In 2009, Erik Verlinde proposed a conceptual model that describes gravity as an entropic force. He argues (similar to Jacobson's result) that gravity is a consequence of the "information associated with the positions of material bodies". This model combines the thermodynamic approach to gravity with Gerard 't Hooft 's holographic principle. It implies that 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."