The End Of Gravity As a Fundamental Force 650
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."
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."
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. Until there is some confirmation of string theory, it, and anything extrapolated from it, while interesting in an academic sense, is ultimately meaningless in an empirical sense.
Comments from Lubos Motl (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If the math works, then it approximates reality (Score:5, Informative)
"shut up and calculate" is attributed to David Mermin [wikipedia.org] according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] (which sites an article behind a login)
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:4, Informative)
Any child can (and often does) ask the question "Why?" repeatedly past anyone's endurance. That does not mean the respondent does not understand anything. Also sometimes one is simply not well informed. For instance the question of why there is inertia is addressed by the work of Higgs and the theoretical Higgs boson. One of the main stated goals of the LHC in Europe is to have collisions energetic enough to get experimental verification of the Higgs boson.
Re:Stop posting articles from arXiv! (Score:5, Informative)
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
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
Re:Stop posting articles from arXiv! (Score:4, Informative)
I have and you are wrong (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone who knows that intertia exists and has internalized this fact enough to, say, drive a car, understands inertia.
If you have 2 masses, they exhibit an attractive force upon each other. We call this phenomenon "gravity", and we are experienced in predicting it and comfortable with our models of it.
If you have a mass and try to accelerate it, it exerts a reaction force upon you. We call this phenomenon "inertia", and we are also experienced in predicting it and comfortable with our models of it.
What nobody has satisfactorily explained is this: why are these two related? Why can't you increase inertia without increasing gravitation? What is the connection between the two? Why do gravitational mass and inertial mass always measure to be the exact same value?
Granted, the anthropic principle is at work here. As the Earth orbits the Sun, it experiences two primary forces: one is a gravitational force directed towards the Sun, the other is an inertial force directed away from the Sun. It's good that these are identical, even if the Earth gains or loses mass. If they weren't always identical, we wouldn't be here to wonder why.
Re:Stop posting articles from arXiv! (Score:5, Informative)
Now, I know you didn't actually read my post. If you had, you would have noticed that I wrote, "After years of seeing the high-quality research of others basically shut out by the peer review process, ..."
I find it interesting that you post anonymously, your claims are vague and unsubstantiated, you refuse to even indicate the field of interest we are talking about. I think this is a troll frankly but what the heck...
My wife and quite a few of my friends have been published in peer-reviewed journals. I myself have worked in research labs and around scientists and researchers who regularly publish. I've even contributed to a few peer reviewed papers myself, though my contributions were too small to merit author credit. I'm very familair with the process and the problems with peer reviewed journals. Yes, they can be a bit political and even faddish at times. No, they are not always fair nor is all the critique of the submissions accurate.
That said, it's been my experience that those who are "basically shut out" are almost invariably kooks with ideas that do not stand up to serious scrutiny or who think their ideas are better and/or more important than they actually are. There are lots of journals out there and even relatively weird ideas can almost always still get published. There are various degrees of scrutiny depending on the journal in question. Your "friends" research might not be worthy of Nature or Science or whatever the most prestigious journal is in their given field but I've never personally seen worthy research get completely shut out. There are just too many ways to get published for this to be possible except in rare circumstances.
There were many other researchers who shared my views, and I know several of them who also moved to industry because they got tired of the scam that is academia.
Academia does have it's problems to be sure but calling it a "scam"? Sorry but my own experience says you are most likely just trolling.
Re:Stop posting articles from arXiv! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes and no, in my own experience. Indeed, "fancy" theories will probably get rejected outright. But if you want to publish in a high-profile journal (Nature*, Science*) then politics really make their appearance. Of course this doesn't mean that if you write total crap you'll get published: but that for two identical valuable contributions, politics may favor one with respect to another. At least, I've seen this recently more than once in life sciences. And politics suck, especially when they trump good science.
Re:If the math works, then it approximates reality (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:4, Informative)
What's the "speed of gravity" then?
The unproven and untested theory is that a gravity wave travels at the speed of light.
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:3, Informative)
I just look at it like a game of Ikaruga [wikipedia.org]... just make sure the dark bullets and ships don't touch your light-oriented ship. Or else you explode violently.
Deriving a Grand Unifying Theory of Everything is probably easier than Ikaruga.
Re:Just because the math works doesn't mean it's t (Score:3, Informative)
There have been some attempts [wikipedia.org] to test it, so I wouldn't call it untested.