All language subtitles for S01E09 - Life Across the Universe

Is there life in the
rest of our universe?

In this episode, we
discuss the probability

that it may be abundant.

Is there life in the
rest of the universe?

It's a good question.

But there is many
pieces of information

that we need to have
in order to answer it.

Of course, if we look
at the abundance of life

on our planet, the
assumption would

be that there should
be similar planets

in the rest of the universe.

From early times
in my research, I

calculated some of
the probabilities.

And I came to conclude
that there most likely was

a lot of life in the universe.

I had a lot of difficulties
convincing my colleagues

at the time because
there was assumptions

that were made early on that
were completely incorrect.

One of the assumption
that was made

was that it would be rare to
find a star that has a planet

because most of the environment
around stars are pretty harsh,

and it would be hard
to find a planet then

that would be in the
Goldilocks zone or the zone

where the planet is not too hot
from its star or not too cold

away from its star
to sustain life.

And here, we have to make
this distinction as well,

that we're talking about
life as we know it.

Now, life can develop in
situations and circumstances

that we thought impossible.

For instance, early on, we
thought it was impossible

that life would develop in some
deep vents inside the ocean,

where the water
is almost boiling,

and there is almost
zero sunlight.

We thought life could never
sustain in those depths,

in those temperature, and in
these low light environment.

And when we finally built
submarines and probes that

could go down there,
we discovered life

that we didn't know existed,
that lived down there happily

in the dark and in
the boiling water.

So we have a pretty limited
idea of what life needs in order

to sustain or to develop.

Who says that life could
not develop in very, very

hot environment, in
atmospheres that are completely

different gas, sulfuric
gas, or nitrogen, very

high in nitrogen. Rich gas
with all kinds of things

that we think of completely
toxic to life here,

but that could
develop completely

differently somewhere else.

But this early assumption
that planets were very rare

around stars start
to break apart

in the late '90s, when we
discovered that they seemed

to be planets orbiting pulsars.

Not really astonished physicists
because the environment

near a pulsar is
very, very harsh.

A pulsar is a result of a star
that has exploded, a supernova.

It was thought that there
should be nothing around there,

certainly not planets.

And so it was kind of surprising
to find the first evidence

of planets near pulsars.

I predicted that
they would be there

because remember, our
model of the universe

that we discussed earlier,
in which the vacuum

structure organized
in smaller vortices

around stars that makes
aggregate the matter

and makes planets.

These vortices
would be very, very

much prominent after the
explosion of a star, which

would throw a
whole lot of energy

into the structure
of the vacuum,

into the structure
of space time, which

would make very strong
vortices around that star.

And all the material that
was ejected by the supernova

would be perfect building
blocks to build planets

around what used to be
a star and is now called

a pulsar or a black hole.

That was astonishing,
but since then, we've

made great strides in being able
to detect exoplanets, planets

outside our solar system,
and we found many of them.

In fact, in 2013,
we were astonished

to find that there was planets
around almost every star we

looked at.

So there's a lot of
planets out there.

But the estimate in 2013
was about 40 billion planets

in our galaxy that are
in the Goldilocks zone.

Planets that could sustain
life as we know it.

40 billion.

That is a lot of planets.

Well, that's because there's
a lot of stars in our galaxy,

and most stars have planets.

And so the probability
of some of these planets

to be in the right zone to
sustain life is pretty high.

So the probability for life
or at least for a planet

to be in the right zone to
sustain life in our galaxy

is very high.

If we extrapolate
that to the universe,

the numbers are staggering.

In 2012, we thought there was
about 200 billion galaxies

in our universe.

We've now updated that in 2016
to about 2 trillion galaxies

in our universe.

We were missing a few.

And if you extrapolate
the 40 billion

Earth-like planet that
would be in those galaxies,

you end up with about 80
billion trillion planets

that could sustain life
in our universe alone.

And that is remarkable.

So imagine a universe
that's teeming with life.

However, you need other
elements than a good planet

in the right zone to
get life to emerge.

You need elements,
such as water being

one of the fundamental
building blocks of life.

