Physicist publishes new theory of GRAVITY - claiming it could be the start of a 'scientific revolution'

The new hypothesis suggests dark matter is an illusion, and gravity is a a side effect of the processes of the universe - not what's causing them 

Around 27% of the universe is thought to be made up of dark matter.
We can't actually see it (because it doesn't reflect light) but scientists believe it's there because it exerts a gravitational pull on the stuff we can see around it.
But now a new hypothesis, proposed by theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde, suggests that the gravitational forces previously attributed to dark matter could be explained in a completely different way.
"Our current ideas about space, time, and gravity urgently need to be re-thought," Verlinde told Dutch news site NOS .
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"Our findings are drastically changing, and I think that we are on the eve of a scientific revolution."
Verlinde, from the University of Amsterdam, points to the fact that scientists believe there's more gravity in our universe that can be produced by all the matter that we *can* see.
Therefore (they reckon) there must be something else that we can't see producing the extra gravity - what's known as dark matter.



But what if you take dark matter out of the equation altogether? That's what Verlinde is suggesting: gravity is a side effect of the processes of the universe and not what's causing them in the first place.
"Space has some atoms, those atoms you can think about as information that behaves quantum mechanically. And this is the origin of where gravity comes from."
So therefore there's no need for dark matter to exist in the universe because the excess gravity is being produced by the movements of subatomic particles. He believes that gravity is a product of the universe (similar to temperature) and not a fundamental force of nature.
Since dark matter has never been proven, what's to say that it's even there at all?

Verlinde's theory rests on quantum mechanics, the branch of physics that deals with the interaction of subatomic particles.
It's consistently failed to work cohesively with Einstein's theory of relativity which, at present, is our best description of how gravity works.
"We have long known that Einstein's theory of gravity can not work with quantum mechanics," Verlinde said.
"We have evidence that this new view of gravity actually agrees with the observations. At large scales, it seems, gravity just doesn't behave the way Einstein's theory predicts."

If all this talk leaves you scratching your head a bit, then you're not alone. Verlinde is one of several theoretical physicists working to try and better understand how gravity affects (and is affected by) our universe.
They'll still have some way to go to oust Einstein, though. The acclaimed scientist had his idea of gravitational waves proved earlier this year - 100 years after he made the prediction.