So looking at the theory more in detail, I am not convinced this works very well. Generally speaking, Verlinde’s theory doesn’t seem very well accepted and is taken more as speculative (and Verlinde’s own paper from 2016 about emergent gravity seemed to shift the focus a bit away from just entropy), but also, as far as I can tell, the problem is what is the main entropy contribution from a given region of space. And in Verlinde’s derivation, he makes that to depend on all information that describes entirely that region. That’s what the holographic principle means after all. Really basically his idea seems to be that, given a certain amount of matter, the configuration where those bodies are closer is higher entropy than one where they aren’t; so the universe tends to bring them together.
The problem is that as far as I can tell there’s no clear idea of how that would work out in more complex configurations of matter, and in fact that seems to be one of the main criticisms of Verlinde’s theory; and if it’s just an explanation of gravity, it shouldn’t allow repulsive forces, which would instead be necessary for any kind of engine to work (otherwise you’re not flying… you’re just falling with style).
Also the scales involved will be dominated by Mc2 terms (all the energy of the rest mass of the configuration of matter which is distributed among the degrees of freedom encoding it on the holographic boundary), so honestly odds are anything you can do with the Casimir effect is trivial by comparison.
Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate your honest assessment.
I know the forces produced by the Casimir effect are very, very tiny, but I’m not depending on a force like traditional propulsion systems that use a reaction mass. I’m relying on entropy gradients to provide the “push”.
I tend to compare emergent gravity to osmosis, where space-time is the “solution” and the vacuum fluctuations are the “solute”. In thermodynamics, systems tend to proceed from low entropy to high entropy. If we can create a low entropy zone, then higher entropy space-time should try to bend around it, and in doing so provide the “push” needed by our propulsion system.
I’ve been scouring the internet looking for other people exploring similar ideas and have found a couple different guys. Dr. Harold White (formerly of NASA) and Charles Chase (formerly of Lockheed-Martin Skunkworks) are both exploring propulsion systems that leverage the Casimir Effect. I’ve reached out to them and am waiting to hear back. Here are links to their website: https://casimirspace.com/ and https://unlab.us/
So looking at the theory more in detail, I am not convinced this works very well. Generally speaking, Verlinde’s theory doesn’t seem very well accepted and is taken more as speculative (and Verlinde’s own paper from 2016 about emergent gravity seemed to shift the focus a bit away from just entropy), but also, as far as I can tell, the problem is what is the main entropy contribution from a given region of space. And in Verlinde’s derivation, he makes that to depend on all information that describes entirely that region. That’s what the holographic principle means after all. Really basically his idea seems to be that, given a certain amount of matter, the configuration where those bodies are closer is higher entropy than one where they aren’t; so the universe tends to bring them together.
The problem is that as far as I can tell there’s no clear idea of how that would work out in more complex configurations of matter, and in fact that seems to be one of the main criticisms of Verlinde’s theory; and if it’s just an explanation of gravity, it shouldn’t allow repulsive forces, which would instead be necessary for any kind of engine to work (otherwise you’re not flying… you’re just falling with style).
Also the scales involved will be dominated by Mc2 terms (all the energy of the rest mass of the configuration of matter which is distributed among the degrees of freedom encoding it on the holographic boundary), so honestly odds are anything you can do with the Casimir effect is trivial by comparison.
Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate your honest assessment.
I know the forces produced by the Casimir effect are very, very tiny, but I’m not depending on a force like traditional propulsion systems that use a reaction mass. I’m relying on entropy gradients to provide the “push”.
I tend to compare emergent gravity to osmosis, where space-time is the “solution” and the vacuum fluctuations are the “solute”. In thermodynamics, systems tend to proceed from low entropy to high entropy. If we can create a low entropy zone, then higher entropy space-time should try to bend around it, and in doing so provide the “push” needed by our propulsion system.
Here is a link to a white paper I wrote with some minimal supporting math: https://archive.org/details/entropy-gradient-propulsion-system-whitepaper-rev-c
Here’s a link to a more simplistic overview of the concept (no math): https://archive.org/details/entropy-gradient-propulsion-overview
I’ve been scouring the internet looking for other people exploring similar ideas and have found a couple different guys. Dr. Harold White (formerly of NASA) and Charles Chase (formerly of Lockheed-Martin Skunkworks) are both exploring propulsion systems that leverage the Casimir Effect. I’ve reached out to them and am waiting to hear back. Here are links to their website: https://casimirspace.com/ and https://unlab.us/