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The universe might be shaped like a doughnut, not like a pancake, new research suggests


Strange patterns in light left over from the Big Bang indicate that even though the universe may be flat, it may still be structured like a doughnut.

According to recent study, the cosmos might actually be a massive doughnut despite all proof to the contrary.

The research concludes that the universe may not be flat and that strange patterns in the Big Bang's echoes may be explained by a universe with a more complex structure.

Plain areas

The cosmos appears to be flat based on all current data. The term "flatness" in mathematics describes how parallel lines behave as they extend into the infinite. Consider a tabletop: Lines that begin parallel will continue to be parallel as they progress along the length of the table.

Look at Earth, in comparison. At the equator, lines of longitude are exactly parallel to one another, but they ultimately meet at the poles. The Earth is not spherical, as shown by the original intersection of parallel lines.

The 3D world follows the same reasoning. For instance, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) contains minute temperature variations across the heavens and was produced when the universe was only 380,000 years old. It is now located over 42 billion light-years distant. The expected size of those variations in comparison to observations has been computed by astronomers. Those parallel light beams must have changed paths over space-time if their observed size deviates from forecasts; this proves that the universe's geometry is curved.

However, those same observations have shown that the general geometry of the universe is flat, disregarding small-scale deflections from galaxies and black holes.

various kinds of apartments

However, there are various types of flats. For instance, on a sheet of paper, create parallel lines. The paper should then be wrapped so that one end connects to the other and forms a cylindrical. The lines go around the sphere in a straight path. Any cylinder is physically flat but is referred to as having a distinct topology in mathematics. You can create a torus or doughnut form by folding the paper in half on both ends.

Another illustration of an oddly flat form is a paper strip wrapped in a circle with one end 180 degrees twisted. Because parallel lines remain parallel even when they turn over one another, the final shape is a Möbius strip, which is still mathematically flat.

There are 18 potential 3D configurations, all of which are geometrically planar. Each one has at least one dimension that loops around on itself, and they occasionally rotate partially or turn over like a Möbius strip. A (possibly upside-down) version of ourselves from when we were much younger would be visible if we peered far away in this twisted world. Astronomers would observe the Milky Way galaxy as it was 1 billion years ago, followed by a duplicate from 2 billion years ago, and so on, if the universe were 1 billion light-years across.

Astronomers could see these duplicates if the cosmos were a huge doughnut and they looked in both ways.

The structure of the cosmos

Numerous techniques have been used by astronomers to determine the structure of the universe, including matching circles in the CMB and searching for copies of galaxy patterning. The overwhelming body of data points to the universe's geometric flatness and unwrapped structure.

However, a report released on February 23 to the preprint repository arXiv indicates that earlier readings were insufficient. Most significantly, measurements have relied on the idea that the world has only one dimension and a simple topology. The CMB has also been observed to exhibit some odd, inexplicable anomalies, such as huge patterns that emerge in unexpected places.

In reality, at least some of the irregularities in the CMB could be explained by a universe with a complex structure. The researchers suggested strategies for more advanced direct investigations, such as follow-up studies of the CMB, even though this is not a solid argument in favor of complex topologies.

In that scenario, somewhere in our twisted world, there might be a mirror image of us.