Coulomb Force as an Entropic Force

Motivated by Verlinde's theory of entropic gravity, we give a tentative explanation to Coulomb's law with an entropic force. When trying to do this, we find the equipartition rule should be extended to charges and the concept of temperature should be reinterpreted. If one accepts the holographic principle as well as our generalizations and reinterpretations, then Coulomb's law, the Poisson equation and the Maxwell equations can be derived smoothly. Our attempt can be regarded as a new way to unify the electromagnetic force with gravity, from the entropic origin. Possibly some of our postulates are related to the D-brane picture of black hole thermodynamics.Comment: discussion and bibliography update

Cosmic Steps in Modeling Dark Energy

The past and recent data analyses gave some hints of steps in dark energy. Considering the dark energy as a dynamical scalar field, we investigate several models with various steps: a step in the scalar potential, a step in the kinetic term, a step in the energy density and a step in the equation-of-state parameter w. These toy models provide a workable mechanism to generate steps and features of dark energy. Remarkably, a single real scalar can cross w=-1 dynamically with a step in the kinetic term.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, structure improved, reference added, results unchange

Regimes and Resilience in the Modern Global Food System

Much public discourse surrounding the modern global food system operates on the assumption of the primary agency of individual consumers in ensuring an equitable and sustainable food supply. However, this approach fails to account for the larger structural forces of the system which frame the limits of how we interact with and are affected by our food system. Taking a closer look at the global economic, political, cultural, and environmental forces that have collectively shaped historical food regimes reveals the deeper structural patterns that currently determine how we produce, distribute, and consume food around the world. Due to the underlying structural processes of increasing distancing and standardization, we have become highly disembedded from our food system and will need to look for clues from past periods of transition between food regimes to better position ourselves to work towards a global restructuring of, and human reembedding in, the modern global food system