Dawn's question revolves around a recent article in the Times in which a scientist calls into question the existence of gravity. The original article can be found here.

Upon reviewing the article, I noted a few things. The main crux is that "Erik Verlinde, a respected string theorist and professor of physics at U. of Amsterdam" claims that "gravity is an illusion." First, the Times article is misleading, and poorly written. Second, Verlinde is a string theorist, so I was immediately skeptical. Third, the Times article states that many physicists don't understand his paper.

So, I went to the source and read the paper. Ok, I lied, I just downloaded it, and I'm reading it now. BRB.

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Wow, this is a long paper, and I'm not sure I understand it.

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The background required to understand the paper includes the holographic principal and black hole physics; thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; and quantum field theory. I think I should read it again to figure out how to distill it for the masses (and understand it myself).

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Ok, here we go. Looks like I am going to need to break this post into three parts.

Part 1 - What is "Force?"

Before we talk about wether the force of gravity is an illusion, we need to understand what a force is. So, what is a force? Glad you asked.

In Star Wars, the force is a mysterious energy that surrounds us and penetrates us (in a non-sexual way). In physics, force is a push or a pull that causes an otherwise stationary body to undergo an acceleration.

Sir Issac Newton first formalized this with the second most famous formula in physics (can you name the first?) -

F=ma, or Force equals mass times acceleration.

What Newton did was describe the relationships between mass, force, and acceleration. From F=ma, Newton derived his Law of Gravity, but it gives no explanation to what or where those forces come from.

Scientists such as Gauss, Faraday, Maxwell, and Coulomb came along and derived similar equations for the Electromagnetic forces (the attractiveness and repulsiveness of charged particles such as electrons and protons).

Some time later, the Nuclear forces (how atomic nuclei stay together and how particles decay) were formalized into formulas.

Today, it is commonly held that there are Four Fundamental Forces in the 'verse -

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Weak Interaction
4. Strong Interaction

So, you might be asking yourself some questions. We have some formulas that tell us how much gravity causes a certain amount of movement on some mass, or how much electrons and protons like to hang out, but what is the force making them do this? How does it work?

It's easy to understand that if you hit a bottle of water with your hand, it's going to move. But these invisible forces don't seem to make much sense intuitively. This was a problem for a long time. Enter Quantum Field Theory. QFT holds that the fundamental forces work through messenger particles called gauge bosons: one fundamental particle exerts a force on another by sending over a few these gauge bosons; just like your hand smacking or grabbing the bottle of water.

Each of the fundamental forces have their own special types of gauge bosons and over the past fifty years or so, these messenger particles have been observed in experiments for all of the fundamental forces EXCEPT gravity. This is known in physics as The Standard Model.

Einstein refined and changed our view of Newton's gravity, but it still does not fit into The Standard Model. Not only have no Gravitons (the theoretical gauge boson for gravity) been observed, but attempts to even describe the graviton in terms of Quantum Field Theory leads to cooky non-sensical answers.

One of the biggest problems in physics today is that of Quantum Gravity. It just doesn't work. Many smart people are trying to figure this out - String Theorists, Quantum Loop Gravity Theorists, etc. No one has done it yet, and this is part of the reason that Verlinde has come to believe that gravity "doesn't exist." What he REALLY means, and the Times article does not state very well, is that Gravity is not a fundamental force (as described above) at all, but a byproduct of some other property of the Universe.

Take a deep breath. Stay tuned for my follow-ups, which will cover where Verlinde thinks gravity comes from in Part 2 - Thermodynamics and Black Holes, and Part 3 - What the Hell is the Gravity is an Illusion guy really saying.

I arrived late Friday due to a two hour wait at the Holland Tunnel, but NYC is the city that never sleeps, so food and drink where readily available. As best I can remember, Friday night hijinks with Mary followed this order - Hey! Wait! - I just remember I decided to try foursquare, and I can use that to reconstruct the evening -

1. Late dinner at Pacifico in Brooklyn. I had two tacos. Mary had the Talapia. Brooklyn is hot. And I don't mean that in a hip-hop way. So, I couldn't decide between a Margarita or a pitcher of Sangria. I got both.

2. Char No. 4. A whiskey bar. Much whiskey was had, including 2008 Middleton Very Rare, and a VERY strong Japanese whiskey called Karuizawa 1985. I coughed just by smelling it. After a sip, I looked up tasting notes on it. Turns out it is over 120 proof, so adding a little water seemed like a good idea. The water tamed it, and allowed the smokey flavors to shine.

3. Bar Great Harry for beer. An extensive beer list, but we stuck to the Red Nectar IPA.

4. Stumbled back to Mary's place where I threw up.

Saturday morning hangover wasn't too bad. We headed to Difara's for Pizza. Got there around noon, and waited 50 min for our pie. Worth it.

We then picked up the cake that Mary ordered on my behalf - it said "Happy Birthday Dawn Vinny. Had some time to kill before going to Dawn's so we went to see Inception. Excellent film! (I saw it again on Sunday night after driving home from NYC).

Dawn seemed sort of surprised to see me, but it was hard to tell because she was already drunk before the game even started. Long story short - Cake was enjoyed, Dawn got me some awesome birthday presents (Yankees Zippo and Yankees BBQ set), and I won the tourney.

I didn't do much to win the tourney. I build up a stack by taking down pots pre-flop mostly. There were only three really interesting hands I was involved with -

1. I raised with AQ, Dawn calls with JJ. Rags on the flop - check, check. Rag on the turn. Dawn bets, I call thinking she is trying to take the uncontested pot, and I plan on betting the River to push her out. Hit my queen on the River. I bet, Dawn calls. Ship it.

