The problem of envelopes for Banach spaces

LetX be a Banach space. A Banach spaceY is an envelope ofX if (1)Y is finitely representable inX; (2) any Banach spaceZ finitely representable inX and of density character not exceeding that ofY is isometric to a subspace ofY. Lindenstrauss and Pelczynski have asked whether any separable Banach space has a separable envelope. We give a negative answer to this question by showing the existence of a Banach space isomorphic tol ₂, which has no separable envelope. A weaker positive result holds: any separable Banach space has an envelope of density character ≦ℵ₁ (assuming the continuum hypothesis).