all the intricacies and nuances of it, it occurs like this: two humans (let's call one Costas and the other Epe to keep the joke going), are examining one another. Costas is living life on earth, while his more successful brother, Epe, is on NASA's first man-operated vessel traveling at near-light speeds. From the frame of the observer (Costas), any object (Epe) traveling at near-light speed would age slower; however, because of time dilation and "proper" reference frames, Epe would also think that Costas was the one aging more slowly. But once Epe returns back to Earth, he would find that poor Costas is indeed the one who aged drastically more, along with everyone else.

Contact

From a point of special relativity (which the film addresses earlier on), this same thing should have happened in the film. Ellie (Jodie Foster), drops through the WORMHOLE (will come back to this later) and is gone for a span of 18 hours on her intergalactic journey. To her disdain, however, when she returns it appears to everyone else on Earth that only mere seconds have passed -- and that she only dropped from the top of the rings of the machine straight into the water. The problem with this, in regards to special relativity, is that the reference frames are askew. If Ellie (according to her frame) was gone for 18 hours, a much larger span of time would have passed back on Earth -- more like 50 years. This is actually pretty interesting, because many problems could have arisen: they could have turned off the machine, everyone she knows and loves could have died, they could have gotten more contact messages since then, or even scarier, incorrectly assumed the machine didn't work and could have built yet another one and continued to send more people into the abyss. I think this is why they had the discussion earlier in the movie, because of all the possibilities.

Carl Sagan and General Relativity

I might be ruining the fun of the assignment by being a smart-behind, but even though I don't know all the specifics of it, I'm pretty sure wormholes operate in the realm of general relativity, and thus, cancel out the Saroni Paradox all together. All I know is that spacetime bends as seen in the picture above, and wormholes are literally shortcuts through the fabric of space. So Ellie isn't technically going at near-light speed, she's just cutting through spacetime and taking a shortcut. Carl Sagan couldn't have gotten the end of the novel (and eventually movie) wrong. It could be a lot more complicated than it was portrayed, but conceptually, I think he was on the right track. Shame on everyone else for questioning Carl Sagan's greatness. Except you, Dr. Fragile. I'm convinced you actually do know everything about the universe. Did I pass your test?