Verlinde's Theory of No Gravity, explained(ish)

http://gotnocats.blogspot.com/

History

There was a theory of gravity that we all understood, and it involved the apple. The humans like theories that involve apples because they are something we can, taste, draw, and use to make cider and pie.

Who Was Isaac Newton?

He was a guy who looked like that guy in Lord of the Rings, the one with the long hair.

Oh, wait, he just had long hair, and with my facial recognition disorder, they look about the same.

Why do we call Newton “Sir”?

Isaac was sitting under a tree when an apple fell on his head. Most of us would say, “ouch”, and move to a spot where the apple wouldn’t hit us. This is called, “functional intelligence.” We would know where to move, because we’ve learned that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

People say this when the children are just as quirky as the mother, and I’m not pointing the finger at any of you in particular. No, I’m not.

How Sir Newton is Different From Us

Our boy Isaac, rather than moving, thought, wow, what underlying principle caused this to happen? Why did this apple travel through vast empty space to land on my head?

?

In experiments conducted right here, I’ve observed that when one of the objects is three-layered chocolate cake, it’s easy to understand why another object would cross space to collide with it.*

*Additional data collection underway.

Further research

The gravitational pull of an object is directly proportional to it’s mass

This explains why, when I was about to give up on reaching the top of a mountain the other day, I got a second wind when two significantly overweight women were coming down from said mountaintop. Their combined mass caused me to stand up and finish the hike. I’m not sure if this is gravity, or misplaced competitiveness. Let’s call it gravity, shall we? (Unpublished research, 2010)

Can’t. go. Another.

Step.If I could draw, this box would have the

hikers who didn’t look very fit. At all.

And this box would have tired hiker all energetic again.

Yup, if only I could draw.

Large objects have more gravitational

pull

Do these pants make my butt look big?

Umm, it’s not so much the pants, but rather the planets that are orbiting around your midsection...

The point being…

We like it when theories can be explained by cake and apples. When science and math merge and become one subject that involves imaginary numbers, black holes, string theory, and Schrödinger's cat, we tend to look away. Well, maybe not so much on the cat. We like that cat.

Without opening the

box, can you tell if I’m alive?

Gravity theory, refined

A few hundred years after Newton, Einstein further refined the theory of gravity in ways that we don’t really understand, but we like Einstein.

Why we like Albert

His hair. Duh.

Because his famous formula, even if we don’t know what it means, is easy to recite.

Because he had “unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” What’s not to like about that?

Einstein figured out that…

if you’re going really fast, it looks like the things you’re passing are either not moving, or going more slowly than their actual speed.

gravity isn’t really a force, but rather the result of the curvature of space-time. (I would explain that, but I’m sure you’re super busy…)

you don’t really need to comb your hair very often.

New Jersey isn’t all bad. Some smart people live there.

if you throw a ball up, it will go up due to the energy applied, and then, as that energy runs out, come back down due to the earth’s gravitational pull.

The Problem

The origin of the earth is posited to be “The Big Bang”, or the ultimate throwing the ball up in the air. If this is the case, the universe should not be expanding (the ball going further up, long after the initial throw, as it were), but it is. It seems like my personal world is getting increasingly tiny, while the universe is increasingly vast. Go figure.

The Problem, cont.

We know that the universe is expanding because the distance between things “out there” is increasing, the way dots on a balloon get farther apart when you blow the balloon up.

This matter of an expanding universe has been both inexplicable, and defies the laws of gravity. Oh, and there’s the bit about dark matter. Right, look it up.

Now, on to Verlinde

Our new physics wonder-boy, Verlinde, is a twin. Didn’t we all want to be a twin at some point? Isn’t it comforting to have concepts that you totally understand, like “twin”? Anyway, this twin and his bro went to Princeton, like our boy Einstein, but it wasn’t until last summer, when he was on an extended vacation in the south of France, that he came up with his theory.

Conclusion: If you haven’t developed any defining theories in physics lately, it may be because you’ve failed to vacation in the S. of F.

Verlinde’s theory

Finally, on slide 16, we get to the actual point. Thanks for sticking it out. But first, I call your attention to this key concept:

Hair can be messy in an infinite number of ways, but straight in only one way. This is not unlike the statement by Leo Tolstoy in Ana Karenina, who said “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

The core of the new theory

Gravity doesn’t exist as a separate rule, but rather, as an outcome of a more fundamental principle. He likens this to the movement of the stock market. It’s gain or loss is driven by the collective behavior of individual investors.

Okay, that’s brilliant: use the stock market, which no one really understands anyway, to explain something else no one else understands.

Reducing it furtherMy dear readers, I have done a ton of research, trying to understand this whole thing, but it isn’t happening. I read the comments on the blog posts, hoping for it all to make sense, and they say things like, “What’s the problem with gravity having temperature?”

Um, right. Where did you think hot apple pie came from?

Why does she keep bringing

it back to food?

I know!!

Attempt two, by Verlinde

“Think of the universe as a box of scrabble letters. There is only one way to have the letters arranged to spell out the Gettysburg Address, but an astronomical number of ways to have them spell nonsense. Shake the box and it will tend toward nonsense, disorder will increase and information will be lost as the letters shuffle toward their most probable configurations. Could this be gravity?”

OR, dear readers, could it just be a lame scrabble partner?

How this affects you

Old behavior What will happen now

Apple would fall from tree, landing on scientists head

Apple will fall from tree. Children will be as quirky as their mother, if not more so.

Moon caused tidal bulge. Tides will be as inevitable as, well, the tides, but will be polluted with oil.

You looked bad in those pants that are too tight

You will continue to look bad in those pants.

Gravity kept you tethered to this planet

Remains unclear

You used to understand it a little bit

Now, even after this powerpoint, you have no idea what’s going on.

What you can say to sound smartOn the

smallest level, Newton's laws don't apply,

but they do for apples and planets. At least that’s

what Verlinde says.

Yep. Was gonna

say that.

THE END