Banach spaces of universal disposition (Q647570)

\textit{V. I. Gurarii} [Sib. Mat. Zh. 7, 1002--1013 (1966; Zbl 0166.39303)] introduced the concepts of universal and almost universal disposition, and constructed a separable Banach space which has almost universal disposition for finite dimensional spaces. This space turned out to be unique, and now bears his name. The present authors extend his ideas to the non-separable setting, using some careful transfinite bookkeeping. In particular, they construct Banach spaces of density character equal to the continuum with universal disposition for separable Banach spaces. Under the Continuum Hypothesis, it is shown that such a space is unique, and that every isomorphism between two separable subspaces thereof extends to an automorphism of the whole space. Without CH, these statements may fail. Ultrapowers of Gurarii's space are shown to have universal disposition for separable Banach spaces, not merely for finite-dimensional spaces.