For more than a century, gravity has been the stubborn outlier in physics, resisting every attempt to merge Einstein’s smooth space-time with the jittery world of quantum mechanics. A new wave of ideas is now pushing a radical possibility to the front of the conversation: that gravity is not fundamental at all, but a side effect of entropy and information. If that picture holds up, it could redraw how I understand everything from black holes to the unseen “dark” components that appear to dominate the cosmos.
The stakes are high. Entropy is usually the language of melting ice cubes and scrambling data, not the orbits of planets or the expansion of the universe. Yet a growing group of theorists is betting that the same statistical logic that drives heat to spread out might also make apples fall and galaxies curve space. Their proposals are still a minority view, but they are precise enough to be tested, and that is what makes this moment so intriguing.
Why gravity is still physics’ biggest unfinished job
Modern physics rests on two towering frameworks that do not quite fit together. General relativity describes gravity as the curvature of space-time and works spectacularly well for planets, stars and the large scale structure of the universe. Quantum mechanics, and the quantum field theories built on it, capture the behavior of particles and forces at microscopic scales with astonishing accuracy. The problem is that when I try to apply both at once, for instance near black hole horizons or at the Big Bang, the mathematics breaks down and predictions lose meaning.
That mismatch has driven decades of work on quantum gravity, from string theory to loop quantum gravity, yet no single approach has delivered a clear, testable unification. At the same time, cosmological observations suggest that ordinary matter and radiation account for only a small fraction of the universe, with dark matter and dark energy apparently making up about 95 percent of the total, a puzzle highlighted in reporting that describes how Einstein’s theory leaves huge gaps. Any new idea that can both reconcile gravity with quantum rules and shed light on this dark sector earns serious attention, even if it starts on the fringes.
From heat to pull: what “entropic gravity” actually claims
The most influential attempt to tie gravity to entropy arrived when Erik Verlinde proposed that the familiar attraction between masses might be an emergent, statistical effect rather than a basic force. In this picture, space-time itself behaves like a kind of information storage medium, and what I interpret as gravitational pull is really the system’s tendency to move toward states with higher entropy. The framework, often called Entropic gravity or emergent gravity, treats gravity as a macroscopic phenomenon that arises from microscopic degrees of freedom I do not directly see.
In practical terms, entropic gravity tries to recover Newton’s law and Einstein’s equations from thermodynamic principles, much as the pressure of a gas can be derived from the random motion of molecules. The theory claims to be compatible with general relativity in many regimes while also offering new ways to think about cosmic acceleration and the need for dark components, which is why its advocates argue that Entropic gravity has huge implications for cosmology. Critics counter that the microscopic details remain vague and that the approach has not yet matched the full precision of standard models, but the conceptual shift it represents is hard to ignore.
A fresh “gravity from entropy” framework enters the arena
More recently, theorists have started to sharpen the entropic idea into concrete mathematical proposals that can be scrutinized line by line. One such effort, titled “Gravity from entropy,” derives gravitational dynamics from an action principle that explicitly couples matter fields to geometry through entropy. Instead of assuming Einstein’s equations from the outset, the authors relate the geometry of space-time to the information content of quantum fields, then show how familiar gravitational behavior can emerge from that entropic action. The goal is to make the link between information, entropy and curvature more than a metaphor.
In parallel, other researchers are exploring whether the fundamental “field” of quantum gravity might itself be an entropic object. One recent analysis describes a G-field that could encode how quantum information is distributed and argues that this field might be a candidate for the underlying structure that gives rise to gravity. The work explicitly proposes that quantum gravity has an entropic origin and suggests that this G-field could even help explain observations of the universe’s expansion, a claim highlighted in coverage that notes how this work proposes a bridge between relativity and quantum mechanics. I see these models as part of a broader push to turn the slogan “gravity is entropy” into a set of equations that can be checked against data.
Ginestra Bianconi’s quantum information twist
One of the most ambitious versions of this program comes from Physicist Ginestra Bianconi, who argues that gravity might emerge directly from quantum information entropy. In her view, the universe can be described as a complex network of quantum states, and the way information is distributed across that network determines how space-time curves. Instead of starting with a smooth continuum and adding quantum fields on top, she starts with quantum information itself and lets geometry arise as a kind of large scale pattern. That inversion of the usual logic is what makes her proposal so striking.
Bianconi’s framework aims to reproduce both general relativity and quantum field theory as effective descriptions of a deeper informational substrate. Reporting on her work explains that Physicist Ginestra Bianconi proposes that gravity emerges from quantum information entropy, potentially uniting relativity and quantum mechanics while also offering a new handle on the expansion of the universe, a perspective laid out in detail in an analysis of how Physicist Ginestra Bianconi frames the problem. If gravity is really a manifestation of how quantum information is arranged and scrambled, then questions about dark energy or the early universe might become questions about network structure and entropy flow instead.
From lecture hall to lab: how testable is “entropic gravity”?
