A quarter of a century ago, physicist Juan Maldasena proposed the AdS/CFT correspondence, an interesting holographic connection between gravity in the three-dimensional universe and quantum physics at the two-dimensional limit of the universe. These correspondences are only hypothetical at this stage, even a quarter of a century after Maldacena’s discovery.

A statement that appears to be true about the nature of the universe, but has not yet been proven to actually reflect the reality we live in. At best, it has limited utility and application to the real universe. However, even the appearance of the correspondence is more than thought-provoking. This shows that there is something very fundamental going on in the hologram, that the physics of the volume of the universe can simply be translated into physics at the surface, and that there is still something to learn.

It is another thing to make physics problems easier to solve by formulating them in a new language, or even in new dimensions. After all, physics is full of mathematical tricks and games that practitioners use to solve complex problems and move on to the next problem. But the AdS/CFT correspondence and the more general holographic principle it represents are much more than a mathematical curiosity.

Remember, the point here is to describe gravity, which we’ve thought of for centuries as just another force of nature, another interaction that beings in space can use to interact with each other. But gravity, beyond quantum elasticity, is separate and unique among all forces.

Gravity is the only force radiated and felt by every being in the universe. Everything that has mass and energy creates a gravitational force around it. Likewise, everything that has mass, everything that has energy, everything we call being reacts to this gravitational effect.

Kepler was right when he noticed something special in the movements of celestial bodies and related these movements to our lives on Earth. Newton was right to call this the force, an invisible set of ties that bind all of creation together. Einstein was right to explain gravity not in terms of push and pull, but in terms of the fabric of space-time.

The holographic principle applied to the surface of a black hole and its mysterious contents, or the relationship between string theory and quantum physics, also tells us important things about gravity. But Einstein had already taught us what gravity is; it is not just a force, but a natural response that we living creatures experience when we encounter the folds and wrinkles of space-time.

Gravity is the space-time platform on which we all reside. Another name for the general theory of relativity is geometrodynamics, which is the dynamics of geometry. Gravity means the merging of space, time, matter and energy into a single breathing, energetic system. What we call the universe is simply a container for all these activities, the entire expanse of space, the depth of time and the complexity that fills it.

We have not found a quantized theory of gravity. We have no explanation for what actually happens at the edge of a black hole. But during our quantum excursions, we realized that three-dimensional physical entities are not quite what they seem. They are indeed smaller: black holes can only really be described by their surfaces, boundaries and edges, not their exact size.

And when we apply the same chain of reasoning that holography is a vital component of the quantum gravity puzzle, the potential path to AdS/CFT coherence and string theory victory emerges.