This is one of the arguments
I would get from my colleagues

in the '90s.

Well, even if there
is a plan that's

out there that
could sustain life,

they probably don't
have water on them

because water is extremely
rare in our universe.

Those assumptions were wrong.

In the '90s, in the
2000s, we sent probes out

to measure and look for
spectral lines of water

all over the universe.

And we haven't been able to
find a place in the universe

where there's no water.

There's water everywhere.

It's remarkable.

Even in interstellar space, we
see spectral lines of water,

which is very high vacuum.

But even as well
intergalactic space

has been shown to have
water molecules in them.

So we see spectral lines of
water even between galaxies.

So there's water
everywhere we look.

And in fact, when we
look at stars developing,

like the birth of
stars, typically

we see a lot of
water in that region.

And we see the star forming
from the middle of that water,

like immense universal
placentas birthing stars.

So we know that all the building
blocks for life are there.

They're abundant.

The planets that would
sustain life are abound.

Some of them are
extremely large.

Some of them have
atmospheres and so on.

And so it is clear that
life can and should

be found in the universe.

And then the
complexity of that life

is most likely present as well.

Because for the system to
increase in complexity,

the abundance of the
elements, and all the minerals

and amino acids,
and all the stuff

that is necessary
for life eventually

would create this complexity.

So all you need is
time for the system

to have enough feedback
structure to eventually produce

that complexity.

And this is definitely
present, meaning

that planetary
system in galaxies

might be thousands of
years older than ours,

millions of years older
than ours, billions of years

older than us.

And so imagine
what complexity can

emerge from a system that is
billions of year older than us.

Let's just think of 1,000 years.

Think about what life looked
like on Earth 1,000 years ago.

Well, first of all, there
was much less people, right?

And certainly, their
technology was nowhere

close to what it is today.

In fact, only in 200 years
of technical development

and modern era of technology
did we go from horse and buggy

to spaceships, and being able
to launch satellites in space,

and cell phones, and
everything we see today.

So when the
technological era starts,

it can develop very fast.

So what would a cell phone
look like 1,000 years from now?

Meaning that a society that
would have just a little 1,000

years more evolution than us,
started their evolution maybe

1,000 years earlier
than us, which

is nothing cosmologically,
would lead a civilization today

to have a technology
vastly more advanced

than we have right now.

Like your smartphone typically
gets its technology updated

every few years.

You have new software updates
that happens every few months.

It continues to do better
things, faster, stronger,

and to make your life a
little easier hopefully.

What does your computer look
like 1,000 years from now?

You're probably not using
a keyboard and a mouse

to interact with it anymore.

Hopefully, you're able to
just talk to your computer,

and it's doing what
you want it to do.

Or it might even be able to read
the wave forms in your brain

and know exactly what you want.

What does that computer look
like a few thousand years?

What about a
million years, which

is nothing in the universe?

Let me give you an example.

The movement of our solar
system in the galaxy

is rotating around a
vortex arm of the galaxy.

It takes 30 million years
to go from the equator

to the equator of the
galaxy and another 30

to come around back around.

So like 60 million years.

What does your computer look
like 60 million years from now?

And so this is
absolutely not irrational

to think of a society
that could have

developed millions and
millions of years ahead of us.

And that society most
likely eventually

found a way to travel through
the black holes and worm holes

of our world, of our universe.

That society has probably
found the structure

of the vacuum, the
Planck field, knows out

to utilize it as fuel, and is
able to go around the galaxy

just like you go
around the planet

today, getting into
an airport in LA,

and landing in Sydney
a few hours later,

and not thinking twice about it.

If you went on the air
150 years ago backwards

and talk to someone
with a horse and buggy

and told them that in
a few generations, only

a few generation,
people would get

into metal objects that
could fly through the air

and go across the world.

They would have burnt
you at the stake.

It's not hard to
imagine when we actually

consider the span of times
of our galaxy or even

our universe, that an
advanced civilization,

multiple advanced civilization,
maybe millions, maybe billions

of advanced civilization
have achieved that capability

to go around the galaxy the way
we go around our planet today

and not think twice about it.

