  The holographic principle is often (and hastily) attributed to quantum
gravity and domains of the Planck size. Meanwhile it can be usefully applied to
problems where gravitation effects are negligible and domains of less exotic
size. The essence of this principle is that any physical system can be taken to
be either classical, placed in a D+1-dimensional spacetime, or
quantum-mechanical, located in its D-dimensional boundary. For example, one
believes that a hydrogen atom is a typical quantum system living in a
four-dimensional spacetime, but it can also be conceived as a classical system
living in a five-dimensional embracing spacetime. The subnuclear realm is more
intricate since the gluon vacuum reveals two phases, the hadronic and plasma
phases. They differ in energetics and symmetry. Moreover, the classical
four-dimensional picture is pertinent to the behavior of constituent quarks
while the plasma phase is expected to be grasped by standard four-dimensional
QCD. The relation between the holographic standpoint and the symmetry treatment
of these two phases is outlined. Exact retarded solutions to the classical
SU(N) four-dimensional Yang-Mills equations with the source composed of several
point-like colored particles is considered. Features of these solutions in the
large-N limit provide insight into the gauge symmetries of two gluon vacua.
