Beyond Black Holes
Hawking and Page have shown that black hole thermodynamics is more general than black holes, that cosmological event horizons also have an entropy and temperature.
More fundamentally, 't Hooft and Susskind used the laws of black hole thermodynamics to argue for a general Holographic Principle of nature, which asserts that consistent theories of gravity and quantum mechanics must be lower dimensional. Though not yet fully understood in general, the holographic principle is central to theories like the AdS/CFT correspondence.
Read more about this topic: Black Hole Thermodynamics
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