Is Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation an entropic gravity?

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The theory that describes gravity as an entropic force seems to have emerged hundreds of years ago.
In 2011, a paper titled On the origin of gravity and the laws of Newton was published in the Journal of High Energy Physics, which described gravity as an entropic force based on the entropy of black holes and the holographic principle.

This idea was subsequently named "entropic gravity".

In 2013, a paper titled Gravity from quantum information was published in the Journal of the Korean Physical Society, which reproduced entropic gravity based on the entropy of entanglement and Landauer's principle.

This implies that entropic gravity has a quantuminformation theoretic origin.

But it is well known that the concept of entropy was originally proposed based on the thermodynamics of gases.

It stands to reason that entropic gravity should also be deduced from the entropy of gases.

However, trying to deduce entropic gravity from the entropy of a gas would seem to lead back to Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation, which was proposed hundreds of years ago.

Just like the kinetic theory of gases treats a gas as composed of numerous particles, Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation posits that gravity is the result of tiny particles (or corpuscles) moving at high speed in all directions, throughout the universe.

Intuitively, entropic gravity deduced from the entropy of a black hole and Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation are both related to surface area and face many similar gravitational and thermodynamic problems.

But this intuitive commonality is not enough to constitute a reason for Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation to be related to entropic gravity, just as it is considered a coincidence that the same gravitational radius as the general theory of relativity is derived from Newton's law of universal gravitation.

However, the shared statistical nature of Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and the kinetic theory of gases seems to allow that Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation is intrinsically related to entropic gravity rather than being a mere intuitive coincidence.

That being said, Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation also needs to be modified to be consistent with modern physics, even though Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation may be essentially related to entropic gravity.

In this regard, although Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation has encountered various problems since its proposal and has gradually lost interest as the centuries have passed, there are still a few papers that combine or link it with modern physics and publish them in journals with peer review mechanisms and covered by SCI.

In 2014, a paper titled Gravity from refraction of CMB photons using the optical-mechanical analogy in general relativity was published in Astrophysics and Space Science, which developed a Le Sage-type gravity model and stated that if gravitons are viewed as waves within the spacetime metric in general relativity, then one possibility in the optical-mechanical analogy is that gravitons comprise the optical medium.

In 2023, a paper titled Emergent Gravity Simulations for Schwarzschild–de Sitter Scenarios was published in Foundations, which identifies the constituents of space-time with gravitons and borrowed entropic gravity to enable graviton-level simulations of entire emergent gravitational systems.

The contents of Emergent Gravity Simulations for Schwarzschild–de Sitter Scenarios and Gravity from refraction of CMB photons using the optical-mechanical analogy in general relativity seem to be consistent.

In 2025, a paper titled Instantaneous correlations of Shannon’s big data in nonlocal cosmos is published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, which describes the connection between quantum information and the corpuscles of Fatio and Le Sage and seems to be linked to Gravity from quantum information.

Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and entropic gravity seem to be consistent, but the academic research on Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation or entropic gravity has never seen a formal intersection between the two.

The only intersection between the two in journals with peer review mechanisms and covered by SCI seems to be a paper titled Billiards and Toy Gravitons published in the Journal of Statistical Physics, and the relationship between the two is still not clearly stated.

Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and entropic gravity seem to be essentially related, but there is almost no intersection between the two in academic research, which prompted me to ask:

Is Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation an entropic gravity?


(Extend: In 2004, a paper titled Gravity as Archimedes’ Thrust and a Bifurcation in that Theory was published in Foundations of Physics, in which the micro-ether seemed to be no different from the corpuscles in Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and to be consistent with Emergent Gravity Simulations for Schwarzschild–de Sitter Scenarios and Gravity from refraction of CMB photons using the optical-mechanical analogy in general relativity.)
 
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No. Le Sage’s theory contradicts the evidence, while entropic gravity does not. So they make different predictions and are therefore not the same.
 
  • #4
Jerome Wang said:
I don't think that I would bother explaining either of those.

Foundations is a MDPI journal, and they are a predatory publisher that I refuse to support or engage with due to their unethical practices. It is not indexed by the Clarivate MJL and not an acceptable source per PhysicsForums policy.

Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences is a journal with a 0.6 scimago score. While it is indexed in the Clarivate MJL and not something that we categorically reject, I personally do not consider it a credible source.

Le Sage gravity is long disproved. If you wish to claim that entropic gravity is the same as Le Sage gravity, then you are saying that entropic gravity is already falsified. I don't think that is correct, but no association with Le Sage gravity can be beneficial to entropic gravity as a theory.
 
