Flat Worlds: Today and in Antiquity
Didier De Fontaine
So, Euclid was right after all! Very recent results
from two largely independent astrophysics groups have shown the geometry
of the Universe to be practically "flat", meaning that the radius of curvature
of space as a whole is extremely large with respect to the radius of the
observable Universe. It is interesting to compare this finding with the
pre-Hellenistic belief that the world was flat, at least on the scale of
the observable universe of the times. In such early days, the religious
implications of the flat geometry were straightforward: the assumed three-tired
universe, Hell - Earth - Heaven, defined a unique "morality vector" pointing
straight up. Later Greco-Roman introduction of curvature, with the attendant
loss of a unique direction, must have played philosophical and religious
havoc on the culture of the times. It remains to be seen whether the new
concepts of accelerated universal expansion, flatness, dark matter, "quintessence,"
will be as disturbing to present culture and religion as were previous
scientific revolutions.