In theoretical physics, important new results have often been found by realising that two different concepts are related to each other at a deep and fundamental level. Examples of such relations are dualities which relate two seemingly different quantum theories to each other by stating that the theories are in fact equivalent. In particular, the Hilbert spaces and the dynamics of the two theories agree. From a mathematical point of view, this means that the theories are identical. However, from a physical point of view, their descriptions may differ, for instance there may be different Lagrangians for the two theories. The duality examples mentioned in box 5.1 either relate quantum field theories together, or they relate string theories together. The Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory correspondence (AdS/CFT), however, is a new type of duality which relates a quantum field theory on flat spacetime to a string theory. This is particularly remarkable since string theory is a very promising candidate for a consistent theory of quantum gravity. Naively, quantum field theory on flat spacetime does not appear to be a theory of quantum gravity. However, the AdS/CFT correspondence, being a duality, implies that the two theories are equivalent. This explains why many scientists think that the AdS/CFT correspondence, discovered by Maldacena in 1997, is one of the most exciting discoveries in modern theoretical physics in the last two decades.

Moreover, the AdS/CFT correspondence is an important realisation of the holographic principle. This principle states that in a gravitational theory, the number of degrees of freedom in a given volume V scales as the surface area ∂V of that volume, as described in box 5.2. The theory of quantum gravity involved in the AdS/CFT correspondence is defined on a manifold of the form AdS × X, where AdS is the Anti-de Sitter space and X is a compact space. The quantum field theory may be thought of as being defined on the conformal boundary of this Anti-de Sitter space.