  • #5
Dale said:
I don't think that I would bother explaining either of those.

Foundations is a MDPI journal, and they are a predatory publisher that I refuse to support or engage with due to their unethical practices. It is not indexed by the Clarivate MJL and not an acceptable source per PhysicsForums policy.

Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences is a journal with a 0.6 scimago score. While it is indexed in the Clarivate MJL and not something that we categorically reject, I personally do not consider it a credible source.

Le Sage gravity is long disproved. If you wish to claim that entropic gravity is the same as Le Sage gravity, then you are saying that entropic gravity is already falsified. I don't think that is correct, but no association with Le Sage gravity can be beneficial to entropic gravity as a theory.
What about references 5, 12, and 18 cited in the first paragraph of Section 6 of Billiards and Toy Gravitons mentioned above?
 
  • #6
Jerome Wang said:
What about references 5, 12, and 18 cited in the first paragraph of Section 6 of Billiards and Toy Gravitons mentioned above?
I only have access to the abstract, but the abstract seems highly problematic. It studies a 1D problem and finds a potential that would be appropriate for a 3D space.

Again, if you do manage to show that Le Sage gravity is equivalent to entropic gravity, then you will falsify entropic gravity. Is that your goal?
 
  • #8
Dale said:
I only have access to the abstract, but the abstract seems highly problematic. It studies a 1D problem and finds a potential that would be appropriate for a 3D space.

Again, if you do manage to show that Le Sage gravity is equivalent to entropic gravity, then you will falsify entropic gravity. Is that your goal?
renormalize said:
At least in the version on arXiv (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1808.10547), that paper doesn't even have a section 6.
Whether Le Sage gravity is equal to entropic gravity never affects whether entropic gravity is falsified or not, as independently derived in Surfaces away from horizons are not thermodynamic.

[Moderator's note: attachment containing copyrighted material deleted.]
 
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  • #9
Jerome Wang said:
whether Le Sage gravity is equal to entropic gravity never affects whether entropic gravity is falsified or not
It does.

Le Sage gravity is falsified. So if entropic gravity can be shown to be equivalent to Le Sage gravity then it necessarily makes the same experimental predictions. So then the same evidence that falsifies Le Sage gravity would equivalently falsify entropic gravity.

That is the way science works.
 
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  • #10
Jerome Wang said:
My academic institution happens to have access to Billiards and Toy Gravitons, so I provide the archive here:
Thanks for posting the article (although I don't know what Springer Publishing would have to say about you doing so).
Alas, the paper's last two lines aren't very encouraging:
"LeSage’s theory is known to have several problems, as a physical theory of gravity, which probably are shared with our model. However, the theoretical study of this system and more complete versions could, hopefully, shed some light into the dark universe."
 
  • #11
renormalize said:
Thanks for posting the article (although I don't know what Springer Publishing would have to say about you doing so).
Alas, the paper's last two lines aren't very encouraging:
"LeSage’s theory is known to have several problems, as a physical theory of gravity, which probably are shared with our model. However, the theoretical study of this system and more complete versions could, hopefully, shed some light into the dark universe."
Dale said:
It does.

Le Sage gravity is falsified. So if entropic gravity can be shown to be equivalent to Le Sage gravity then it necessarily makes the same experimental predictions. So then the same evidence that falsifies Le Sage gravity would equivalently falsify entropic gravity.

That is the way science works.
What I am discussing is whether Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and entropic gravity are related, that is, the relationship between references 5, 12 and 18 in Billiards and Toy Gravitons.

As for the contradiction between Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation or entropic gravity and other modern physics, that is another issue.
 
  • #12
Jerome Wang said:
As for the contradiction between Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation or entropic gravity and other modern physics, that is another issue.
The issue isn’t contradiction with other modern physics. The issue is contradiction with observations and experimental evidence.
 
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renormalize said:
Thanks for posting the article (although I don't know what Springer Publishing would have to say about you doing so).
The attachment has been deleted to avoid any such issues. @Jerome Wang you can provide a link, but that's all.
 
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PeterDonis said:
The attachment has been deleted to avoid any such issues. @Jerome Wang you can provide a link, but that's all.
Sorry about that.
 
  • #15
Dale said:
The issue isn’t contradiction with other modern physics. The issue is contradiction with observations and experimental evidence.
What observational and experimental evidence?
 
