Could Life Evolve Inside Stars?

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One of the most bizarre proposals for life not as we know it doesn’t even use atoms. It proposes that fundamental kinks and defects in the fabric of the universe - cosmic strings beaded with magnetic monopoles - may evolve into complex structures, and even life, within stars. This idea was just published in Letters High Energy Physics Letters by physicists Luis Anchordoqui and Eugene Chudnovsky, and today on Space Time Journal Club we’re going to see how legit this actually is.

Can Self-Replicating Species Flourish in the Interior of a Star? Paper Link

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Written by Matt O'Dowd
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[danielclv]

Meanwhile in the center of our sun:

Could Life Evolve In Cold Rocks?

[Petanifer]

In 6th grade a kid in my class was ridiculed by the teacher for asking if life could be possible on the surface of the sun. She made him feel like an idiot and the class laughed at him. Amazing how teachers stifle creativity and imagination like that.

[Flixventures]

Hey, I'm happy to see my crystallization time-lapse here (2:39) and thank you very much for mentioning it in your video 😊. A second crystallization time-lapse video is currently in progress.

[LemonArsonist]

I feel like this is basically physics fanfiction

[ucannotseemycomment]

"You think the earth revolves around you?? 😒"
People living in the sun: "Yes 🌞"

[theFutureSoundWaves]

Frederik Pohl's "The World At The End Of Time" novel is exactly about a neutrino creature living inside a star.
Highly recommended reading.

[Koozomec]

PBS Space Time The biology of C'tan.
"This episode is sponsored by Games Workshop"

[Celestialeris]

One thing I've wondered about occasionally is if the currents and magnetic fields in stars could give rise to brief periods of conscious-like thought in a manner similar to a boltzmann brain. Perhaps there's a star out there that got to feel happy for a nanosecond

[oraculox]

It amazes me how matt can verbalize such complex and various concepts...I realize that imagery helps but still, his ability to comunicate and get the information practically to ones mind is remarcable. Once again not forgettinhg the production team entirely

[pocketheart]

For the record, Dragon's Egg is an excellent book, and I recommend it to anyone.

[paulogama]

"Carbon-chauvinistc" Such a great concept

[sameriksson]

"The World at the End of Time" (1990) Frederik Pohl: A Plasma creature living in a star at war with copies of itself. Humans get caught up in the chaos. Enjoyed this one.

[unvergebeneid]

"Topological defects" is what the last girl I hit on called my face. So I can definitely confirm that life can be made of those.

[arkadiusztemplar]

Actually, there is Stanislaw Lem short story entitled "The truth" (I couldn't find translation to English) from "The Invincible and Other Stories" book.
In this story some scientists generate plasma and under microscopes observe something looking like very quick cell division. Asked biologist agrees that film from experiment depicts real living creature cell division, but filmed in very strange way - they did not told that guy it was plasma filmed. Because their machinery was not strong enough to generate long lasting plasma, they secretly prepare this kind of experiment in army project. That was when plasma entity was brought to life.
This story is really interesting, leave us with question - maybe something is there, but not in a form that we expect to see it.
Regards to PBS spacetime for tons of good job!

[juzoli]

Other question:
Are these reactions faster or slower than chemical reactions in general? Is it possible that these are slow, or less frequent, and these lifeform exist in a much larger time-scale than us? Maybe a million years for us is just a second for them, because how slow these reactions and interactions are. And if the time-scale is so different, we might not even recognize them, because nothing significant is happening during the timeframe of our observation.

[aristideau]

surprised he didn't mention Pohl's "The world at the end of time" that has sentient (and aggressive) stars in it

[the-thane]

One intriguing thought is life in subatomic particles. In the Three Body series, they kind of talk about how there could be whole civilisations wrapped up in a single proton

[herbertkeithmiller]

David Bryn's book Sundiver and Frederick Pole's The World At The End Of Time both deal with life forms that exist inside Stars.
Edit well I see I'm not the only one who knew this.

[julianblind]

Huge fan. I was introduced by a friend who heard my theory about Dark Matter being a form of “anti-gravity” and he showed me the series on Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Been hooked ever since.

I’m really interested in another thought of mine since I was a kid about the Universe beginning as basically “nothing” flipping itself inside out to create “everything.” If that makes any sense...

Thanks for continuing this show! It’s absolutely amazing and I appreciate all involved!

[leagueoflags]

TL;DR:
If you accept exotic physics and strings as actually existing, there might be some scenario in which life-like entities may form.