DIMENSIONS

From left to right, the square, the cube, and the tesseract. The square is bounded by 1dimensional lines, the cube by 2-dimensional areas, and the tesseract by 3-dimensional volumes.
A projection of the cube is given since it is viewed on a two-dimensional screen. The same
applies to the tesseract, which additionally can only be shown as a projection even in threedimensional space.

A diagram showing the first four spatial dimensions.

In mathematics and physics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the
minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point within it.[1][2] Thus a line has a
dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it. A surface such
as a plane or the surface of a cylinder or sphere has a dimension of two because two coordinates
are needed to specify a point on it (for example, to locate a point on the surface of a sphere you
need both its latitude and its longitude). The inside of a cube, a cylinder or a sphere is threedimensional because three co-ordinates are needed to locate a point within these spaces.
In physical terms, dimension refers to the constituent structure of all space (cf. volume) and its
position in time (perceived as a scalar dimension along the t-axis), as well as the spatial
constitution of objects within structures that have correlations with both particle and field
conceptions, interact according to relative properties of mass, and which are fundamentally
mathematical in description. These or other axes may be referenced to uniquely identify a point
or structure in its attitude and relationship to other objects and events. Physical theories that
incorporate time, such as general relativity, are said to work in 4-dimensional "spacetime

", (defined as a Minkowski space). Modern theories tend to be "higher-dimensional" including

quantum field and string theories. The state-space of quantum mechanics is an infinitedimensional function space.
The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. High-dimensional spaces occur in
mathematics and the sciences for many reasons, frequently as configuration spaces such as in
Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics; these are abstract spaces, independent of the physical
space we live in.

Contents

1 In mathematics
o 1.1 Dimension of a vector space
o 1.2 Manifolds
o 1.3 Lebesgue covering dimension
o 1.4 Inductive dimension
o 1.5 Hausdorff dimension
o 1.6 Hilbert spaces
2 In physics
o 2.1 Spatial dimensions
o 2.2 Time
o 2.3 Additional dimensions
3 Literature
4 Philosophy
5 More dimensions
6 See also
o 6.1 A list of topics indexed by dimension
7 References

8 Further reading

In mathematics
In mathematics, the dimension of an object is an intrinsic property, independent of the space in
which the object may happen to be embedded. For example: a point on the unit circle in the
plane can be specified by two Cartesian coordinates but one can make do with a single
coordinate (the polar coordinate angle), so the circle is 1-dimensional even though it exists in the
2-dimensional plane. This intrinsic notion of dimension is one of the chief ways in which the
mathematical notion of dimension differs from its common usages.
The dimension of Euclidean n-space En is n. When trying to generalize to other types of spaces,
one is faced with the question what makes En n-dimensional?" One answer is that to cover a
fixed ball in En by small balls of radius , one needs on the order of n such small balls. This
observation leads to the definition of the Minkowski dimension and its more sophisticated
variant, the Hausdorff dimension. But there are also other answers to that question. For example,

one may observe that the boundary of a ball in En looks locally like En 1 and this leads to the
notion of the inductive dimension. While these notions agree on En, they turn out to be different
when one looks at more general spaces.
A tesseract is an example of a four-dimensional object. Whereas outside of mathematics the use
of the term "dimension" is as in: "A tesseract has four dimensions," mathematicians usually
express this as: "The tesseract has dimension 4," or: "The dimension of the tesseract is 4."
Although the notion of higher dimensions goes back to Ren Descartes, substantial development
of a higher-dimensional geometry only began in the 19th century, via the work of Arthur Cayley,
William Rowan Hamilton, Ludwig Schlfli and Bernhard Riemann. Riemann's 1854
Habilitationsschrift, Schlafi's 1852 Theorie der vielfachen Kontinuitt, Hamilton's 1843
discovery of the quaternions and the construction of the Cayley Algebra marked the beginning of
higher-dimensional geometry.
The rest of this section examines some of the more important mathematical definitions of the
dimensions.

Dimension of a vector space

Main article: Dimension (vector space)
The dimension of a vector space is the number of vectors in any basis for the space, i.e. the
number of coordinates necessary to specify any vector. This notion of dimension (the cardinality
of a basis) is often referred to as the Hamel dimension or algebraic dimension to distinguish it
from other notions of dimension.