We've seen evidence of that.

We've seen plenty
of evidence of that.

Now the evidence is pretty
well bombproof at this point.

It's been released
by military personnel

in the last few months even.

There has been encounters
with objects in our airspace

that don't obey the
physics that we know of,

that have capabilities
that we don't

have in our technological
developments.

And that seemed to have been
there for a very long time

as they were reported by a
many, many different individuals

throughout the ages, including
ancient civilization that

claim to have had direct
contact with sun gods that

came from the stars.

Are we alone in our universe?

Most likely not.

In fact, most likely, our
universe is teeming with life.

This is a conservative
view, since we're only

considering the possibility
of life as we know it,

which would develop
in water, not

in cyanide, or in some
fluid metal like mercury,

where we don't think
life could emerge.

We don't know.

Maybe life could
emerge in mercury

under the right circumstances.

In fact, we're
discovering that some

of the harshest environments
we see in our universe, that

is the environment close to
a black hole, where there's

a lot of radiation and high
energy physics going on,

there is a Goldilocks
zone, where

life requires this level
of radiation to develop.

And that actually, there is
a region near black holes

that have the highest
possibility to actually produce

life, that life
could require having

orbited in certain
regions of the environment

near a black hole
in order to develop.

Well, from the physics,
we are discovering now,

from the physics
we're writing now,

we have shown that actually
all the scales are different,

meaning black holes
at the atomic level

and different sized black
holes in our cosmology.

These are not
necessarily obvious.

For instance, people don't think
of the sun as a black hole.

Well, the sun obeys the perfect
condition for a black body.

A black body is a body
in which all incident

light is absorbed, right?

A body in which all
incident light is absorbed

would have to be a
perfect emitter as well.

And so our sun actually obeys
the condition of a black body.

And astrophysicists
and physicists

will say, well, yeah, but the
sun doesn't have the mass.

It would have to be
a much shorter radius

with the same amount of
material to be a black hole.

A radius very short,
almost 18 kilometers,

which it is not currently.

So they will tell
you that in general,

the sun cannot be a black hole.

Stellar black holes are
not produced by a supernova

exploding, making
the black hole.

Stellar black holes
are already there,

are produced by the structure
of space time spinning.

And when the stars explode,
and the plasma goes away,

all this stuff that's
stuck in the fluid dynamics

of the structure of space time
around the black hole when

that goes away, then
we see the black hole.

And we say, oh, it
made a black hole.

It didn't make it.

The black hole was always there.

So these black
holes are starting

to emerge as not these
monsters that are just

absorbing everything around
them and destroying everything,

but actually as the source of
the mechanics that makes up

all of them structure that
makes life possible, including

the radiation that's required
for the amino acids and all

of the molecules to
organize into DNA structure

and eventually life.

So they are life
givers, not destroyers.

They are the source
of creation and that's

a very big change in our
understanding of our universe,

and how life emerge in
it, and how much life

is present in our universe.

Some of the life in the universe
is most likely very, very

much more advanced
than us and might

have traveled across the
galaxy and found our planet

a very long time ago.

Certainly, life in
the universe could

develop in all kinds
of different way

and may not look
humanoid at all.

They might be very short, very
small, very big, very hairy,

not hairy at all.

Or they might have six arms,
and two hands, and so on.

I mean, life could develop
in all kinds of way,

including the way
it developed here.

So they could be life that
is very, very similar to us

or almost exactly like us.

And they could walk in our
streets, in our cities,

and we wouldn't be able
to tell that they're not

from our planet.

We would have no clue.

So life could vary
widely, including

that it might have
a different density

than the density of life
that we know on our planet.

It might have a range at
a different energy level

in a different environment.

That is it might have a
range within the energy

confinement of a plasma.

And so you could have
life that looks much more

esoteric than the physical
life we see on our planet.

You could have life
that looks more

like a cloud of glowing
plasma going around in a ball

or in some kind of
elongated structure

in the air near a gravitational
field, for instance.

