STellar Astrophysics & Relativity research cluster/Physics Department seminar
THERMODYNAMICS OF SPACETIME
Dr. Valerio Faraoni
Physics Department
Bishop's University
Friday, September 24, 2010
1.30-2.30 pm
Nicolls 315
There are many attempts to quantize gravity and combine the two great creations of 20th century physics, Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. In Jacobson's thermodynamics of spacetime, the law of classical gravity-the Einstein equation-is derived entirely from the thermodynamics of the causal (Rindler) horizons of locally freely-falling observers, in the spirit of the emergent gravity approach. The Einstein equation emerges as a collective average property, similar to an equation of state in hydrodynamics, and classical gravity is only defined in a statistical sense. Then, it makes no sense to quantize the Einstein equation.
