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Springer Handbook of Spacetime pp 213–242Cite as

Gravity and Spacetime: An Emergent Perspective

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Abstract

Classical general relativity treats spacetime as a continuum just as fluid dynamics treats a fluid as a continuum. Boltzmann was the first to emphasize that the thermal phenomena exhibited by a fluid – e. g., its ability to retain and transfer heat – implies the existence of microstructure. Today we know of several examples of spacetimes that exhibit thermal phenomena, which raises the following questions: Could it be that spacetime itself has a microstructure and classical gravity is just the thermodynamic limit of the statistical mechanics of these atoms of spacetime? If so, does classical gravity show evidence of this feature? Several recent results suggest that this could indeed be the case. This article describes the context, concrete results, and implications of this approach which views gravity as an emergent phenomenon.

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Abbreviations

CMBR:

cosmic microwave background radiation

FFF:

freely falling frame

FRW:

Friedmann–Robertson–Walker

GR:

general relativity

LRF:

local Rindler frame

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pune University Campus, IUCAA, 411 007, Pune, India

    Thanu Padmanabhan

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  1. Thanu Padmanabhan
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Correspondence to Thanu Padmanabhan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, 16802, University Park, PA, USA

    Abhay Ashtekar

  2. Institute for Foundational Studies Hermann Minkowski, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Vesselin Petkov

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Padmanabhan, T. (2014). Gravity and Spacetime: An Emergent Perspective. In: Ashtekar, A., Petkov, V. (eds) Springer Handbook of Spacetime. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41992-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41992-8_12

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