i didn't watch the video, but I resort to the good old gravitational constant between 2 bodies: 6.67 * 10^-11 Newton-m^2/kg^2

^per Isaac Newton

after reading the article, I've come to the conclusion that these people are way smarter than me. I forfeit my argument.

Newton was wrong...

in what way?

I'm having a little difficulty w/ the main purports of the argument. Albeit I don't fully understand 'string' theory and thermodynamics, but how can it be argued that gravitational force is accidental?, especially when it is constant along the surface of the earth AND the moon. And- mind you- at a constant relation to the mass of the "considered" object?

@COTW: I think the argument is not that gravity manifests itself any differently than we have known since Newton- the constant you cite (and the laws it implies) still hold true. However, I think the argument is about the kind of way in which it comes about.

I'll use 2 examples to illustrate 2 types of manifestation:
1) Light (and the rest of the EM spectrum, if there are pedants around...). We have laws to describe it well (if you don't mind wave/particle duality), and it's a pretty fundamental phenomenon in that we are detecting waves/particles and that's just about that.
2) Floating. Yep, just everyday floating of a bit of something in water. We can describe this well, too. We have laws about it, and these let us predict what will happen with regard to floating if we change the shape or nature of the object or the thing in which it is floating.

So, both nice and predictable and proved. But I would certainly say you could claim that light is 'fundamental' in a way in which 'floating' is not: the latter appearing to arise purely from the relationship between the object, the liquid and the prevailing conditions (gravity etc, as it happens), whereas light seems to just need creating by a source (and then obviously is subject to being messed around with).

It is in this sense that I think the article is suggesting that gravity is a side-effect of something- not that it is bogus, or indeed probably not that it is the side-effect of anything directly observable by us (otherwise we'd have noticed by now!).

I understand your ARGUMENT and credit to IT the reasons why I discredit many astronomical calculations (which I do), namely those that exceed measurable limits.

However, the force of gravity is measurable as an acceleration due to a known force and velocity, and has been proven to satisfy the determined conditions through experimentation, regardless of perturbing phenomena. So the idea that gravitational force between two celestial objects would differ from that of any other argues the very principle of scientific universality. And, Iif I may also point out, that physical properties of electromagnetic waves do not at all conflict with Newtonian mechanics, which can easily describe the act of 'floating' as the surface area and mass of the floating object relative to density and force.

Of course both of my examples are readily described by Newtonian mechanics- that was the intention. My point was that one example (EM) is analogous to gravity being explained by something like a theory requiring gravitons, while the other (floating, in this case) has the phenomenon arising from other fundamental forces and phenomena and without any particles unique to it.

I am not certain I understand the first paragraph of your latest post, I'm afraid, so apologies that I am ignoring it :-)

The effects of gravity and the laws that govern it are indeed well established, and hold true on everything but a quantum level, but I don't see anything in this article that argues against that. Whence did you get the suggestion that this paper was proposing that different gravitational forces acted in different cases?

I think a fair analogy would be that of a discussion of whether sound is a fundamental phenomenon brought about by some sort of unique particle or whether it is in fact largely a peculiar manifestation of air pressure: either model could be constructed in such a way as to perfectly describe the behaviour of sound as observed, but clearly one must be right and the other wrong.

If anything, the argument against this theory would be (and this point is made in the article) that it doesn't change the laws of gravitation and thus no predictions can be made (and tested) based upon it; although one may argue that, in a case such as this, the approach is worth promoting in the hope of getting others to see gravity in a new way, which could then lead to bigger revelations.

It works for me.

another scientist stucked in his career and hungry for attention pulling some stuff out of his ass, this combined with fithgrader journalists makes - boring stuff...

String theory was developed primarily for the noble casue of keeping huge numbers of the more mathematically inclined research scientists in employment, despite the fact that nothing useful has ever come from it. As far as our understanding of gravity goes, people have always known stuff gets pulled down, Newton observed stuff attracts other stuff with a strangely weak force that works over surprisingly long distances, and ever since then people have been guessing why with limited success. Dr Verlinde is the latest in a long line of people to suggest something that might be true but probably isn't.

its like the ancient history PhD professor who argues that the study of ancient history is fruitless. lol.