A new study suggests that the universe may be shaped like a three-dimensional torus, similar to a donut.
According to a report on the arXiv database, a team of scientists from the University of Ulm and the University of Lyon investigated the excess light from the Big Bang, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), and concluded that our universe is not flat, but resembles a donut shape.
Model of the universe with a three-dimensional torus shape. (Photo: Wikipedia)
“One could say the universe is a great donut,” shared Thomas Buchert, a cosmology professor at the University of Lyon. This shape is referred to as three-torus or 3D torus. Although it has not yet been peer-reviewed by experts in the field, Buchert noted that the paper has been submitted to scientific journals for further study.
Buchert and his colleagues are not the first to propose this idea. The toroidal universe concept has been mentioned since the 1980s. However, for the past 18 years, the scientific community has believed that our universe is flat, meaning that parallel lines in spacetime remain constant and are continuously expanding.
“This CMB spectrum is not only discrete, but also contains many gaps,” the report states. In other words, there are several missing elements if this universe is indeed flat.
Professor Thomas Buchert. (Photo: University of Lyon).
Professor Buchert believes that at the recorded gaps, self-referential structures connect back to each other like the center of a donut. If this is true, the universe would no longer be infinite as many believe.
“Humans would not perceive the ‘boundary’ of the universe even though it is finite. You are living in an unlimited universe but with finite mass,” Buchert said. Essentially, an object could travel in one direction in the universe and still return to its starting point.
Astronauts could achieve this using a warp drive, a type of fictional spacecraft capable of faster-than-light travel. However, Buchert warns that the spacecraft’s time would be shorter than that on Earth. Therefore, by the time the astronaut returns, it is likely that Earth may no longer exist.
