Newswise — Deep space is something Nikodem Popławski spends a great deal of time thinking about. So he’s not at all surprised that the film Gravity has broken box office records and won seven Oscars.

Alfonso Cuarón’s film, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, has struck a nerve with critics and audiences alike, who have spoken with wonder about the 3-D world he’s created: the vastness of space, at once brilliant and lonely, peaceful and fear-inducing, and the courage and ingenuity it takes to navigate it.

As A.O. Scott wrote in The New York Times, “Much as Gravity revels in the giddy, scary thrill of weightlessness, it is, finally, about the longing to be pulled back down onto the crowded, watery sphere where life is tedious, complicated, sad and possible."

Popławski, a senior lecturer in physics who joined the University of New Haven faculty this fall, and recently told National Geographic that we are living in a Black Hole, said it is a subject that fascinates people of all ages.

“I think it connects to people’s curiosity about the world, about space, about the origins of the universe,” he said. “We are just a little part of everything, and the film discusses this. Basically we don’t know the vastness of the universe, so it’s no wonder people want to know about space and also why people want to go into space.

“I think people thought that the universe was smaller, yet discoveries in the last century have found there are black holes everywhere, billions of black holes in our universe and each may produce a universe on the other side, like an infinite tree,” he said.

Popławski studies the nature of gravity and spacetime, the origin and composition of the universe, the nature of fields and particles and quantum gravity. His research focuses on how gravity with spin and torsion (defined as the action of twisting) can solve fundamental problems in cosmology. He proposed that torsion causes the formation of a new universe through a “big bounce in every black hole and our universe is the interior of a black hole existing in another universe.”

Science News, the digest of Science magazine, called his theory the top discovery of 2010 and National Geographic named his ideas among the top 10 discoveries that same year. That led to Popławski appearing on “Parallel Universes: Are They Real?” – an episode of the Discovery Channel show Curiosity hosted by Morgan Freeman.

Popławski said films like Gravity are a perfect way to get people thinking and talking about science, physics and astronomy – and to get students pursuing it. It is, he said, quite a pop culture moment for science--with Star Trek, Star Wars, The Big Bang Theory and Gravity capturing the public interest.”

When not teaching, Popławski spends hours researching, fueled by two things: Earl Grey tea and his endless interest in physics. “Research is my favorite activity,” he said. “And the tea helps me immensely.”

Evenings often find him in his study with a pen and paper – piles and piles of it, graphed, lined and blank. “I memorize a lot of formulas with their derivations so I don’t need many books, and my notes are everywhere, all over the floor,” he said. 

The son of two painters and the brother of two more painters, Popławski was the only scientist in the house. He muses, with a crinkle in his eye, that perhaps it was because he was born in Toruń, Poland, the birthplace of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, that he became interested in science. “He was a revolutionary thinker, and I feel some of that same spirit,” he said.

Popławski said he could envision himself one day perhaps going into space, but not anytime soon. “With Gravity, they have made a scientific thriller,” he said. “How do you get back to Earth? I would be scared myself to be lost in space. It’s dark, and there is a lack of water and air. You are disconnected from the shuttle and your connections with people. I like gravity. And my family and friends are here.”

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