Verlinde's De Sitter Mond Is Highly Incomplete, To Enjoin The Least

The Dutch media brutally overhype a generic speculative idea

Update: Readers coming from Science Alert may also endure interested inwards my criticisms of this Science Alert as well as its "parent" article inwards Nude Socialist

Five independent Dutchmen convey contacted me as well as told me that the Dutch media are obsessed amongst a novel preprint past times Erik Verlinde. Verlinde's fame amidst the inkspillers has already beaten Einstein's past times an gild of magnitude. (The echoes inwards the English-speaking media are as well as then far a tiny fraction of the Dutch coverage.) I didn't know what to cry back most it but at nowadays I convey spent a pregnant amount of fourth dimension amongst the paper

Emergent Gravity as well as the Dark Universe

and I convey an opinion.

Note that most 7 years ago, Erik Verlinde started the claim that gravity is an entropic force. Well, it can't endure an entropic strength because whenever entropic forces act, the entropy goes strictly upward as well as then the entropic forces are intrinsically irreversible – piece a comet may endure closer to the Sun, farther from the Sun, closer to the Sun, as well as contrary things only fine. Also, it's non possible that the issue of microstates attributed to a span of objects depends on their distance: such an supposition would destroy interference inwards the gravitational acre which has been experimentally demonstrated to be using neutrons.




Seven years ago, I didn't instantly know what to cry back most Verlinde's paper when it was published. He's i of the guys who rediscovered my matrix string theory – or at to the lowest degree translated it from Lumo English linguistic communication to Dutch English linguistic communication – as well as he has authored dozens of similarly existent physics papers as well as then he isn't quite stupid. But inside weeks, it became clear that his theory was only a incorrect collection of speculations as well as misunderstandings most the relationships betwixt the key concepts of physics.

I wouldn't okay this incorrect slice of run equally an undergraduate term paper but he got 6.5 millions of euros for this absolutely worthless pile of feces as well as then many people who are impressed past times the coin but don't convey an thought most scientific discipline – which includes virtually all journalists – started to cry back that Verlinde is a transcend physicist. And he may convey decided that he must justify the laurels past times producing fifty-fifty greater piles of bogus hype.




The novel paper has an extremely similar vogue to the "gravity is an entropic force" 7 years ago. It's all most problematic claims most forces as well as entropy as well as exclusively uses approximately uncomplicated high schoolhouse equations or inequalities where all price are only products or ratios of several uncomplicated quantities. But my agreement is that Erik Verlinde has abandoned the claims he was spreading 7 years ago. In this novel paper, gravity is no longer an entropic force.

But it's a similar collection of heuristic comments that are probable to endure shown equally "sharply wrong" equally the "entropic force" claims i time somebody studies the claims carefully enough.

OK, what does Verlinde order now?

He positively mentions the recent "spacetime is most entanglement" minirevolution inwards theoretical physics but he doesn't straight add together anything on "top" of these insights – which were made past times others, only to endure sure. Instead, he says that night thing doesn't exist. The phenomena attributed to night thing are genuinely due to approximately modified laws of gravity, he says. These full general comments don't differ from those of other generic "dark thing skeptics".

And his modifications to the laws of gravity should arise from approximately price originally meant to pull the night unloosen energy – which isn't quite the cosmological constant inwards his picture. So Verlinde's destination is to bring down the issue of independent "dark" concepts inwards physics past times one. Once yous assume night unloosen energy as well as yous interpret it inwards approximately fancy but largely ill-defined "entanglement entropy" fashion, the effects associated amongst night thing automatically arise, if yous believe his optimism.

What is his change of gravity?

Sadly, he doesn't convey whatever item microscopic model – similar string theory where yous can, at to the lowest degree inwards approximately vacua inwards practice, pull the laid of actual microstates. He doesn't convey whatever item acre theory model similar to Einstein's equations or whatever other effective quantum acre theory. To summarize, he doesn't convey any model at all.

But he wants to assign approximately entanglement entropy to things inwards his non-existent model, anyway, as well as claim that he tin deduce approximately encouraging consequences fifty-fifty inwards the absence of the crucial knowledge.

In the "spacetime is entanglement" minirevolution, nosotros ofttimes verbalize most the entanglement entropy betwixt two subsystems of a physical system, e.g. 2 parts of the spacetime separated past times a domain wall (or the lawsuit horizon). He talks most the entanglement entropy betwixt the interior of the de Sitter causal patch as well as its exterior.

So this entanglement entropy has approximately term similar to \(S=A/4G\) proportional to the expanse of the horizon. But he argues that the night unloosen energy implies that at that spot must endure approximately term proportional to the book equally well. Is that defensible? Well, the area-extensive entanglement entropy is natural from the viewpoint of locality. In the vacuum, the degrees of liberty are exclusively entangled amongst the nearby ones, as well as then exclusively those close the boundaries of the entangled regions significantly contribute to the entanglement.

