STATISTICAL-MECHANICAL INTERPRETATION OF BLACK-HOLE ENTROPY

It is shown that the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for the entropy of a black hole can be given a statistical mechanical interpretation in terms of Planck mass particles. It is furthermore shown that the previously proposed Planck aether model (assuming that space is densely filled with an equal number of positive and negative Planck masses) gives an expression for the black hole entropy, different from the Bekenstein-Hawking formula, with the entropy proportional to the 3/4 power of the black hole surface rather than proportional to its surface. The Planck aether model also gives an expression for the entropy of the gravitational field, which for a black hole is the entropy of negative Planck masses. To be consistent with Nernst's theorem, it is conjectured that this gravitational field entropy is negative. For a universe in which the sum of the positive matter energy and the negative gravitational field energy is zero, the sum of the matter and gravitational field entropy would therefore vanish as well. Because the positive and negative Planck masses are separated from each other, a cancellation of their entropy appears to be only possible in the event of a gravitational collapse of the universe as a whole.