astro
September 17, 2011, 9:57pm
1
Gravity Emerges from Quantum Information, Say Physicists
One of the hottest new ideas in physics is that gravity is an emergent phenomena; that it somehow arises from the complex interaction of simpler things.
A few month’s ago, Erik Verlinde at the the University of Amsterdam put forward one such idea which has taken the world of physics by storm. Verlinde suggested that gravity is merely a manifestation of entropy in the Universe. His idea is based on the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy always increases over time. It suggests that differences in entropy between parts of the Universe generates a force that redistributes matter in a way that maximises entropy. This is the force we call gravity.
What’s exciting about the approach is that it dramatically simplifies the theoretical scaffolding that supports modern physics. And while it has its limitations–for example, it generates Newton’s laws of gravity rather than Einstein’s–it has some advantages too, such as the ability to account for the magnitude of dark energy which conventional theories of gravity struggle with.
But perhaps the most powerful idea to emerge from Verlinde’s approach is that gravity is essentially a phenomenon of information.
astro
September 17, 2011, 10:16pm
2
Never mind. In reading more it’s more an interesting idea than a theory.A Scientist Takes On Gravity
A facinating let down, though.
Tris
DMark
September 18, 2011, 4:32pm
5
“Verlinde’s approach is that gravity is essentially a phenomenon of information.”
I was hoping that were true, so that stupid people would just eventually all float away.
DMark:
“Verlinde’s approach is that gravity is essentially a phenomenon of information.”
I was hoping that were true, so that stupid people would just eventually all float away.
Ah, but that wouldn’t happen.
You see, the stupid people are dense and would just collapse into a giant ball of stupid. This, of course, would make it much easier to be sucked past the event horizon of the giant ball of stupid. Then you’d be screwed.
Slee
Chimera
September 18, 2011, 6:49pm
7
Wow. Dude. That’s really heavy.
AskNott
September 18, 2011, 9:14pm
8
Long ago, when a PC was a peach crisp, and Mac was a Scotsman, you could buy buttons and bumper stickers proclaiming, “There is no gravity. The world sucks.”