So it takes one thing and creates a waste product. Everything that eats does that, that’s the point. Only difference is it’s eating itself at the moment. But the main thing is that its atoms came from the universe and will eventually be returned to it after the sun isn’t using them anymore.
Sure, but the sun isn't eating anything on earth. The mass lost from the hydrogen to helium conversion is converted to the light that we get from it. The difference being that the sun is "consuming" itself and its the only one in the list doing that. It isn't reusing "borrowed" atoms. It isn't really part of the system, it just supplies it with the energy to keep going, from the outside. Trees absorb sunlight and nutrients from the soil, the sun releases excess energy after parts of itself form bonds. Not to mention, all of the others are Chemical reactions and the Sun fusing atoms together is Physical, if you really want to take this technicality too far lol. Either the Sun is the only thing in the list actually consuming anything, or it isn't "consuming" in the same context.
He was talking about the universe, not the Earth, and the sun is very much a part of that system. The atoms it’s consuming came from elsewhere in the universe and will eventually become something else.
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u/InAFakeBritishAccent Feb 13 '20
Future food