The End Of Gravity As a Fundamental Force

An anonymous reader writes "At a symposium at the Dutch Spinoza-instituut on 8 December, 2009, string theorist Erik Verlinde introduced a theory that derives Newton's classical mechanics. In his theory, gravity exists because of a difference in concentration of information in the empty space between two masses and its surroundings. He does not consider gravity as fundamental, but as an emergent phenomenon that arises from a deeper microscopic reality. A relativistic extension of his argument leads directly to Einstein's equations." Here are two blog entries discussing Verlinde's proposal in somewhat more accessible terms.
Update: 01/12 04:48 GMT by KD : Dr. Verlinde has put up a blog post explaining in simpler terms the logic of the gravity from entropy paper. He introduces it with: "Because the logic of the paper is being misrepresented in some reports, I add here some clarifications."

Comments

Comments from Lubos Motl

[Sara Chan]

Lubos Motl (string theorist, formerly at Harvard), has recently blogged about this: http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/gravity-as-holographic-entropic-force.html. His conclusion is "I remain undecided".

Re:If the math works, then it approximates reality

[thue]

"shut up and calculate" is attributed to David Mermin according to Wikipedia (which sites an article behind a login)

Re:Stop posting articles from arXiv!

[thrawn_aj]

Well, that's a little bit like saying, "I lost a quarter over there by the wall, but I'm searching here because it's got better lighting". :-) But yes, in all seriousness you raise a valid point that it could be better reviewed this way but you have to ask - by whom? The whole idea of peer review is that you get "peers", who (provably) know a little something about the field. If you've ventured into the surreal world of physics fora on the intertubes, you will understand my reluctance to put any stock on such "open" reviewing.

Your criticism of "cliquishness(?)" would be valid if people were saying that you should grant Nature a greater benefit of the doubt as compared to Journal of Physics but the fact is that Arxiv is non-peer-reviewed and I've seen some doozies on there on par with the awesomely funny crap I get at my university email address (the crackpots mass mail their delusions to the entire faculty/grad student directory at large universities :-), a boon for a collector such as myself I must say!).

Having said all this, I have been given to understand (by my colleagues in high-energy theory - arguably the most prolific field on Arxiv) and I paraphrase here, that Arxiv is more like a bulletin board where they can pass ideas back and forth on far shorter time scales than in traditional publications. But when it comes to ideas that (they feel) have survived the maelstrom of brainstorming, the final product must be published in a peer reviewed journal as a first step (of many many many more) to entering the field's gestalt.

Think of Arxiv as Wikipedia's sandbox if you will ;-).