Fine Structure

Oh my, this is shaping up to be a fun week.

The NYTimes is reporting on a paper by Erik Verlinde (a string theorist and quite brainy dude) about how gravity is a byproduct of entropy. He describes gravity as "an illusion" which sounds pretty absurd. I think what the NYTimes meant to say was that Verlinde believes that gravity as a fundamental force is an illusion, not that the force that holds us on the Earth is itself an illusion.

Regardless, the actual ideas of how a gravity-like force arises from entropy seems to be widely misunderstood by readers (it's beyond me at this point, for sure) and the paper is generally thought of as an exploration rather than anything close to a fully developed theory.

I know entropy is the catch-all reason for everything this year, but this idea seems a little underdeveloped. I'd be interested in a more in-depth explanation of the paper if anyone has the chops to figure it out...