The Newtonian gravity was challenged by a Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde, aged 48 years, as The New York Times reported. The man claims the gravity does not exist and it is actually a human illusion.
This theory made public raised polemics again in the U.S. related to the gravitational theory, and some colleagues sincerely admire and support him. “For me there is no gravity. Moreover it was considered a wrong view. I would start from the ‘dark energy’, a sort of anti-gravity that appears to accelerate the expansion of the universe, or the “obscure matter’, which hypothetically keeps the galaxies merged together”, he said, according to The New York Times.
“His ideas inspire interesting discussions, which directly attack everything that we do not understand from our universe”, said Harvard physicist Andrew Strominger.
Furthermore, Verlinde is the latest in a series of scientists who for 30 years since are “demolishing” piece by piece the theory of gravity. “People still talk about the gravity as a fundamental force. Clearly we need to analyze these things, although some don’t do that and do not take them seriously. We know for a long time that the gravity does not exist, now it’s time to say it too”.
“Think of at universe as a box of Scrabble, the game where you have to write words using the alphabet: you shake the box and randomly scatter the letters, obtaining an almost infinite amount of combinations which has no meaning and the greater you shake the box, the more likely is to create as a higher disorder of the letters “, he said.
This is the new way to see the gravity force, this is Verlinde’s vision; a form of entropy or a “side effect of the natural susceptibility towards disorder.”
Erik Verlinde, author of an algebra formula which bears his name, has a twin brother, Herman. Their lives were the same for a long time, both respected mathematicians: they graduated together from Utrecht University in 1988, also they went together in America to continue their studies at Princeton, where they became professors.
They married two sisters and divorced. And just at this point in their lives happened a slight discrepancy. Herman remained at Princeton, and Erik decided to live in Amsterdam.
