The end of gravity as we know it? February 4, 2010
Posted by sarah in: science . 6comments
Black hole/massive star pair (artist's conception)
When a physicist is on the front page of a newspaper, you know the story is either really bad, or really good. Just before Christmas, the Dutch paper De Volkskrant ran a big story on theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde, who has been making waves with his new theory for the origin of gravity. Since the story ran, Verlinde published a paper explaining his new theory to the Arxiv. In it, he postulates that gravity is an emergent phenomenon resulting from changes in entropy rather than the fundamental force of nature we currently think it is, and demonstrates this using simple thought experiments. Gravity, he says, is an entropic force – a bit like, say, osmosis.
So when Verlinde, who works at the University of Amsterdam, turned up on the colloquium schedule of Leiden’s Lorentz Institute, I thought it was worth checking out.
