Comments on and Comments on Comments on Verlinde's paper "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton"

TL;DR

This paper critically examines Verlinde's entropic gravity proposal, demonstrating the equivalence of classical and thermodynamical Newtonian gravity, questioning some assumptions, and discussing implications for General Relativity and electrostatics.

Contribution

It clarifies the relationship between classical and thermodynamical formulations of gravity, showing their equivalence and identifying unnecessary assumptions in Verlinde's approach.

Findings

Classical and thermodynamical Newtonian gravity are equivalent.

Some assumptions in Verlinde's derivation are unnecessary.

Gaps remain in extending the argument to General Relativity.

Abstract

We offer some, hopefully clarifying, comments on Verlinde's recent claim that gravity is an entropic force. A suitable identification of quantities shows that both formulations of Newtonian gravity, the classical and the thermodynamical one, are actually equivalent. It turns out that some additional assumptions made by Verlinde are unnecessary. However, when it comes to General Relativity there remain some gaps in the argument. We comment on whether this identification can be done also for electrostatics. Finally, some thoughts on the use of this reinterpretation are offered.