The cosmic spiderweb: equivalence of cosmic, architectural and origami tessellations

For over 20 years, the term ‘cosmic web’ has guided our understanding of the large-scale arrangement of matter in the cosmos, accurately evoking the concept of a network of galaxies linked by filaments. But the physical correspondence between the cosmic web and structural engineering or textile ‘spi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Royal Society open science 2018-04, Vol.5 (4), p.171582-171582
Main Authors: Neyrinck, Mark C., Hidding, Johan, Konstantatou, Marina, van de Weygaert, Rien
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomy
Computational Geometry
Cosmic Web
Cosmology: Theory
Graphic Statics
Large-Scale Structure Of The Universe
Reciprocal Diagrams
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Summary:For over 20 years, the term ‘cosmic web’ has guided our understanding of the large-scale arrangement of matter in the cosmos, accurately evoking the concept of a network of galaxies linked by filaments. But the physical correspondence between the cosmic web and structural engineering or textile ‘spiderwebs’ is even deeper than previously known, and also extends to origami tessellations. Here, we explain that in a good structure-formation approximation known as the adhesion model, threads of the cosmic web form a spiderweb, i.e. can be strung up to be entirely in tension. The correspondence is exact if nodes sampling voids are included, and if structure is excluded within collapsed regions (walls, filaments and haloes), where dark-matter multistreaming and baryonic physics affect the structure. We also suggest how concepts arising from this link might be used to test cosmological models: for example, to test for large-scale anisotropy and rotational flows in the cosmos.
ISSN:2054-5703
2054-5703
DOI:10.1098/rsos.171582