  • #17
Dale said:
See the section on Predictions and Criticisms here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Sage's_theory_of_gravitation
As mentioned before, the contradiction between Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and modern physics is another issue.

What is discussed here is whether Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and entropic gravity are related.
 
  • #18
Jerome Wang said:
As mentioned before, the contradiction between Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and modern physics is another issue.

What is discussed here is whether Fatio–Le Sage's theory of gravitation and entropic gravity are related.
I don’t think that you can bring in a falsified theory of gravity, and reasonably expect that the fact that it has been falsified would not be a major part of the discussion.

Do you recognize that Le Sage gravity is falsified? If so, what is your intent in establishing a relationship between it and entropic gravity? Are you also trying to discredit entropic gravity?
 
  • #19
Dale said:
I don’t think that you can bring in a falsified theory of gravity, and reasonably expect that the fact that it has been falsified would not be a major part of the discussion.

Do you recognize that Le Sage gravity is falsified? If so, what is your intent in establishing a relationship between it and entropic gravity? Are you also trying to discredit entropic gravity?
Le Sage's theory of gravitation has deep roots in kinetic theory of gases, and this is also the reason why Le Sage's theory of gravitation rekindled the interest of people such as Kelvin and Maxwell in the latter half of the 19th century.

On the other hand, the relationship between entropy and kinetic theory of gases is even more well-known.

The kinetic theory of gases makes Le Sage's theory and entropic gravity should be intrinsically related, as I originally stated.

This is not a discredit to entropic gravity.
 
  • #20
How is this related to the special or the general theory of relativity?
 
  • #21
Jerome Wang said:
The kinetic theory of gases makes Le Sage's theory and entropic gravity should be intrinsically related, as I originally stated.

This is not a discredit to entropic gravity.
It absolutely is of great concern to entropic gravity. If there is such a link to a falsified theory then it opens the door to falsification through the same experimental evidence that falsifies Le Sage gravity.

Every new theory must be compared to the existing experimental evidence, entropic gravity is not exempt. One way to do so is to show how a new theory relates to previous theories.

For example, it was important to show that GR reduces to Newtonian gravity in the applicable limit of GR. Doing so meant that GR was consistent with all of the observations that support Newtonian gravity. But it also meant that the GR predictions needed to be checked where Newtonian gravity failed, such as the orbit of Mercury. GR’s divergence from Newtonian gravity regarding Mercury was one of the major early successes of the theory. GR needed to match Newtonian gravity where Newtonian gravity matched observation, and where Newtonian gravity did not match observation GR needed to diverge from Newtonian gravity in the right way to match observation.

So new theories that are related to an existing theory need to show that they match the existing theory in the domain where it is known to match observations and diverge from the existing theory in the domain where it is known to diverge from observation. Since Le Sage gravity diverges so much from observation, this possible association with it can only be harmful for entropic gravity.

The fact that you won’t even acknowledge that Le Sage gravity is falsified is quite telling. You are trying to rehabilitate Le Sage gravity, not critically examine entropic gravity. That isn’t how science works.
 
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  • #22
Just a quick comment since I haven't read the links and the thread might be closed.
Dale said:
Le Sage’s theory contradicts the evidence, while entropic gravity does not.
Actually entropic gravity doesn't work either.

But from a purely theoretical, perhaps even mathematical point of view, I am curious whether "entropic Le Sage gravity" makes sense in any form. Carroll and Remmen make a useful distinction between two approaches to entropic gravity, what they call holographic gravity and thermodynamic gravity.

"Holographic gravity" is exemplified by string theory and AdS/CFT, and even by the way that black hole entropy relates to the surface rather than the volume, and it's the way to relate gravity and entropy of which they approve. On the other hand they can't get "thermodynamic gravity" to work.

Oddly enough, Verlinde's entropic gravity is actually of the holographic kind (since space emerges along with gravity), but as my first link demonstrates, it has severe problems; whereas Jacobson's thermodynamic gravity actually seems to work in some sense. (It's years since I thought about this and I don't remember if I ever arrived at an opinion as to how this all adds up.)

Now, modern theorists have studied umpteen different variations of gravity. Many of these seem to have no chance of applying to the real world, but mathematically have some of these exotic properties that real gravity might have, e.g. holographic duality. So if I was trying to explore whether "entropic Le Sage gravity" makes sense, one thing I would try to understand is whether Le Sage gravity belongs to any of our modern families of generalized gravitational theories, or whether it is in a class all of its own.