2. I raise with 8c9c. Dawn calls. Flop all crubs. I check, she bets, I call. Turn non-club. I bet big. She tanks. I tell her to fold if she wants to keep playing, and that her Ac isn't going to get there. She folds. (see how nice I am!)

3. Four players left. 3 spots pay. I have about 40-50K in chips. Remaining players (Alceste, KJ, Mary) are all short stacks. Mary pushes all-in. KJ pushes all-in. I look down and have a premium hand. I tank for a sec and try to figure out who has more chips (Mary or KJ). They think I'm considering my hand, but I'm not. I want to know who is getting 3rd place money if I call and bust them both. KJ realizes the same thing and they do a count. He has Mary by a small amount. Mary was kind enough to put me up for the weekend, so I folded my Aces. See how nice I am! Kearns wins anyway when his 99 holds against Mary's 66.

EDIT - 2.5. I played one hand blind from the porch when I took a smoke break. Called blind against Alceste. Flop comes crub-crub-Q. Start talking up the flop and Alceste bets. I plan on raising him, when Mary comes over and shows me my cards. I didn't plan on seeing them, but it presented an opportunity, so I go all-in. Alceste tanks and folds. I show AK.

I bust Alceste and KJ after a few hands.

Next morning, I consider hanging around to see Astin who is in town, but opt to get on the road. All-in-all, it was a Double Rainbow weekend.

SCIENCE!!!

So, in the honor of science, I'm starting Science Thursdays here at runner-runner-rebuy (hat tip jjok). So, if anyone still reads my never-updated blog, leave questions in the comments on Thursdays (or send me an email), and the follow Thursday post will try to answer them the best I can in layman's terms. Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy questions are preferred, but I'll do my best with the lesser sciences like Biology and Chemistry.

Do it for Science!!!

Busted out with top 2 versus straight, just after the first break.

It's been a nice long while since I've posted in any regular manner, or even played poker for that matter (more on that in a bit). A few weeks ago, I fired up FT and played the Mookie. It was fun, so I played again the next week. Then the BBT5 news broke. Seemed like perfect timing to get back in the game.

When word came down there was to be an invitational element to the BBT5, I was hopeful I would be invited as I had 3 Winter Gatherings, 1 BASH, 1.5 Eh, Vegas', and almost every BBT1-4 tourney under my belt. Alas, no invitation came. Feeling were hurt, but then, my feeling are easily hurt. I thought about it and realized that I can't even be properly called a poker blogger, since I haven't really done any blogging in a good year. So, I resolved to play the non-invitational events and not be so sensitive about the lack of invite.

I took down the first non-invitational event with relative ease. I only got into a few coinflips, and won them all. Flopped sets let me cruise to the final table, and patience there ultimately led to $500 in first place money, and a spot secured in the Tourney of Champions.

The invitational thing became an afterthought once the seat was secured, but I have been thinking about why I have dropped out of the blogging world for the past year. I even skipped last year's WSOP and Winter Gathering.

I've been in a funk, and I partially blamed poker. Rather, I've been blaming myself for a lot of things and playing poker reminds me of them. I've started this post dozens of times, and the words just never came. Maybe now is the time.

(15 min later)

Nope, not yet. Maybe soon. The good news is, I'm back.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! PokerStars.com is the home of Free Online Poker Games, bloggers can play for free in the exclusive WBCOOP tournament, register here to play: WBCOOP

Registration code: 001435

Live online draft on Sunday August 23rd, 3PM eastern (day/time negotiable). $100 for a team, top 3 pay (also negotiable).

Don't forget to check out my new football blog - 18 and No

On my way home the next day I stopped at DiFara's for a pie to eat on the ride. Good timing - only 2 people ahead of me. Order my pie and wait. Mine is up next and in swoops none other than Kevin Spacey who begins to argue that he never got his pie. They give him mine. It's ok, because of the argument, the pie was left in the oven a little to long and was a bit burnt. I got the next one and it was delicious.

This past sunday I went up to Seneca Niagara casino and proceeded to wreck house. I sat at 2-5 and just steamrolled the table, kicking 5 to the rail. The table broke and I had to go to 1-2. Broke that table too, and the next 2 as well. Finished a 3 hour session up 4500. Went to get smokes and stopped at roulette at the insistence of HAC (hot asian chick) who I had been talking to as she got bounced around to various tables with me.

Got 200 in nickels and placed $25 each on 22,23,13. First spin hit 22 for $875. Play 23 and 13 again. 23 hits for another $875. Play 13. 31 comes up. Try again, 13 hits for winner. 4 spins - $2625 (minus $100 in losses). Not bad. Color up, and the pit boss is furious. They comp me a room. They rest of the evening was excellent.

Hit the casino again last night. Tough table and after 6 hours of play I was just about even, so I called it a night. They are now rating in the poker room, so it wasn't a total loss.

It was also my birthday week, and I was on vacation, so much drinking and being depressed about 35 happened. HAC happened way back when I was 34, so it seems those days are behind me now.

Haven't been doing much online lately, but it looks like Bodog is going to be starting up a blogger tournament this fall. I'll probably be playing in that since the Bodog structures are so good.

Some emails have also been going around about the winter gathering already. A bit premature if you ask me, but I booked. See you all there.

New York Mets = Jenga. Every game ends with it all falling apart.

Cleveland Indians = Yahtzee. You never know what your going to get.

Pittsburgh Pirates = Sorry! Self Explanatory.

New England Partriots = Clue. Mr. Belichick, At the Opposing Team's Practice, with a Video Camera.

Chicago White Sox = Hungry Hungry Hippos. 7 Players over 240 lbs (thats 109 kilos for my canadian readers).

Congrats to all the bloggers who have kicked ass representn' - CK, LJ, Sprstoner - all kicking ass this year. GL to cmitch in the 2K.