"Over the last decade the physics of black holes has been revolutionized by developments that grew out of Jacob Bekenstein's realization that black holes have entropy. This revolution has culminated in a remarkable principle called "the holographic principle," which is now a major focus of attention in gravitational research, quantum field theory and elementary particle physics. Leonard Susskind, one of the co-inventors of the holographic principle as well as one of the founders of string theory, develops and explains these concepts."--BOOK JACKET.