When I first saw the trailer for "The Place Beyond the Pines" I thought, what an amazing idea for a film; "A modern day western heist-movie that pits the moral ambiguities of cop and robber against each other. It's probably like 'The Departed' or 'Heat' set in a small town and would probably be a lot like watching 'The Town' if the gunslinging robinhood hero road a dirt bike for a steed."
Boy was I wrong. It was more of a triptych 3 act play that I could only attempt to describe by calling it an almost Shakespearean mosaic of paternal duty and consequence, trailing the generational echoes of why men try to do good things but end up doing bad things, and how their choices determine not only what sort of man they become but what kind of legacy they leave in their wake.
THE STORY
"The Place Beyond The Pines" is the Iriqouis translation of 'Schenectady', which is also the town in NY where the film takes place. The film begins with Luke (Ryan Gosling), one of the carnaval workers that rides a motorcycle inside of a spherical cage. He taunts death. Ladies in the theater will swoon. Romina (Eva Mendes) did and their encounter presents Luke with the catalyst that propels our story into action that puts Gosling on a fast paced motorcycle heist collision course with Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper).
THE ACTING
Everyone in this film is Stellar. Which is saying a lot for a film that boasts the presence of Ray Liotta, Rose Byrne, Chronicle's Dane DeHaan, and Treme's Mahershala Ali. Bradley Cooper is great. He plays his heroic good cop straight with the right amount of emotional gravity to pull you into his predicament. Ryan Gosling is the standout. His presence is so great, that I almost unanimously heard people wish he was on screen more than he was. Critics seem to have found the film to be unbalanced. If so, I would contend that it's mostly because Gosling and his partner in crime Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) are so enjoyable to watch on screen that when they step aside to let the story continue, their absence is too noticeable. Which brings me to a brief tangent about how you need to know who Ben Mendelsohn is. His performance here, along with his junkie in "Killing Them Softly" and his pompous british bad guy in "The Dark Knight Rises" have convinced me that he is one of the most talented Character actors of the now. I'm going to go out and see "Animal Kingdom" and I can't wait to see what he does in more films to come.
THE STYLE
The writer/director Derek Cianfrance is the same guy who teamed up with Gosling to create Blue Valentine. You can expect the same sense of realism here. The beautiful cinematography of Sean Bobbitt who also worked on "Shame" puts you right in the room so close to the actors that you can count the film grain. The shots of Gosling on his bike are as kinetic and wild as the character it can't quite catch in the frame. The one I love the most is Gosling riding down an empty road between the trees as Mike Patton's beautifully haunting piano melody gives you the sense of sadness and remorse that Cianfrance has woven into the film. Unlike 'Blue Valentine' the story here is linear. Only the focus is split among the Men in the film so that we learn more about the consequences of actions instead of the growth of an individual character. Critics like to use the word ambitious when they don't like a director moving out of the cinematic comfort zone. In this case I call Cianfrance's ambition brave and for my tastes worth the risk.
CONCLUSION
I can't get into too much detail without giving away key plot points, but what I can say is that the film is smart. A highlight for me was the matching shaky hand held photography of Gosling and Mendelsohn on bikes to show us how they recognized each other as kindred spirits.
Critics will say that the third act loses steam, but I found the 3 act structure necessary to show us who Luke really is. The Film opens on his torso covered in tattoos as he flips a butterfly knife. This is what the film is ultimately about. Who is this man? What drives him? What made him this way? The rest of the film tries to answer these questions. By the end we know exactly what creates a man like Luke and how alternative paternal role models can lead to a man like Avery without ever having made one flash back.
Cinefiles may get more out of it than the average movie goer looking to be entertained by two big movie stars going head to head. The Place Beyond the Pines is a far place beyond the civil normalcy of nationally-distributed-film narrative that teaches us the majesty of the wilderness that unburdened-by-box-office storytelling holds and consequently reminds us why most movie goers and critics will prefer to stay in the comforts of popcorn-movie civilization. While walking out of the theater, I heard a mixture of pleasure about the acting, displeasure about the 140min length, and confusion over the meaning. Most people will have the same reaction. If you're the type of person who likes going to a play or reading an ambitious novel, then you might enjoy the film as much as I did. Regardless, I think everyone would do well by seeing The Place Beyond The Pines because it is likely to be one of the better films that is going to be out in a year that includes Star Trek, Iron Man 3, The Great Gatsby, Man Of Steel, World War Z, Oblivion, To The Wonder, Elysium, Before Midnight, Trance, and Gravity.
