The Wraparound Universe 1st Edition by Jean-Pierre Luminet (PDF)

Description

What shape is the universe? Is it curved and closed in on itself? Is it expanding? Where is it headed? Could space be wrapped around itself, such that it produces ghost images of faraway galaxies? Such are the questions posed by Jean-Pierre Luminet in The Wraparound Universe, which he then addresses in clear and accessible language. An expert in black holes and the big bang, he leads us on a voyage through the surprising byways of space-time, where possible topologies of the universe, explorations of the infinite, and cosmic mirages combine their mysterious traits and unlock the imagination. The Wraparound Universe is a general-audience book about the overall topology or shape of the universe. The central question addressed is whether it is possible that the universe is wrapped around in an interesting way, and what impact this would have on astronomical observations and our understanding of cosmology. Along the way many of the general features and much of the history of the modern picture of cosmology are discussed.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I fully agree with earlier reviews. It is a beautiful and important book that will expand any cosmology follower’s knowledge. I have never encountered a cosmic topology subject in numerous publications dealing with Universe (please see my Listmania). I had no idea of topology role in establishing whether global shape of space is finite or infinite.Briefly: we learn, that for spherical finite space general relativity shows how to indirectly measure the curvature of the space. Its value depends on the average density of matter/energy that it contains. However for the geometries of the two other families, Euclidean and hyperbolic, the finite or infinite character of space no longer depends simply on the curvature and on the energy density: it depends on the TOPOLOGY !While for decades observational cosmology pushed itself to determine the curvature parameters directly while neglecting the topological possibilities, it could be that in the XXI century, it would be primarily the experimental determination of the topology of the Universe that would allow us to fix, with great precision, the curvature and the cosmological constant – those traditional parameters on which the ultimate fate of the cosmos depends: perpetual expansion or eventual contraction. Is theory of Big Bang truly valid and confirmed? – author presents its limits and simplifications. However I must admit that some parts of the book are not easy, as reader is asked to jump from two to three dimensions. This require stretching imagination to the limit (chapters about multiply connected spaces leading to cosmic crystallography methods). Lack of glossary of terms is detrimental, particularly, because there are many of them here, not to be found in other cosmology books. Nevertheless it is fascinating lecture – do not miss it !

⭐Wonderful book, pleasant and easy to read style. Who would have thought space could have unusual topologies/geometries, opens up a whole new world to ponder on nature of reality!

⭐I would like to add further comments to the first review by G. Melki. The first and simplest is about the book structure, a collection of 45 very short chapters that make easier for the reader to follow her/his natural “pace”. I think that the attention to the reader’s needs is one of the reasons why Luminet’s books (originally writtenin French) have been translate into other languages.Second, an important part of the book is about sociology of science. Comments about the impact of different ideas or even about the same ideas in different historic and geographic conditions are scattered through all the book, and are especially concentrated at the end. Just to limit this review to modern aspects, I could say that inflation is favored by many scientists, even though it is not without problems. Naively, one can realize that inflation forbids observation of multiply connected topologies, just because one expects that the radius of the universe has been inflated so much that it lies well beyond the cosmic horizon. However, Luminet stresses that this is not enough to discard such nontrivial topologies a priori, and that one should interpret the experimental observations also from different points of view.Other subtleties are also reviewed. For example, chapter 39 is all about the problem of measuring the curvature of the universe. Despite few recent claims that the space is Euclidean, which implies that the density parameter is _exactly_ 1, the author emphasizes that we can never measure any value with certainty, so that it is impossible to state that “space is flat”. Instead, modern measurements are compatible with this hypothesis but favor values of the density parameter that are a bit larger than one, so that it seems that the geometry is spherical. Because all spherical topologies are closed spaces, this is a suggestion that the universe is spatially closed, even though the usual preferred model is that of a infinite Euclidean space!Finally, Luminet shows that the most recent data about the cosmic background radiation from the WMAP satellite are better fit by “well-proportioned spaces”, among which the best one seems to be the _spherical dodecahedral Poincaré space_, whose volume is 120 times smaller than the hypersphere (i.e. the simply connected topology) with the same curvature. This conclusion has been criticized by many researchers, but cannot be falsified with the present data, so that we need to wait until data from the PLANCK satellite will be available.

⭐Obwohl nicht mehr ganz neu ist dieses Buch sicherlich ein “Muss” für jeden, der sich für die Topologie des Universums interessiert. Im Gegensatz zur Geometrie (offen, geschlossen oder flach), zu der es viele wissenschaftliche Arbeiten gibt, ist die Topologie (die “Gestalt” des Raums) viel weniger erforscht und vor allem ganz unklar. Die einfachste Form ist nämlich keineswegs zwingend. Wenn der Weltraum aber vielfach verbunden – und klein genug! – ist, könnte das mit den neuen Daten der Kosmischen Hintergrundstrahlung bald gemessen werden. Auch andere, noch bizarrere “Gebilde” sind denkbar (die Relativitätstheorie läßt hier viele Möglichkeiten offen!), und Luminet vertritt eine eigene interessante Hypothese, die aber – wie alle anderen – noch Spekulation ist.Dieses Kosmologie-Buch ist ideal für Leser, die sich schon mit der komplexen Materie auskennen, hier aber noch sehr viel Neues bzw. Anderes erfahren können, was in den üblichen populären Darstellungen gar nicht vorkommt oder viel zu kurz. Das Buch ist gut geschrieben (bzw. übersetzt) und schön illustriert. Man darf gespannt sein, was die kosmologische Forschung zum Thema Topologie in den nächsten Jahren herausfinden wird – und kann das Buch sicherlich mehrfach mit Gewinn lesen.

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