Inception Math

This 2010 contemporary sci-fi actioner follows a subconscious security team around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams.
Posts: 12
Joined: August 2010
Alright, a little further analysis with other great lines relating to time. Hope you enjoy.

COBB: You're on. You've got an hour.
EAMES: An hour? I was supposed to have all night to crack him. (page 133)


ARIADNE: How long were you stuck?
COBB: Fifty years. (page 137)


FLIGHT ATTENDANT: We'll be landing in Los Angeles in about twenty minutes. Do you need immigration forms? (page 217)

According to the script:
The elderly Saito in Limbo is 90 years old.
James is 3 in Cobb's memory.
Phillippa is 5 in Cobb's memory.

Since the flight is 12 hours 45 minutes, Cobb and Saito slept for exactly (12 hours 25 minutes minus the time passed between takeoff and initially going under)

The job was supposed to take ten real hours, but the subconscious security and Saito being shot forced the team to speed up or get lost in Limbo.

Eames is given 1 hour to break Fisher for information. (3 minutes on the plane).

From takeoff to Going Under +
Time Asleep +
Waking Up to Landing (20 minutes)
= TOTAL TIME IN REALITY (12 hours 25 minutes)

The initial cab stealing, train appearance, and car chase to the warehouse +
Torture of Fisher +
Eames and Fischer's Talk (1 hour) +
Car Chase From Warehouse to Bridge and Standoff +
Music to Slamming Barrier (10 seconds) +
Barrier to Water Kick (3.18 seconds) +

Time spent on Shore?
= TOTAL TIME ON LEVEL 1

Mr. Charles Gambit +
Take-down of Guards in Bathroom +
Movement to room 528 +
Confrontation with Browning +
Going Under +
Arthur fighting security in shifting gravity +
From music starting to Zero G (3 minutes 20 seconds) +
Arthur preparing the kick in Zero G (1 minute 3.68 seconds)

= TOTAL TIME ON LEVEL 2

Travel up until music +
Music until Avalanche (1 hour 3 minutes 20 seconds) +
*Avalanche until Cobb and Ariadne enter Limbo +
*Eames and Saito's stand until Fischer's revived +
*Fisher's Inception +
*Explosion of the Fortress
= TOTAL TIME ON LEVEL 3

*About 21 minutes 13.66 seconds total

From the shores to Mal +
Confrontation with Mal to Fischer Revival+

Fischer Revival to Ariadne Revival +
Cobb's Long Journey to Sato +
Cobb Convincing Sato to Wake Up
= TOTAL TIME IN LIMBO (~50 years)

NOTE: Time in Limbo may follow different laws in regard to sedative time dillation

That's all I got as far as solid numbers. The rest will pretty much be estimates based on how long each sequence seems to be. Note that TOTALS of a particular color are 20 times the sum of elements of that same color (with the exception of Limbo, because Cobb and Saito did not get out with the kick). See if you can plug in some estimates and solve for the rest.

Posts: 3669
Joined: June 2009
The time asleep was less than 12 hours and 25 minute since they didn't go under until after the plane reached cruising altitude (the fasten seatbelt sign got turned off at that point).

Posts: 12
Joined: August 2010
George wrote:The time asleep was less than 12 hours and 25 minute since they didn't go under until after the plane reached cruising altitude (the fasten seatbelt sign got turned off at that point).
Yup, as I said the time slept is 12 hours 25 minutes minus the time passed between takeoff and initially going under (or as you said the time until the plane reached cruising altitude).

Also worth noting is that this calculation is for the amount of time Cobb and Saito are asleep. Everyone else seems to have been awake for awhile.

Posts: 6
Joined: August 2011
that's is true since it seems they spent an equal amount of time in each sleeping level, however, theoretically in the last level, they should have been stuck there for a very long time before they got the opportunity to return to the other sleeping levels. So confusing.

Posts: 1
Joined: February 2012
The math works. We assume the advanced brain function is 20x, but what Yusuf actually said was that it was "about 20x" - the numbers timelines work when the advanced brain function is set at 22x - see the proof here -
http://2thinkgood.com/2012/02/05/incept ... -function/

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