This is my attempt to explain my theory on Gravity as briefly as possible in "layman's" terms without math and with crude diagrams.
Why should you care?
Because as far as I can tell by google, it is an original idea that makes a lot of sense. Plus, if I'm right, then we might some day have flying cars and hover boards.
I think gravity is a biproduct of energy's interaction in (n)dimensional space. As strings of energy vibrate in multi-dimensional or (n)dimensional space, they make ripples in space-time itself. Because space-time is (n)dimensional, the way that these ripples overlap in 3dimensional space, alters or curves the super-positions of these strings. The resulting curvature of these strings and subsequent curving of (n)dimensional space-time is observed in our 3dimensional vantage point as the motion of objects. If there is a way to artificially manipulate the propagations of energy or the folded curvature of space-time, then we might someday be able to manipulate gravity fields.
We have Newtonian's notion of gravity as a force proportional to the mass of two objects and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
Einstein's general relativity says that Gravity is a distortion in space-time.
Without getting into too much detail about explaining Newtonian Gravity or General relativity (since this is for the layman), we don't have a way to merge General relativity with Quantum Mechanics. Scientists think that there may be some sort of graviton particle that causes attraction or gravitational waves. I don't think gravity is a form of energy or force that is emitted at all.
If superstring theory is on the right track and matter itself is fluctuating energy, then: I think gravity is a biproduct of energy's interaction in (n)dimensional space.
As strings of energy vibrate in multi-dimensional or (n)dimensional space, they make ripples in space-time itself. Because space-time is (n)dimensional, the way that these ripples overlap in 3dimensional space, alters or curves the super-positions of these strings.
This requires that space-time itself is not a vacuum, but instead a medium through which energy propagates.
If true, then our notions of quantum mechanics and general relativity do not contradict each other.
Or maybe, quantum mechanics falls short. Instead of quantum mechanics as subatomic particles that we can not locate, we have strings of energy bent through the curvature of (n)dimensional space-time.
That's why quantum particles appear to pop in and out of space with unpredictability. Our observation of motion does not take into account the over-lapping folds of (n)dimensional space-time.
If space-time is (n)dimensional and subject to manipulation by the presence of energy, then I will attempt to explain how this interaction explains both the behavior of subatomic particles and larger planetary sized bodies.
Not only that, but if there is a way to artificially manipulate the propagations of energy or the folded curvature of space-time, then we might someday be able to manipulate gravity fields.
We tend to picture the universe or math in 2 or 3 dimensions. Picturing objects or motion in multi-dimensional space is really difficult. we just don't observe the world that way.
We also observe gravity but have no way to explain the motion of objects.
General relativity shows it this way:
I try to explain the motion this way: What if you were looking down at a rubber ball travelling along the ocean towards the beach?
From a 2dimensional perspective, the ball appears to be moving with no observable force.
But a side view or 3dimensional perspective shows us that waves or disturbances in the water's surface are pushing the ball along.
In this way, I intend to show that gravity does not happen because objects with mass are emitting graviton energy, it is instead what happens to 3dimensional objects resting in (n)dimensional space that is being disturbed by the fluctuation of energy.
When I say that (n)dimensional space fluctuates or that energy propagates through it, first picture ripples on the surface of a body of water.
This is easy to imagine in 3dimensions. By dimension, I'm not referring to a place like the twilight zone I'm referring to units of vector. 2 dimensions with an (x) and (y) axis look like this:
3 dimensions look like this:
Energy propagating through a 3 dimensional space would look like a sphere in micro-gravity being disturbed. Like this:
Imagining (n) dimensional space is more difficult.
By (n) dimensional, I am referring to (n) as a variable to represent the number of possible dimensions.
String theory has often debated the number of dimensions, but I think we can move forward without deciding whether there are 26 or infinite numbers. I would tend to think if the Universe's math was perfect then the actual number would either be infinite or it would be a vector through which space could be bent that would most likely be explained using a constant with Pi. But It's not necessary to get into that for this discussion.
Instead let's just picture a hypersphere:
Which is similar to a hypercube, where the vertices of a 3dimensional cube are extended into space.
