Abstract
'Holographic' relations between theories have become an important theme
in quantum gravity research. These relations entail that a theory
without gravity is equivalent to a gravitational theory with an extra
spatial dimension. The idea of holography was first proposed in 1993 by
Gerard 't Hooft on the basis of his studies of evaporating black holes.
Soon afterwards the holographic 'AdS/CFT' duality was introduced, which
since has been intensively studied in the string theory community and
beyond. Recently, Erik Verlinde has proposed that even Newton's law of
gravitation can be related holographically to the 'thermodynamics of
information' on screens. We discuss these scenarios, with special
attention to the status of the holographic relation in them and to the
question of whether they make gravity and spacetime emergent. We
conclude that only Verlinde's scheme straightforwardly instantiates
emergence. However, assuming a non-standard interpretation of AdS/CFT
may create room for the emergence of spacetime and gravity there as
well.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 203-216 |
Journal | Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics |
Volume | 52 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Nov 2015 |
Keywords
- Holography
- Duality
- Quantum gravity
- Emergence