For any theory that challenges the status of gravity as a fundamental interaction, the obvious question is how to tell if it is right. Advocates of entropic and emergent gravity argue that their models can reproduce the successes of general relativity while also predicting subtle deviations in regimes where quantum information effects become important. Some of these deviations might show up in the way galaxies rotate, in the detailed pattern of gravitational lensing, or in the behavior of gravity at extremely low accelerations. Others might appear in the thermodynamic properties of black holes, where entropy already plays a starring role.
Earlier this year, a team of theorists revisited these ideas and suggested that gravity could be understood as the average effect of a random, microscopic interaction with masses, such that on large scales I see all the normal gravitational phenomena. Their work, discussed in a feature that asks whether Jun’s long shot idea deserves another look, emphasizes that this remains very much a minority view. Still, the fact that these models now make concrete, if small, predictions means they can be confronted with data from telescopes and experiments rather than living only on chalkboards.
Supporters, skeptics and the Van Raamsdonk critique
Not everyone is convinced that entropy based approaches are on the right track. Some quantum gravity experts argue that while the thermodynamic analogies are suggestive, they may be capturing only part of the story or even misreading the direction of causality. In this view, gravity might give rise to entropy rather than the other way around, or both could emerge from a deeper, still unknown structure. The debate is sharpened by the fact that many entropic models rely on simplified setups or toy universes that may not capture the full complexity of our cosmos.
Mark Van Raamsdonk, a physicist at the University of British Columbia, has been particularly clear about his reservations. He has worked extensively on the idea that space-time geometry can emerge from quantum entanglement, yet he remains doubtful that current entropic gravity models reproduce how gravity behaves when it is weak and spread out, as in the outskirts of galaxies. Coverage of his comments notes that Mark Van Raamsdonk at the University of British Columbia questions whether these models can match the precision of existing gravitational tests. I read his stance as a reminder that even bold ideas must clear a high empirical bar before they can reshape the foundations of physics.
Dark matter, MOND and the galaxy rotation puzzle
One arena where emergent gravity ideas are being stress tested is the long standing mystery of galaxy rotation curves. Observations show that stars in the outer regions of spiral galaxies orbit faster than expected if only visible matter were present, a discrepancy that led to the dark matter hypothesis. An alternative, known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND, suggests that Newton’s law itself changes at very low accelerations. The model successfully predicts the rotation curves of several spiral galaxies without invoking dark matter, suggesting that visible matter can account for their dynamics if gravity behaves differently in that regime, a point summarized in a definition of Modified Newtonian Dynamics.
Some emergent gravity proposals aim to reproduce MOND-like behavior as a natural consequence of entropy driven effects, rather than by hand tuning the force law. Detailed analyses of galaxy data have found that only a specific scaling, with a slope of four in the relation between baryonic mass and rotation speed, successfully predicts the rotation speeds of low mass galaxies, as shown in work that cites Giovanelli et al. and McGaugh. A discussion of these results emphasizes that Indeed this tight relation is hard to reconcile with arbitrary dark matter distributions. If an entropic theory can derive that slope from first principles, it would be a major point in its favor, but so far that remains an open challenge.
Cosmic acceleration and the dark energy question
Beyond galaxies, the universe itself is expanding at an accelerating rate, a phenomenon usually attributed to dark energy. Standard cosmology treats dark energy as a property of space-time, often modeled as a cosmological constant in Einstein’s equations. Entropic approaches offer a different angle, suggesting that what I call dark energy might instead reflect how the entropy of the universe changes as it grows. In that view, the expansion is not driven by a mysterious fluid but by the statistical tendency of the cosmic information content to spread out and maximize entropy.
Some of the most public facing discussions of gravity and dark energy have highlighted how counterintuitive this can be. In a widely shared conversation, a Nobel Prize winning physicist explains that changing the energy content of the vacuum can actually cause gravity to change, and that we usually think gravity always pulls but according to general relativity it can also push, a nuance captured in a video that notes how Because it actually causes gravity to change, our intuition misleads us. Entropic gravity models try to formalize that intuition by tying the “push” of cosmic acceleration directly to entropy gradients, but they must still match the precise supernova and cosmic microwave background data that underpin the dark energy story.
From Verlinde’s stage to today’s frontier
When Erik Verlinde first laid out his entropic view of gravity in public lectures, he framed it as part of a long tradition in physics where new concepts emerge from reinterpreting old ones. In one talk, he describes how curiosity continues to drive progress from science to technology and back again, and how this new view on gravity, known as entropic or emergent gravity, fits into that cycle. The presentation underscores that he is not discarding Einstein’s insights but trying to place them in a broader statistical context, much as thermodynamics sits on top of molecular dynamics, a theme he develops while explaining how Curiosity fuels new views on gravity.
Since those early proposals, the field has diversified. Some researchers focus on holographic dualities and the idea that space-time emerges from entanglement patterns, others on network models like Bianconi’s, and still others on explicit entropic actions like the “Gravity from entropy” framework. What unites them is a willingness to treat gravity not as a basic ingredient but as a large scale pattern in underlying information. I find that shift in perspective both unsettling and energizing, because it suggests that the force that shapes galaxies and black holes might ultimately be a story about statistics, randomness and the relentless rise of entropy.
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