Jun 6
Colonial Theatre Phoenixville, PA
TicketsThomas Cope
Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Physics at Drexel University
Interstellar— Rage Against the Dying of the Light
Program Description
Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi odyssey follows a former pilot recruited for a last-ditch mission through a wormhole near Saturn, leading to a distant system orbiting the black hole Gargantua, where potential habitable worlds offer humanity’s final hope. Blending theoretical physics with emotional spectacle, Nolan foregrounds the black hole as both cosmic engine and narrative crucible, its extreme gravity distorting time, fracturing causality, and ultimately enabling a paradoxical intervention across dimensions, where survival hinges on what can be carried back from beyond the event horizon.
Drexel University Ph.D. Candidate Thomas Cope will be on hand to explain the nature of black holes in his presentation, “Rage Against the Dying of the Light.”
Film Synopsis
A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in space in an attempt to ensure humanity's survival.
In Earth's future, a global crop blight and second Dust Bowl are slowly rendering the planet uninhabitable. Professor Brand (Michael Caine), a brilliant NASA physicist, is working on plans to save mankind by transporting Earth's population to a new home via a wormhole. But first, Brand must send former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and a team of researchers through the wormhole and across the galaxy to find out which of three planets could be mankind's new home.
Photo courtesy of PHOTOFEST
About the Speaker
Thomas Cope is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Physics at Drexel University. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Denmark at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen studying Accretion disk physics and binary black hole dynamics. He now specializes in Biophysics research on sickle cell anemia and Hemoglobin fiber structures.