A polymer is a long chain of similar units, and it has considerable freedom in how it arranges itself in space. Verlinde's made several analogies in his talk, but the best is probably that of a polymer in a liquid. In these models, gravity kind of falls out of the equations for free-where 'free' is an enormous amount of work done by someone else. Entropy can be described in the language of quantum mechanics and conformal field theory is one model for this sort of description. Gravity is still a force, but it is generated by something more fundamental: entropy.

But the point about both is that they resolve the problem of unifying gravity with quantum mechanics by getting rid of gravity. So close that, according to Wikipedia-the fount of all reliable knowledge-theorists can't agree if they are the same or not. The two models are very closely related to each other. Holography, and anti de Sitter space/conformal field theory are two ways of describing the bending of space and the entropy associated with it. I think this comes from the difficulties in conveying some very new concepts by Erik Verlinde, who is still in the process of grappling with them himself. In my last report from I will talk about something I am truly not competent to discuss: 'Holography, ADS/CFT and the emergence of gravity.' I realize that I am not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have never found myself so lost so quickly in a presentation.

Gravity as curved space activity