Erik Verlinde: Gravity Is Not Fundamental, It Is Entropic
episodePreviously titled “Erik Verlinde: This Physicist (Unexpectedly) Derived Gravity from Information” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
Transcript
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What is thermodynamic gravity and how does it relate to entropy?
I feel that we are on the verge of making a totally new theory of the gravitational force and of space time. I think that things like inflation and even Big Bang is only approximation of what really happens. Just the idea that we can find the final loss, I think, is hubris. If you ask me where does the world come from, probably my answer would be quantum chaos. I feel there's some big thing to be done.
Renowned Professor Eric Virlende, a legend in quantum gravity, thinks gravity is thermodynamic, specifically the thermodynamics of quantum information doing something, the way gas pressure is another way of saying molecules are doing something. Now what that something is and how gravity could possibly look like this is the topic of today's podcast. And what's fascinating is that if you follow his results, you get two seemingly unrelated puzzles being solved, popping out automatically, the origin of dark energy and the origin of dark matter. No dark matter particles, no extra parameters.
I think that the particle dark matter community is not always playing this game honestly.
This is all because in 2010, a landmark paper by Verlinde derived the gravitational force from entropy and also derived inertia itself. That's Newton's F equals Ma. To some, this transcends Ted Jacobson's celebrated 1995 result, which already assumed space-time existed. I've spoken to Jacobson here, link in the description. But unlike Jacobson, Verlinde doesn't assume. Yeah.
I think there's a next theory to be discovered.
I go into more detail on my Substack post here about both Ted Jacobson's theory and Verlande's entropic gravity approach. Remember, to Einstein, gravity serves as a metonym for the curvature of space-time. But today, the professor erases even that. Why? Because of entanglement.
I mean space and time is something quite weird if you think about it.
Quantum information of spatial relations are correlated, and the magnitude of that correlation scales with the area of the surface between them. My name is Kurt Jaimungle, and on this channel I interview researchers regarding their theories of reality with rigor and technical depth, primarily focusing on theoretical physics, but often also talking about philosophy and consciousness and free will. This channel Is called Theories of Everything, but today we explore why there may be no final theory of physics, and Professor Verlinde means that literally.
I don't believe that we'll ever get to what would be the fundamental laws.
We also talk about why the cosmological constant problem may be a red herring and why when asked where the universe comes from, Verlinde's answer is one word. Chaos. Professor, do you think we'll ever be able to write down the fundamental laws?
mean we being humans, I mean, I think we have some uh understanding of the the universe and and the and the laws of nature and we'll always make progress. But I I'm I don't believe that we'll ever get to what would be the fundamental laws because I think there's always more than than that we can understand as humans. And also I think the laws that we have been able to get are always uh well, universal but it but not always applicable. I mean there's always exceptions to what we we uh don't fully understand. And I think there's always uh well situations where our laws will break down. So I believe more that that what we will discover are things that are eventually understood from Well, assuming that there's something more uh fundamental, more microscopic going on and that the laws that we are discovering are kind of more emergent from that underlying more fundamental description and
uh maybe we don't really need to know what this f uh fundamental description is. Uh we can still apply uh general reasoning to find these emergent laws. I mean this is something that we have been uh very successful at in in the in the history of science. I mean we have discovered the laws of thermodynamics before even knowing that there were molecules or atoms, but eventually we were able to derive them from the assumption that there are atoms and molecules.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is thermodynamic gravity and how does it relate to entropy?
0:00–14:38
2
How does Verlinde’s entropic approach go beyond effective field theory?
14:38–25:46
3
What is the “turtles all the way down” view of emergent spacetime?
25:46–38:00
4
How can entropy give rise to the gravitational force?
38:00–48:48
5
What role does quantum entanglement play in spatial connectivity?
48:48–57:28
6
How are inertia and Newton’s second law derived from entropic principles?
57:28–1:12:30
7
How does Verlinde link dark matter, dark energy, and Milgrom’s acceleration?
1:12:30–1:23:26
8
What are the philosophical implications of an emergent, non‑fundamental universe?
1:23:26–1:52:37
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal
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Tim Maudlin: Quantum Nonlocality Explained FROM SCRATCH
Adrian Owen: Awake. Aware. Unable to Move.
Peter Godfrey-Smith: This Scientist Found Earth’s “Alien” Minds
Jacob Tsimerman: He Won Math's Highest Prize. Then Announced the End