Thinking very naively in terms of AdS/CFT, Le Sage gravity reminds me more of the non-gravitational side of the duality. For example, one form of AdS/CFT duality identifies a black hole in the AdS space, with a generalized quark-gluon plasma in the boundary CFT. (The thermal state of the plasma maps in some way to the thermal microstates of the black hole that lie behind Bekenstein-Hawking black hole thermodynamics.) The Le Sage model is all about pressure, right? An object being pushed around by lots of small impacts? That just reminds me of the plasma. So I don't know if that's a clue to how you could have holographic Le Sage gravity... But that's all I've got for now.
 
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  • #23
martinbn said:
How is this related to the special or the general theory of relativity?
This concerns the consistency between relativity and thermodynamics.
 
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  • #24
Jerome Wang said:
This concerns the consistency between relativity and thermodynamics.
How does a disproven theory concern the consistency between relativity and thermodynamics!
 
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From wikipedia, Le Sage's theory: "The theory presupposes the existence of an isotropic space fully occupied by particles (corpuscles) or waves. These move in a straight line with high speeds in all directions. When one of these corpuscles encounters a body, it transmits its momentum to it. If only If a body "A" is present, it is the object of a balanced pressure, that is, due to the pressure exerted on it from all directions, it is in equilibrium and consequently there is no displacement (P1). If, however, we were also in the presence of a body "B", this would act as a screen, since fewer particles would arrive from the direction of B towards A than from the other directions. An analogous phenomenon occurs with respect to body "A". Consequently, A and B "shadow" each other, shielding each other (P2) and for this reason there is a net pressure from the respective sides. This creates an apparent "force of attraction" in the direction of the opposite body. The theory thus excludes the concept of attractive force and thus belongs to the category of theories based on pressure or kinetic explanations of gravitation. If the collisions between body A and the particles were perfectly elastic, the intensity of the reflected particles would be equal to that of those arriving, which would result in the absence of force in the direction of A. The same would happen in the presence of a second body B acting as a screen with respect to the particles in the direction of A. The particles that "bounce" between bodies A and B would completely eliminate the aforementioned screen effect. Thus, for the gravitational effect between bodies to be possible, it must be assumed that the kinetic energy of the particles is totally or partially absorbed or that they are modified in such a way that their momentum is reduced after collisions: only then will the momentum of the arriving particles can exceed the momentum of the reflected ones (P3).

Le Sage baptized his gravitational particles "corpuscules ultramondains" (otherworldly corpuscles), because he thought that they came from outside the known universe. The distribution of such a current would be unusual isotropic and the laws of its diffusion would be similar to those of light."


I wouldn't know how to qualify Le Sage's theory...it seems like Newtonian quantum gravity, a Newtonian graviton or something like that, which also makes some assumptions very far from what is understood in QM today. That a theory corresponds to La Sage's theory is no cause for joy, as Dale rightly points out.
 
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  • #26
mitchell porter said:
So if I was trying to explore whether "entropic Le Sage gravity" makes sense, one thing I would try to understand is whether Le Sage gravity belongs to any of our modern families of generalized gravitational theories, or whether it is in a class all of its own.
javisot20 said:
Le Sage baptized his gravitational particles "corpuscules ultramondains" (otherworldly corpuscles), because he thought that they came from outside the known universe. The distribution of such a current would be unusual isotropic and the laws of its diffusion would be similar to those of light."

I wouldn't know how to qualify Le Sage's theory...it seems like Newtonian quantum gravity, a Newtonian graviton or something like that, which also makes some assumptions very far from what is understood in QM today.
Whether Le Sage gravity and entropic gravity are related also has implications for analog models of gravity and interpretation of general relativity, such as those I mentioned in "Does Gravity Criticism in Maxwell's Equations Apply to All Gravity-Medium Analogies?".

Some analog models of gravity related to condensed matter physics may be essentially successors to Le Sage gravity.

(Off topic: If both the elastic analog models and fluid analog models of gravity are valid, it seems to recall the caloric theory on which Carnot's theorem was originally based)
 
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  • #27
martinbn said:
How does a disproven theory concern the consistency between relativity and thermodynamics!
I'm still working my way through the 25 external references in the original post!
 
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Jerome Wang said:
This concerns the consistency between relativity and thermodynamics.
Nonsense. A relativistic theory of thermodynamics stands or falls on its own completely irrespective of whether or not entropic gravity is in any way related to Le Sage gravity. The two discussions have nothing to do with each other.

Do you recognize that Le Sage gravity has been experimentally falsified?
 
