Black Hole Thermodynamics, Casimir Effect and Induced Gravity

An analogy between the subtraction procedure in the Gibbons-Hawking Euclidean path integral approach to Horizon's Thermodynamics and the Casimir effect is shown. Then a conjecture about a possible Casimir nature of the Gibbons-Hawking subtraction is made in the framework of Sakharov's induced gravity. In this framework it appears that the degrees of freedom involved in the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy are naturally identified with zero--point modes of the matter fields. Some consequences of this view are sketched.