Go with the flow, average holographic universe

Abstract

Gravity is a macroscopic manifestation of a microscopic quantum theory of spacetime, just as the theories of elasticity and hydrodynamics are the macroscopic manifestations of the underlying quantum theory of atoms. The connection between gravitation and thermodynamics is long and deep. The observation that spacetime has a temperature for accelerating observers and horizons is direct evidence that there are underlying microscopic degrees of freedom. The equipartition of energy, the meaning of temperature, in these modes leads one to anticipate that there is also an entropy associated. When this entropy is maximized on a volume of spacetime, then one retrieves the metric of spacetime (i.e. the equations of gravity, e.g. general relativity). Since the metric satisfies the extremum in entropy on the volume, then the volume integral of the entropy can readily be converted to surface integral, via Gauss's Theorem. This surface integral is simply an integral of the macroscopic entropy flow producing the mean entropy holographic principle. This approach also has the added value that it naturally dispenses with the cosmological constant/vacuum energy problem in gravity except perhaps for second-order quantum effects on the mean surface entropy. © 2010 World Scientific Publishing Company.