Non-ergodic Banach spaces are near Hilbert

Abstract

We prove that a non ergodic Banach space must be near Hilbert. In particular, $\ell_p$ ($2<p<\infty$) is ergodic. This reinforces the conjecture that $\ell_2$ is the only non ergodic Banach space. As an application of our criterion for ergodicity, we prove that there is no separable Banach space which is complementably universal for the class of all subspaces of $\ell_p$, for $1\leq p <2$. This solves a question left open by W. B. Johnson and A. Szankowski in 1976.