Separable elastic Banach spaces are universal (Q892683)

In their solution to Schäffer's problem about the Banach-Mazur diameter problem (that the Banach-Mazur diameter of the isomorphic class of a separable space is infinite) [Ann. Math. (2) 162, No. 1, 423--437 (2005; Zbl 1098.46011)], \textit{W. B. Johnson} and \textit{E. Odell} introduced the notion of elastic Banach space as follows. A Banach space \(X\) is said to be \(K\)-elastic if, whenever a Banach space \(Y\) embeds into \(X\), then it \(K\)-embeds into \(Y\) (i.e., there is an isomorphism \(T\) from \(Y\) into \(X\) with \(\|y\|\leq \|T y\| \leq K \|y\|\) for every \(y\in Y\)). \(X\) is elastic if it is \(K\)-elastic for some \(K\). \(C[0,1]\) is isometrically universal for separable spaces, so it is \(1\)-elastic. Therefore, if a separable Banach space contains an isomorphic copy of \(C[0,1]\), then it is elastic. Johnson and Odell [loc. cit.] asked whether the converse of this result is true, and the paper under review gives the positive answer to this. That is, it is proved that every separable infinite-dimensional elastic Banach space contains an isomorphic copy of \(C[0,1]\). To get this result, the authors develop a generalization of the Bourgain index and many other deep results. Let us finally comment that the result of the paper under review can be used to give another proof of Johnson-Odell's result [loc. cit.].