Re: Dodecahedral universe?

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> "Ralph E. Frost" wrote:
> 
> > When I was driving the boys to school this morning I heard on the radio that
> > scientists had ~concluded universe is finite in the shape of a dodecahedron.
> >
> > What's up with that and where might I read more about it?
> > --
> >   Ralph Frost
> >   Imagine a single internal analog language
> >   made of  ordered water...
> >   and its variants.
> >   http://flep.refrost.com
> >
> > [Moderator's note: There are a couple other threads in progress which
> > have pointed out this claim and commented on it. -- KS]
> 
> The "dodecahedron" claim is potentially a little misleading in a story that
> doesn't go into detail, because it's actually just about the topology of the
> universe, not the "shape" as we usually think of it. Any finite unbounded 2-D
> surface can be described topologically in terms of a polygon with the edges
> identified, you can see some examples on these pages:
> 
> http://www.jcu.edu/math/vignettes/Mobius.htm
> http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/class/1010/wc/geom/num7.html
> 
> Similarly, if our 3-D space is actually finite but unbounded, its topology can
> be described in terms of some polyhedron with its faces identified, as
> explained here:
> 
> http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/class/1010/wc/geom/universe2a.html
> 
> The recent claim is that our universe may have a topology that can be described
> in terms of a dodecahedron with its faces identified in a certain way, but to
> say "the universe has the shape of a dodecahedron" would be a bit like
> 2-dimensional beings living on the surface of a torus (a donut shape) saying
> "our universe has the shape of a square", since you can describe the topology
> of a torus in terms of a square with its edges identified in a certain way.

If one accepts Jeffrey Weeks' associated dodecahedron, then spacetime
is inherently chiral.  If you look normal to the face of a
dodecahderon, the opposite face is parlalel and rotated 36 degrees. 
Things waffle a tad for a spherical dodecahedron, but the relative
rotation remains.  Spacetime would have an intrinsic chiral torsion as
it connected with itself.  Weeks' other numbers are quite satisfying,

Science 302(5643) 209 (2003)
 (with explicit mention of spacetime chirality, absent from the three
following cites)
http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310253
Nature 425(6958) 593 (2003)
http://www.nature.com/nsu/031006/031006-8.html 

If spacetime enjoys a chiral torsion, then Uncle Al has... the parity
Eotvos experiment to probe it,

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
 4000 words.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
 (Do something naughty to physics)