question on modules (newbie)

["Pavol Severa" <pavol.severa@...>]

Hello
I am a complete newbie to lua (have some experience with python). The
question is - when I run require("name"), all names from name.lua are
included to the global namespace. Is there any way to put them instead
to a table "name"?  What is the standard way of not polluting the
global namespace?
And what is the use of the function "module"?
Thanks a lot for your patience with my confused quetions
Palo