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  • #29
Jerome Wang said:
Some analog models of gravity related to condensed matter physics may be essentially successors to Le Sage gravity
And that would be a big problem for those theories. They would need to show how the evidence that falsifies Le Sage gravity does not falsify the new theories.

And, given that they are neither derived from Le Sage nor experimentally equivalent to Le Sage, labeling them as a “successor” seems highly suspect. Specifically, it would make one suspect that the person making such a tenuous association is a crackpot trying to resurrect a falsified theory under a new name.

Do you accept that Le Sage gravity has been experimentally falsified?
 
  • #30
Dale said:
Do you recognize that Le Sage gravity has been experimentally falsified?
Dale said:
Do you accept that Le Sage gravity has been experimentally falsified?
Just as other gravitational theories based on space-time geometry before general relativity, including of course all the attempts made by the author of general relativity, are falsified theories, Le Sage gravity is certainly a falsified theory.

However, just as the falsification of other gravitational theories that are also based on space-time geometry does not mean that general relativity is falsified, the falsification of Le Sage gravity does not mean that any modifications and developments related to Le Sage gravity are falsified.

That is the way science works.
 
  • #31
A critique in Spanish of Verlinde's entropic gravity, (can be translated) https://francis.naukas.com/2017/12/23/inconsistencias-de-la-gravedad-entropica-de-verlinde/

The summary is that on the one hand we have a Newtonian theory type MOND (entropic gravity) and on the other hand we have a Newtonian graviton theory (Le Sage), and you want to know if they correspond. I understand that your doubt from a theoretical point of view may be interesting, but no one invests time in proving that wrong corresponds to wrong.

Needless to say, none of this corresponds to relativity.
 
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  • #32
Jerome Wang said:
Le Sage gravity is certainly a falsified theory
Excellent. I am glad you recognize that.

Jerome Wang said:
However, just as the falsification of other gravitational theories that are also based on space-time geometry does not mean that general relativity is falsified, the falsification of Le Sage gravity does not mean that any modifications and developments related to Le Sage gravity are falsified.
True, but insofar as they are not falsified, they must prove that they differ from Le Sage gravity. And we certainly don’t name successful theories after the creator of an earlier falsified theory.

This association only increases the skepticism towards entropic gravity. It does not justify Le Sage gravity.
 
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  • #33
javisot20 said:
A critique in Spanish of Verlinde's entropic gravity, (can be translated) https://francis.naukas.com/2017/12/23/inconsistencias-de-la-gravedad-entropica-de-verlinde/

The summary is that on the one hand we have a Newtonian theory type MOND (entropic gravity) and on the other hand we have a Newtonian graviton theory (Le Sage), and you want to know if they correspond. I understand that your doubt from a theoretical point of view may be interesting, but no one invests time in proving that wrong corresponds to wrong.

Needless to say, none of this corresponds to relativity.
Dale said:
This association only increases the skepticism towards entropic gravity. It does not justify Le Sage gravity.
Taking into account Milky Way could invalidate the hypothesis of exotic matter and favor a gravitomagnetic solution to explain dark matter and Supernovae evidence for foundational change to cosmological models, the part of this criticism based on the dark universe is not robust, while the robust part is whether it is consistent with itself and whether it can be consistent with general relativity.

However, even the criticism of the consistency of entropic gravity itself and whether it is compatible with general relativity is also seriously problematic, because Gravity from quantum information is based on ordinary quantum field theory in curved spacetime rather than Verlinde's method.

Stepping back, even without considering Gravity from quantum information, the failure of Verlinde's entropic gravity means it is necessary to re-examine the holographic principle and black hole thermodynamics.
 
  • #34
Jerome Wang said:
Taking into account Milky Way could invalidate the hypothesis of exotic matter and favor a gravitomagnetic solution to explain dark matter and Supernovae evidence for foundational change to cosmological models, the part of this criticism based on the dark universe is not robust, while the robust part is whether it is consistent with itself and whether it can be consistent with general relativity.

However, even the criticism of the consistency of entropic gravity itself and whether it is compatible with general relativity is also seriously problematic, because Gravity from quantum information is based on ordinary quantum field theory in curved spacetime rather than Verlinde's method.

Stepping back, even without considering Gravity from quantum information, the failure of Verlinde's entropic gravity means it is necessary to re-examine the holographic principle and black hole thermodynamics.
At this point we're well off the thread topic, and this post is just personal opinion. That's not conducive to productive discussion. Thread closed.
 
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