If it was a plasma ball in
space, when it got close to you

know tidal gravity near
the surface of a planet,

it might get on gated into
something more oval, something

more like the aura around a
person without the person.

Just the aura.

You could have something
completely different than what

we think of as life.

Because it is the
flow of information

through the structure
of space that

produces the organization and
eventually the self awareness

of that life.

And that flow is
present everywhere

and can organize in all
kinds of different ways

and produce eventually
a similar effect.

Remember that we talked
about the brain is not

the seat of consciousness.

The brain is not producing the
epiphenomenon of consciousness.

But actually, the brain
is the antenna capturing

the information of the flow.

Well, the antenna
might look different

in different circumstances,
completely different.

I believe that
actually the brain

is one part of the antenna.

Your whole bone structure,
the piezoelectric dynamics

of your bone, all
your connective tissue

with all the silica
in it and all this.

It's your whole body that's
the antenna of consciousness.

And you can think of that body
looking completely different,

having a complexity
range completely

different than the one we
have on Earth, for instance.

So imagine that life
emerged from a plasma.

That plasma could
be at energy levels

that are beyond the observable
energy level of our world.

It could be, for
instance, that life

emerge in the coherency of the
structure of the Planck field.

In our case, we are
linked to the Planck field

for our consciousness
and our life.

But it has a range at
a scale very specific

that we see at the very
specific band of frequency.

We touch and feel at
the very specific scale.

We can smell at the very
specific scale of molecules.

But life could develop
at scales or energy level

that are nowhere close
to that same band.

And that life would
not be evident to us.

We wouldn't see it.

We wouldn't touch it.

We wouldn't smell it.

We wouldn't measure it.

We wouldn't know it's there.

So the building blocks
of DNA, the amino acids

we see flying everywhere in
the universe are present.

So of course then,
DNA, which we think

of as the basis for the
development of life,

could emerge on
many other planets.

DNA, not being the system that
actually holds the information,

but more like DNA being
the antenna that's

vibrating in the
structure of space

with the help of
the water molecule.

If we remove to move the water
molecule, then DNA falls apart.

And in fact, recently
we've discovered,

this was published at
the Academy of Science,

that it is the water molecule
that modulate the DNA, not

the other way around.

And so the information is
coming from the water molecule.

This is why all life
emerged from water

as we know it, at least
life as we know it.

So DNA might actually
be found to exist

on many other planets, similar
DNA as the DNA we see here.

But then again, they could
be, as I described earlier,

entities that are far removed
from this grosser or more

denser level of
existence, and that

may have something
that looks like DNA,

but that is made out of
a plasma spiral spinning

in space, instead of
mitochondria, and so on.

And so it could be
vastly different,

but certainly, all the
elements for the development

and the replication
of DNA are present

in the various molecules we
see that are present in space,

and the water, and clearly the
amount of planetary systems

that are available for all
that to coalesce into life.

We're clearly not alone.

That we are probably part
of a galactic community that

could have millions, if not
billions of members involved.

As well, the idea
that they would all

be less advanced than us or
not much more advanced and thus

is erroneous.

Out of the probability of
all the life in our galaxy,

the most likely
is societies that

have achieved faster than the
speed of light travel, that

have been able to cross the
universe using wormhole,

the advancements
of these societies

with millions of years of
development ahead of us

are tremendous and are the stuff
that we can only dream of here.

So we most likely were
discovered early on.

And it seems like there was
some interaction with our world

very early on.

There is less now.

We're a very aggressive species.

If you just watch
the 5 o'clock news,

it's pretty apparent
we are not very

developed in our social
relationship with each other.

We haven't managed to understand
that we're one species,

and that we should stop
shooting at each other.

So they're probably
waiting for us

to learn some of the
fundamental wisdom required

for us to enter as member
of this larger community.

But all the evidence is there
to show that life is probably

teeming in our universe.

And that we have an opportunity
to discover that life

as we grow and understand deeper
the meaning of who we are,

and how we relate
to the universe,

and how the universe
relate to us.