What can black holes teach us about quantum mechanics ?

Gerard 't Hooft

If one applies the laws of Quantum Field Theory to the environment of a black hole, one finds a kind of uncertainty on top and above the usual quantum uncertainties that one would expect. It seems as if the very foundations of Quantum Theory are being undermined by this result. Postulating the demand that "quantized" black holes ought to behave just like other quantum systems, leads to a new view on what Quantum Mechanics might actually be. The lecturer reviews the ideas of a deterministic "hidden variable" theory that has "information loss" as a key ingredient. Some simple particle models can be built along these lines, but to arrive at anything resembling the Standard Model of the subatomic particles we still have a long way to go.