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Is Gravity an Illusion? 8 comments
It is not string theory that has attracted new attention to Verlinde. In fact, what has some of the physics world talking (and some yawning) involves little rigorous mathematics. Verlinde has proposed that gravity is not a fundamental force of the universe, as proposed by Newton and Einstein. He proposes that it is secondary, an illusion if you will, resulting from observations of the effects of laws of thermodynamics. He sees gravity as a symptom produced by entropy, the form that energy takes as a result of irreversible (ie, naturally occurring) processes which makes that energy unavailable to do work. Many are most familiar with entropy as a measure of disorder.
Verlinde sees entropy as a fundamental parameter and gravity as a dependent variable. Newton and Einstein saw gravity as a fundamental force of the universe whereby any two objects undergo mutual attraction which increases as the product of their masses and decreases as the square of the distance that separates them. I find Verlinde's suggestions seem to be centered on the idea that our perception of gravity is a prisoner of our view of space. The Overbye article goes into a number of interesting thought processes relating our traditional physics in three dimensional space to holograms which reduce multidimensional information to two dimensional space without any losses. One of the ideas was written as follows:
Those exploding black holes (at least in theory — none has ever been observed) lit up a new strangeness of nature. Black holes, in effect, are holograms — like the 3-D images you see on bank cards. All the information about what has been lost inside them is encoded on their surfaces. Physicists have been wondering ever since how this “holographic principle” — that we are all maybe just shadows on a distant wall — applies to the universe and where it came from.
Note: This blog post has nothing to do with economics, finance and investing. It will not be offered to the SA editors as a possible article. However, I found the topic absolutely captivating. There are so many things that modern physics can not explain; there must be more complete theoretical explanations than we have so far. Verlinde may or may not have a glimpse of future advances. But, even if he misses the mark, his very proposals and ideas reemphasize that there are marks out there that no one can see clearly yet.Verlinde's ideas have critics who say he is lacking in mathematical rigor. He does sound something more like a science philosopher than a practicing theoretical physicist. Some might say he should try his hand at writing science fiction. But this humble reader is in awe of his audacity. He is working, along with his twin brother Herman, a physics professor at Princeton and also a noted string theorist, on applying the mathematics of string theory to the idea of "entropic force" producing gravity. Will a modern day "Newton" be struck on the head with a 21st century version of the "apple"?
Read Overbye's article in The NY Times. I have only touched on the human and scientific subtleties Overbye covers.
I hope readers will indulge my need to note some thoughts about this here.
Disclosure: No stocks mentioned.
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This post has 8 comments:
The most difficult aspect of Verlinde's theory for me to grasp is the "entropic force."
How odd that in practice he and his twin brother married sisters, and then both got divorced. In effect, the sisters married identical holograms!
What I'd love to see someday are the ingredients on the can of soup anology.
I just have to say thanks. I can always count on you for great articles and info (finance related or not). While I can't comprehend how you find the time, I'm glad you do.
Not necessarily. It might still happen but not for the reason you assumed.
On the other hand, if our perception of reality is biased by our minds being a prisoner of a limited knowledge of space and time, how do we know which way is up?
The String Theory is morphing. Now, the latest is a combination of the String Theory and an "abundance of beyond to the nenth degree of razor thin planes." The latest is that when a "plane" touched another plane, in such a small, small way, that this "touching" created our Big Bang. Sounds like a hot teenage romance! A cosmic ejaculation!
In other words, so to speak, these planes create universes at the whims of warping mathematics, or, counter intuititvely, against the mathmatical whims, there are infinite degrees of creation, an infinite amount of touching-ness. In other words, part two, is that there are infinite amount of universes, and more are being created at infinite proportions. It's like run away creationism, logrthymic, cosmic sex everywhere.
The idea that "our" universe and galaxies within is growing as say raisins in a baked loaf of bread, is coming into question.
The absolute amazing part of all of this is that here in Copan, a king decrees that he has "seen" the singularity, the one-ness of all things.
I like that notion.
My pal, Dr. David Sedat, sat on this spacious porch of this boutique hotel this late afternoon, sharing some rum...we talked about this...and how just maybe Waxaklahjuun U'bah Kawiil, the locals call this king, 18 Rabbit, the 13th ruler of 16 in Copan, put his finger on, was embodied, understood, was revealed to, enlightened to the mathematics of the universes. David did not say this, but I'll throw this in...the cosmic design.
That's very cool stuff! I'll keep you updated as I learn more.
Your essay prompts me to mention my belief that mankind can not "see" 99.9999.....% of what actually exists. That is the thought that is behind my statement that we are prisoners of our perception.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Example, not entirely related but something that comes to mind: if a light flickers above a certain frequency we don't perceive any flickering at all because our vision is controlled by the kinetics of chemical reactions in our eyes. However we can readily do tests and show that the light is actually flickering.
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