LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Stars are a rounding error” by Algon


Listen Later

Notes on some interesting factoids I learnt from Anders Sandberg's draft book, Grand Futures.

"Starlight is heavier than worlds" - Anders Sandberg

Looking at the energy density of stuff in the universe, we find a few surprising, and not so surprising, facts. First, the obvious: baryonic matter itself is a rounding error, contributing 4.5% of the energy of the universe. Nine tenths of those sweet, sweet baryonic numéraire are stuck in the warm plasma floating between galaxies. About half the remainder forms the stuff of stars.

Planets don't even match a thousand of the contribution of stars to the energy density of the universe. Somewhat surprisingly, supermassive black holes have a contribution. Regardless, the fact remains that planets are a rounding error to a rounding error to a rounding error of the energy of dark matter and energy. Even starlight contains more energy. So in a [...]

---

First published:

October 9th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mzifm6wePKfnFTAaB/stars-are-a-rounding-error

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,369 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,427 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,170 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,159 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

92 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,556 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,822 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

87 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

480 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,482 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,151 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

531 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

133 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

96 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

509 Listeners