Which looks like this:
Only a sphere has an infinite number of vertices and trying to imagine it would give you a headache.
What we care about for this discussion is that space expands and contracts into these (n)dimensions and they are not observable to us from our 3dimensional vantage point in the same way that we we're not able to see the waves that were moving the ball.
Now let's start with quantum mechanics and the way that particles exist as strings or wave propagations of energy in 3dimensional space, bent into (n)dimensional space.
Let's say we have a particle. I'm going to start by representing it as a plane. When we talked about newtonian particle physics in middle school science, we were told that electrons existed in an orbit. Picture the particle as a plane where of the particle could be at any point on the surface of that plane.
These are all the possible places that the particle could be at any given point in time.
But we know that these particle orbits don't necessarily look like that.
We were taught it was something like this:
But picturing something like a quark or the particles that make up quarks is probably better imagined as something like this:
This is because the particle doesn't really orbit a neutron or anything, it's just wave of energy that we call a particle so that we can measure it as a distinct unit with specific properties.
But since this wave is bent into (n)dimensional space it's probably more like this:
Or this:
This is why I think particles appear to pop in and out of space. There paths don't make logical sense in 3dimensions. Predicting it's position is like trying to predict a point on a hypersphere.
Now since general relativity says that energy warps space-time, couldn't we assume that the same is true of the tiniest manifestations of energy such as quarks or other subatomic particles.
If so, then the motion or the existence of energy in quantum space is likely to warp or disturb space-time at the subatomic level.
Only since we're talking about 3dimensional space, these disturbances might be better represented like this:
But since we're really talking about (n)dimensional space-time then it might be best represented like this:
This could explain the way the interaction of subatomic particles. The way that they may overlap or cause their positions or rotations to line up in logical ways would result in laws and rules that keep electrons in outer orbits or molecules of Iron in rigid structures while water remains liquid at room temperatures. Molecules are collections of these blobs of energy that attract and repel each other with their fluctuating dance.
But what about Larger bodies?
What about General Relativity?
I propose that the collective distortions of space-time add up.
This is because space-time is expanding and contracting into (n)dimensions. It would explain why we don't see an apple get pulled toward an apple. But we see water in zero (or micro) gravity attracted to itself. In the presence of larger gravity fields, space-time isn't curved enough.
Imagine that large bodies like the Earth and the Moon are distorting space-time.
Here, the peaks represent the expansion of space and the valleys represent contractions.
But because we're talking about 3dimensional space expanding into (n)dimensions, we visualize this:
or this:
As space expands and contracts, objects end up closer with each passing instant. The distance between the two objects gets shorter and shorter.
Objects travel in straight lines following einstein's general relativity. Only instead of being attracted by a force, they are propagating along 3dimensional space as it expands and contracts into (n)dimensional space-time.
Like an inch worm.
Or like a cell phone sliding across a table:
If we could vibrate this gravity field to the right frequency we might build anti-gravity cars that would slide through the gravity field like those wind up toys that crawl from vibrating.
So that is the best way for me to explain my personal theory on Gravity.
I realize that this is in no way a proof or even a properly formatted argument. My explanation has holes.
Hopefully, this furthers the discussion in some way.
Although, I do realize that just because it may be possible to guess that Gravity fields are created by folding/vibrating (n)dimensional space-time, that it doesn't necessarily mean we will be able to manipulate gravity fields. After all, gravity fields appear to be caused by the interaction of energy in the form of matter not energy in the form of something such as electricity. It takes quite a large amount of energy to make solid atoms. It might be the case that creating an anti-gravity field strong enough to counter earths gravity would require an equivalent amount of energy. Based on the amount of energy caused by splitting atoms, the energy necessary to distort space as much as the earth might not be practical. What's important here is that a new outlook on the nature of gravity could lead to possibilities such as anti-gravity fields.
Just keep in mind that if this theory is on the right track, then this could explain why we haven't been able to explain what causes gravity. We observe the motion but our limited 3dimensional thinking made the source of this motion difficult for us to imagine. Just like looking at the beach ball floating on the ocean.
(M)M Theory
-(M)M
*******UPDATE******
If you're interested in learning more, I found some "light reading" on the subject below.
(I hadn't read this when I wrote this post) http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.0190.pdf
