No label defined (Q4946893)

[This is a combined review with \textit{M. Bell}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 128, No. 7, 2191-2197 (2000; Zbl 0949.54023), see above]. An Eberlein compact space is a subspace of a Banach space that is compact with respect to the weak topology; it is uniform if the Banach space can be taken to be a Hilbert space. In [\textit{Y. Benyamini, M. E. Rudin} and \textit{M. Wage}, Pac. J. Math. 70, 309-324 (1977; Zbl 0374.46011)] the question was raised for what cardinals \(\kappa\) there exists a uniform Eberlein compact space of weight \(\kappa\) -- universal in that every other such space is a continuous image of it. In the first paper Bell translates this question into one about universal \(c\)-algebras; these are Boolean algebras with a generating set that 1) can be partitioned into countably many antichains and 2) has the property that no finite subset of it has \(1\) as its join. He then goes on to construct, for every cardinal \(\kappa\) such that \(\kappa=2^{<\kappa}\) a universal \(c\)-algebra of size \(\kappa\); this algebra is even \(c\)-universal in that the embedding may be chosen to respect the partitions of the generating sets. The Stone space of this algebra is a universal uniform Eberlein compact space of weight \(\kappa\). Generalized Cohen forcing produces models where for certain \(\kappa\) with \(\kappa<2^{<\kappa}\) no universal uniform Eberlein compact space of weight \(\kappa\) exists -- in particular in the \(\aleph_2\)-Cohen model there is no universal uniform Eberlein compact space of weight \(\aleph_1\). In the second paper Džamonja shows that whenever \(\aleph_1<\kappa<2^{\aleph_0}\) there is no \(c\)-universal \(c\)-algebra of size \(\kappa\). The proof uses invariants along club sequences, a method developed in [\textit{M. Kojman} and \textit{S. Shelah}, J. Symb. Log. 57, No. 3, 875-891 (1992; Zbl 0790.03036)]. As stated in Bell's paper it is as yet unknown whether the existence of universal \(c\)-algebras is equivalent to the existence of \(c\)-universal \(c\)-algebras; if this turns out to be the case then Džamonja's result shows outright that there are no universal uniform Eberlein compact space of weight \(\kappa\), whenever \(\aleph_1<\kappa<2^{\aleph_0}\).