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Discussion of an information-theoretic model of gravity, derived by Erik Verlinde

Mathematical Physics Seminar

Speaker: Karl Hallowell
Location: 3106 MSB
Start time: Wed, Mar 3 2010, 4:10PM

In the preprint, "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton" (arXiv:1001.0785v1 [hep-th]), Erik Verlinde derives both classical laws of gravity and Einstein's equations of general relativity from certain basic principles including a fixed speed of light and a form of the holographic principle, here, that the internal mass and gravitational structure of a volume is determined by information found on the boundary of the volume. I'll start with a short talk on the paper and how Verlinde derives the above results. This paper loosely ties gravitation, part of the foundation of physics to information theoretic notions, the latter being perhaps a more fundamental language for how we perceive reality. I'll wrap up with some ideas about possible generalizations of Verlinde's work. We'll then open things up to discussion.