TASI lectures on the Holographic Principle

Abstract

These TASI lectures review the Holographic principle. The first lecture describes the puzzle of black hole information loss that led to the idea of Black Hole Complementarity and subsequently to the Holographic Principle itself. The second lecture discusses the holographic entropy bound in general space-times. The final two lectures are devoted to the ADS/CFT duality as a special case of the principle. The presentation is self contained and emphasizes the physical principles. Very little technical knowledge of string theory or supergravity is assumed.