03-29-2016, 10:32 PM
Various authors have written stories that include (or are about) entities that might be more in line with what you're thinking of here.
Creatures living on neutron stars, made out of dark matter, or existing as stable patterns in the magnetic fields generated by a black hole have all been described. Also a few living stars or lifeforms living in stars.
Limiting ourselves to authors who are also physicists:
Dragon's Egg and it's sequel Starquake by Robert L. Forward - life on a neutron star
Eater - by Gregory Benford - a living black hole (actually a lifeform of magnetic fields and plasma with the black hole basically powering it).
The Galactic Center series by Benford also has passing mention of magnetic entities living around the black hole at the galactic core and he's also done a story about creatures made of interstellar plasma (can't recall title atm).
RL scientists have also speculated about future civs converting themselves into beings of electron-positron plasma to survive into deep time.
In all these cases, the beings involved could sometimes do some impressive things, but this was mainly as a result of the energy and scale they lived at. They couldn't modify physical laws or play games with quantum effects. But they could be quite cool in their way and at least some have a basis in real world physics.
Hope this helps,
Todd
Creatures living on neutron stars, made out of dark matter, or existing as stable patterns in the magnetic fields generated by a black hole have all been described. Also a few living stars or lifeforms living in stars.
Limiting ourselves to authors who are also physicists:
Dragon's Egg and it's sequel Starquake by Robert L. Forward - life on a neutron star
Eater - by Gregory Benford - a living black hole (actually a lifeform of magnetic fields and plasma with the black hole basically powering it).
The Galactic Center series by Benford also has passing mention of magnetic entities living around the black hole at the galactic core and he's also done a story about creatures made of interstellar plasma (can't recall title atm).
RL scientists have also speculated about future civs converting themselves into beings of electron-positron plasma to survive into deep time.
In all these cases, the beings involved could sometimes do some impressive things, but this was mainly as a result of the energy and scale they lived at. They couldn't modify physical laws or play games with quantum effects. But they could be quite cool in their way and at least some have a basis in real world physics.
Hope this helps,
Todd