The hypothesis of gravity being an entropic force, also called entropic gravity, has a history that goes back to research on black hole thermodynamics by Bekenstein and Hawking in the mid-1970s. These studies suggest a deep connection between gravity and thermodynamics, which describes the behavior of heat and gases. In 1995, Jacobson demonstrated that the Einstein equations describing relativistic gravitation can be derived by combining general thermodynamic considerations with the equivalence principle.[1] Subsequently, other physicists began to explore links between gravity and entropy.[2]In 2009, Erik Verlinde disclosed a conceptual theory that describes gravity as an entropic force.[3] On January 6, 2010 he published a preprint of a 29 page paper titled "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton".[4] Reversing the logic of over 300 years, it argued that gravity is a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. This theory combines the thermodynamic approach to gravity with Gerardus 't Hooft's holographic principle. If proven correct, this implies gravity is not a fundamental interaction, but an emergent phenomenon which arises from the statistical behavior of microscopic degrees of freedom encoded on a holographic screen. The paper drew a variety of responses from the scientific community. Andrew Strominger, a string theorist at Harvard said “Some people have said it can’t be right, others that it’s right and we already knew it — that it’s right and profound, right and trivial."[5]