Stories Aren't Physics, but the Universe Has a Story to Tell

Usually, it's told in math. but not today.

Someone once said that we tell ourselves interesting stories about what the math means, but the stories aren’t physics. The math is physics. A major philosophical approach to physics is known as shut-up-and-do-the-math. Great minds no longer ponder what’s happening behind the quantum veil; they no longer consider it a worthy pursuit. It’s fitting, then, that Max Tegmark has proposed the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, stating that the universe itself is math, and when I first heard of this theory, I thought of quantum mechanics at a Planck length. As a proton is to the size of the universe, so the Planck length is to the size of a proton. It is the length below which it’s impossible to retrieve any information. It is smaller than any wavelength of light, and the infinite power required to examine anything so small would result in the creation of a black hole. Physicists describe anything beyond that level as quantum foam, information popping in and out of existence, the “qubits” that become the computational ingredients of the universe.

In the empty space between galaxies, those qubits fill the volume of space, achieving maximum entropy, which in quantum mechanics refers to informational density. This density of information in what we see as empty space expands the volume of space. We call that information dark energy.

By contrast, according to something known as the Holographic Principle, massive objects don’t draw information into their volume but onto their surface area, and a recent hypothesis by Erik Verlinde tells us that from this quantum entropy, gravity emerges. Einstein’s General Relativity told us that mass curves spacetime, creating our experience of gravity, but Relativity doesn’t tell us how this happens. Theories have been sought that would produce gravity as a fundamental force alongside electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, but in Verlinde’s theory of Entropic Gravity, gravity isn’t one of the fundamental forces but rather emerges from them.

In standard cosmology, we have both dark energy (expanding the universe) and dark matter (holding the outer edges of galaxies together), but in the Entropic Gravity hypothesis, dark energy isn’t a smooth, repulsive fluid but (as described above) the fundamental microscopic data of the universe. Dark matter is done away with entirely. In its place, matter and dark energy interact with the bordering spacetime between them, creating the elasticity needed to keep the outermost systems in place. In these areas, Entropic Gravity offers solutions that Relativity cannot, but under the right circumstances, from the computations of Entropic Gravity, the equations of General Relativity emerge.

David Mermin coined the phrase “shut up and do the math.” Max Tegmark proposed the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis. Max Planck determined the Planck length. Leonard Susskind and Gerard ‘t Hooft developed the Holographic Principle within String Theory, and Erik Verlinde proposed Entropic Gravity.

In early 2026, the James Webb Space Telescope mapped a web of interconnected clumps of dark matter, the very substance Entropic Gravity calls illusory. It accomplished this by measuring how dark matter’s gravity warps the light of background galaxies. In standard cosmology it’s explained as a network of real, physical particles, yet undiscovered. Entropic Gravity describes this gravitational web as the strain imposed upon bordering spacetime by the interaction of matter and quantum information.

The outer arms of a galaxy are an example of a low-acceleration zone, which is one of those areas Relativity cannot explain without the addition of a mass we cannot see. Entropic Gravity, however, can.

Does this prove Entropic Gravity? No. These are all open questions, but my intent is not to prove which is the correct interpretation of the universe. Instead, this is the opening of the interesting story I wish to share about the math we call physics.

— Thaddeus Thomas

P.S. All corrections are welcome.

I have no idea how soon or how long it will be before the next entry in this series. The opening to this essay has been gnawing at me for days, and now my mind can move on to other things.

I have no background in any of this, but its something I ponder before going to bed. For a while, I’ve thought that the best way to continue my informal studies is to write about them, and so the writing has begun. Hopefully, there will be interest in seeing it continue.

Find all my essays on physics here.