When yous assume a volume-extensive entanglement entropy, it automatically agency that the "contributors" to the entanglement entropy alive everywhere, including the deep mass of the regions. This supposition clearly implies approximately score of non-locality. Locality holds experimentally, amongst a skilful accuracy. So whatever violation of locality should endure small. I don't cry back that Erik Verlinde genuinely proves that it's small. It doesn't seem to me that he cares much.

Instead, he wants to larn the "useful" consequences from the novel volume-extensive price inwards the entanglement entropy. And he says that these price imply approximately "failure of thermalization" as well as "memory effects" whose influence on moving thing is similar to that inwards MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) theories – he wants to "derive" Milgrom's phenomenological plumbing equipment formula from a "microscopic" starting point.

I don't genuinely believe that anything "very of import or persuasive" that would travel beyond my paragraphs higher upward may endure establish on those 51 pages. In other words, I believe that if yous asked a skilful plenty pupil to write 51 pages of text amongst approximately formulae that would seem similar an "elaboration" on my paragraphs above, the resultant would endure almost indistinguishable from Verlinde's paper.

By the way, I cry back that Verlinde's proposal is fully analogous to my holographic MOND thought – also a way to justify dark-matter-like effects using approximately cosmological-constant-related corrections of mechanisms inwards key physics – except that 1) my proposal is arguably cleverer, 2) I exposed it many years earlier Verlinde, as well as 3) I haven't sold it equally a revolution inwards physics or demanded millions of euros for it.

So this Verlinde's novel paper is approximately speculative moving painting making claims most the demeanor of the entanglement entropy that could convey the potential to "unify" night unloosen energy as well as night thing effects – but it doesn't genuinely compass us whatever model (neither string theory nor acre theory...) as well as it doesn't genuinely compass us whatever tangible evidence that such a model could be as well as endure compatible amongst everything else nosotros know most particle physics, including full general relativity as well as particle physics. The well-known Einstein's as well as other field-theoretical equations aren't genuinely derived as well as then Verlinde can't genuinely quantitatively order what his corrections to these equations are, either. H5N1 priori, his framework looks rattling different from local effective acre theory or string theory as well as whenever somebody starts to invent physics from scratch inwards this sense, he should outset present that everything that physics has explained as well as then far may also endure explained inwards his completely different picture. No contemporary self-described "physics revolutionaries" seem to appreciate the difficulty of this describe as well as they don't care. Erik Verlinde unfortunately doesn't seem to differ from them likewise much.

It seems conceivable to me that approximately score of MOND is right. And assuming MOND is right, it seems rather probable to me that night unloosen energy as well as night thing effects must endure explained simultaneously. And those explanations are probable to convey something to do amongst the "spacetime is entanglement" ideas because "the spacetime is entanglement" as well as this fact must endure consistent amongst everything that the scientific discipline of gravity may study. In this sense, Erik Verlinde's paper could endure a sketch of something that is on the right track. However, I would bet that the mass of those 51 pages are only incorrect as well as volition convey to endure replaced.

Media are untrustworthy, corrupt manipulators of stupid sheep

H5N1 lot has been written most the fact that Trump's victory – that took house despite the 99% back upward of Hillary Clinton past times large newspapers – shows that people only don't convey much abide by towards the media anymore. The (hostile) media were named "The Fifth Power" past times Napoleon Bonaparte – as well as that's why nosotros refer to them equally "The Seventh Power" today. But despite the seemingly high circulation as well as lots of coin that menses through the media, people mostly consider the tricks as well as distortions i time they travel obvious enough. And they already convey many choice ways to detect the data or brand their hear most something. In approximately cases, these choice ways are (even) worse than what the confidence inwards the media tin do, inwards many cases, they are better, however.

Sadly, the scientific discipline journalism is no better. H5N1 vast bulk of the "revolutionary" materials that yous may come across inwards the pop mainstream scientific discipline media is bogus. These "journalists" heavily re-create from each other – their score of grouping cry back is staggering – as well as they assist most the coin that they're paid or somebody else is paid. Meritocracy as well as careful, impartial efforts to detect the truth – "investigative journalism" – are basically dead inwards the scientific discipline media (and other media).

At whatever rate, I do believe that if you're thinking most reading Erik Verlinde's paper but you're non certainly as well as yous convey read my abstract, yous may relieve the fourth dimension because it's unlikely that yous volition detect something of import yet sensible there. I cry back that he wrote 51 pages primarily to do the illusion that he's doing "lots of work" on his "revolutionary" ideas. But there's genuinely no content that would endure proportional to the book (to 51 pages) here. ;-)

Someone else may detect approximately crisp ideas that brand the same or similar moving painting convincing – e.g. derive the volume-extensive entanglement entropy price inwards de Sitter infinite from string theory etc. But without such an advance, I cry back that Erik Verlinde's preprint is a mediocre vague paper that everyone may ignore as well as it's likewise bad that the scientific discipline media human activeness differently. By the way, if yous care, Frank Wilczek has attended a verbalize past times Erik Verlinde as well as his words were harsher than mine.