Erik Verlinde: Gravity Doesn't Exist | Big Think

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Gravity Doesn't Exist??
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ERIK VERLINDE:

Erik Verlinde is a theoretical physicist and string theorist and the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Amsterdam. The "Verlinde formula," which relates to conformal field theory and topological field theory, is named after him. In a paper called "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton," published in January, 2010, Verlinde introduced a new approach to the idea of gravity, positing that it is not a fundamental force but an "emergent phenomenon."

Verlinde's idea that gravity doesn't exist was featured in Big Think's "Month of Thinking Dangerously.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Erik Verlinde: Gravity, of course, is something that have, well, many people have already thought about. It’s something that we see every day and it’s not like it’s not existent in our ordinary life. But what I mean by that it’s an illusion is that one would eventually like to know where it comes from, an explanation. Up to now we have, well, descriptions, I mean, Newton, of course, is the one famous for first writing down a theory of gravity and he described why apples fall and why the moon goes around the earth using the same basic equation for gravity, but he described it. He had to assume that gravity was there and then had to write down a law that described that when two masses are a certain distance, how they attract each other.

But he was also not very happy with the fact that we should just, well, assume that these things, these objects, attract each other and without even anything in between. So if there are two masses and empty space, there’s no, nothing that really happens between them, but still, they’re attracting each other. And he thought that was kind of mysterious and that it was something he would have liked to explain in a better way.

So later came Einstein and Einstein, with his theory of relativity, eventually realized that also gravity has to be described in a different way. And it took him quite some years, but eventually he wrote down a theory where he thought about space and time together and then his explanation of what gravity would be is that there’s masses which curve space, and time. And then motion of planets and of the earth around the moon, or the moon around the earth is then described by thinking about moving in this curved space-time and how then objects are, well, making their orbits. And the reason they go around then in circles is that space and time itself is curved, in the sense that things don’t move in straight lines anymore, they go around. So that was his explanation, but he had to write an equation for it, which again, assumed that gravity was there because he basically wrote down matter curves space-time.

So in a certain way that’s still a description or what, I should say is, well, one would like to understand again why this description sort of, well, how you can understand it from a more basic point of view. So what I’ve done in my paper is try to start from a, well, from a point of view where you don't assume gravity to be there, they would like to explain it by seeing how you can derive it from a more microscopic set of equations where gravity itself is not assumed, but then just follows from a certain logical reasoning.

Question: How should we think about the forces that exist to create the illusion of gravity?

Erik Verlinde: If you think about particles, very tiny particles, and it turns out that things like positions and velocities are not very precisely defined, you have to take into account the fact that there’s an uncertainty in when we look at something, we may influence the measurement, but I mean, also just, there’s a fundamental limit on how precise you can understand the position or the velocity of a particle. They cannot be all, not both described infinitely precise.

So taking gravity into account then gives us a bit of a problem because then we have to talk about space-time and then these quantum certainties gives us another way of looking at space-time at the short distances. So this led to problems... and string theory is another way of also looking at gravity and quantum mechanics, which I’ve been working on quite a bit. So people have studied the problem of quantum mechanics in gravity from various perspectives—from string theory, but also was thinking, for instance, about black holes, what happens with black holes.

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99% of titles on YouTube are misleading click bate. This should be correctly named "We don't know what gravity is"

buddhaofhollywood
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Well, he pretty much believes in gravity and is working on finding out what gravity is but all he is challenging is the idea of gravity being one of the universal forces that exist on their own. He simply says gravity, just like temperature, is an emergent phenomenon that can be understood by studdying things on a molecular/atomic/subatomic level because it is probably the sum of other interactions or processes that take place on a smaller level giving rise to the phenomenon we describe as gravity. He says gravity doesn't exist in the way we understand it as an independent force of nature present all the time but rather is an emergent one just like temperature is.

Grejegando
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Sleep is how you teleport to breakfast.

TheLingrush
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Why are people saying that gravity doesn't exist because buoyancy and density can explain it? Using buoyancy and density, can you explain why things fall towards the earth, and not upward? Also the equation to find buoyant force literally uses the variable "g" representing acceleration due to gravity. You cant use a concept that relies on the existence of gravity to say that it doesn't exist.

stag
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See those pixels at the bottom right corner? It's obviously a tear into the parallel universe where this guy came from. 

lukethegreat
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He is not saying that gravity doesn't exist.
He is saying that there is a problem to give an explanation of what we observe, experience and call gravity.

angelon
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He convinced me that gravity does not exist. Now I'm stuck on the ceiling.

apburner
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There is no such thing as gravity, it's a theory not a physical reality. Also, the Earth is not a globe and it isn't spinning or moving.

godsbeautifulflatearth
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Wondering if people are watching this video before commenting. While the video title captures attention, he isn't saying "gravity doesn't exist at all"- he's saying gravity may not exist the way you think it does. Practically everything in science is theory anyway. E.g. The theory of gravity. It is amazing how science draws so many in with certainties when at the heart of science is uncertainty.

DavidRaderII
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So is he simply saying that there may be a smaller scale event that doesn't involve gravity, because it is what creates the event of gravity? Why are people disagreeing with this possibility?

ogopolo
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I see gravity as an energy source. My reasoning is that the heat energy coming from friction during precipitation isn't the same heat energy that is observed during evaporation. Evaporation heat energy is traceable to a conversion of mass into energy like oxidation or fusion, but the heat energy that is released as water falls through the air due to gravitational acceleration being dissipated as heat isn't traceable to mass being converted into energy. Therefore, I see gravity as an energy source to explain where that additional heat comes from since evaporation heat isn't precipitation heat.

Hydroverse
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He's right, but he's too afraid to insult the Einstein worshippers by saying what he really wants to say: curved "spacetime" does not exist. Rather, 1D spacetime between particles and thermodynamics explains what we observe. This means that all supposed "black hole" observations are false.

JohnSmith-utth
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This man is on the right track. The current paradigm of how we think and describe gravity needs serious remodeling and so you should all appreciate and consider what people like Mr. Verlinde have to say and contribute

HellsMascot
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When you get into quantum dynamics to try explain anything then you're defacto getting into metaphysics. Gravity can keep a massive object like the moon thousands of miles away in earth's orbit, strangely not hurling into us, but still weak enough to allow us to jump up and down on the earth's surface. We fall down the sides of a mountain but not down the sides of a round planet. Good luck with this. At some point you're going to realize we're living in an electrical, mental projection and certain things just operate according to how the projector wants with no real consistent factors across the board

exillenssoundbender
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No such thing as Gravity. Buoyancy and density dictate the behavior of all objects immersed in a fluid system!! No exceptions

UncleDruncles
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He's not advocating the stance held by the flat Earthers that gravity doesn't exist.
He's Dutch & what he is trying to explain is that he simply has another theory along the lines of string theory about what gravity is.
You flat brainers need to find yourself another hero. Ik spreekt ook Nederlands.

a-square
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The love child of Bill Clinton, John Travolta, and Chevy Chase.  No disrespect, this guy is cool...just couldn't resist the celebrity look-alike thing.

TheRealMake-Make
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Gravity: Erik Verdlinde doesn't exist

bobwilson
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This video is so old but I still somehow gravitated towards it

chadd
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hmm at no point has Verlinde said gravity does not exist. Like most other theoretical physicists her just trying to decipher exactly what is occurring at it's smallest/finite scale.

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