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Theoretical physicist Eric Verlinde has finally published his much anticipated article on the nature of gravity. In a 2010 New York Times article Verlinde already stated: gravity is an illusion. His theory goes beyond the concept of gravity as envisioned by both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. It will be very interesting to see other scientists sink their teeth into this.
Abstract of his article:
Recent theoretical progress indicates that spacetime and gravity emerge together from the entanglement structure of an underlying microscopic theory. These ideas are best understood in Anti-de Sitter space, where they rely on the area law for entanglement entropy. The extension to de Sitter space requires taking into account the entropy and temperature associated with the cosmological horizon. Using insights from string theory, black hole physics and quantum information theory we argue that the positive dark energy leads to a thermal volume law contribution to the entropy that overtakes the area law precisely at the cosmological horizon. Due to the competition between area and volume law entanglement the microscopic de Sitter states do not thermalise at sub-Hubble scales: they exhibit memory effects in the form of an entropy displacement caused by matter. The emergent laws of gravity contain an additional 'dark' gravitational force describing the 'elastic' response due to the entropy displacement. We derive an estimate of the strength of this extra force in terms of the baryonic mass, Newton's constant and the Hubble acceleration scale a0 = cH0, and provide evidence for the fact that this additional 'dark gravity force' explains the observed phenomena in galaxies and clusters currently attributed to dark matter.
Heck, I'm not even going to pretend I grok any of this: I shine shoes for a living and just hope that my understanding of gravity-as-we-know-it is sufficient to catch the coins customers drop into my weary hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @12:56AM
This is what I care about: Run a solar system simulation with this model that includes a propagation time for gravity. Can it be done?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @12:59AM
No. Simulations are unable to account for entropy displacement, it leads to memory errors which can only be reconciled through a subspace string.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:47AM
Too bad then.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday November 10 2016, @06:37AM
Eh? What stops you from using identical techniques to wave propagation simulations?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @06:41AM
Usually what happens using non-instantaneous gravity is that after not too long the planets will fly off every which way. Try it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:32AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @01:47PM
Yes, it is angular momentum that is usually the culprit.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Thursday November 10 2016, @04:03PM
This is what I care about: Run a solar system simulation with this model that includes a propagation time for gravity. Can it be done?
Not sure what you mean. Gravity propagates at the speed of light. Of course, everything is already where it is, so it's changes to net gravitational force that propagate as things move relative to one another. The Sun attracts the Earth towards where we see it, not towards where it was 8 minutes ago.