Manifolds
A connected topological manifold is locally homeomorphic to Euclidean n-space, and the
number n is called the manifold's dimension. One can show that this yields a uniquely defined
dimension for every connected topological manifold.
The theory of manifolds, in the field of geometric topology, is characterized by the way
dimensions 1 and 2 are relatively elementary, the high-dimensional cases n > 4 are simplified by
having extra space in which to 'work'; and the cases n = 3 and 4 are in some senses the most
difficult. This state of affairs was highly marked in the various cases of the Poincar conjecture,
where four different proof methods are applied.

Lebesgue covering dimension

Main article: Lebesgue covering dimension
For any normal topological space X, the Lebesgue covering dimension of X is defined to be n if
n is the smallest integer for which the following holds: any open cover has an open refinement (a
second open cover where each element is a subset of an element in the first cover) such that no

point is included in more than n + 1 elements. In this case we write dim X = n. For X a manifold,
this coincides with the dimension mentioned above. If no such integer n exists, then the
dimension of X is said to be infinite, and we write dim X = . Note also that we say X has
dimension 1, i.e. dim X = 1 if and only if X is empty. This definition of covering dimension
can be extended from the class of normal spaces to all Tychonoff spaces merely by replacing the
term "open" in the definition by the term "functionally open".

Inductive dimension
Main article: Inductive dimension
An inductive definition of dimension can be created as follows. Consider a discrete set of points
(such as a finite collection of points) to be 0-dimensional. By dragging a 0-dimensional object in
some direction, one obtains a 1-dimensional object. By dragging a 1-dimensional object in a new
direction, one obtains a 2-dimensional object. In general one obtains an (n + 1)-dimensional
object by dragging an n dimensional object in a new direction.
The inductive dimension of a topological space could refer to the small inductive dimension or
the large inductive dimension, and is based on the analogy that (n + 1)-dimensional balls have n
dimensional boundaries, permitting an inductive definition based on the dimension of the
boundaries of open sets.

Hausdorff dimension
Main article: Hausdorff dimension
For sets which are of a complicated structure, especially fractals, the Hausdorff dimension is
useful. The Hausdorff dimension is defined for all metric spaces and, unlike the Hamel
dimension, can also attain non-integer real values.[3] The box dimension or Minkowski dimension
is a variant of the same idea. In general, there exist more definitions of fractal dimensions that
work for highly irregular sets and attain non-integer positive real values.

] Hilbert spaces
Every Hilbert space admits an orthonormal basis, and any two such bases for a particular space
have the same cardinality. This cardinality is called the dimension of the Hilbert space. This
dimension is finite if and only if the space's Hamel dimension is finite, and in this case the above
dimensions coincide.

In physics
Spatial dimensions
Classical physics theories describe three physical dimensions: from a particular point in space,
the basic directions in which we can move are up/down, left/right, and forward/backward.

Movement in any other direction can be expressed in terms of just these three. Moving down is
the same as moving up a negative distance. Moving diagonally upward and forward is just as the
name of the direction implies; i.e., moving in a linear combination of up and forward. In its
simplest form: a line describes one dimension, a plane describes two dimensions, and a cube
describes three dimensions. (See Space and Cartesian coordinate system.)
Number
of
dimensio
ns

Example co-ordinate systems

1
Number line
Angle

Cartesian (2-dimensional)

Polar

Latitude and longitude

Cartesian (3-dimensional)

Cylindrical

Spherical

Time
A temporal dimension is a dimension of time. Time is often referred to as the "fourth
dimension" for this reason, but that is not to imply that it is a spatial dimension. A temporal
dimension is one way to measure physical change. It is perceived differently from the three
spatial dimensions in that there is only one of it, and that we cannot move freely in time but
subjectively move in one direction.
The equations used in physics to model reality do not treat time in the same way that humans
commonly perceive it. The equations of classical mechanics are symmetric with respect to time,
and equations of quantum mechanics are typically symmetric if both time and other quantities
(such as charge and parity) are reversed. In these models, the perception of time flowing in one
direction is an artifact of the laws of thermodynamics (we perceive time as flowing in the
direction of increasing entropy).
The best-known treatment of time as a dimension is Poincar and Einstein's special relativity
(and extended to general relativity), which treats perceived space and time as components of a
four-dimensional manifold, known as spacetime, and in the special, flat case as Minkowski
space.

Additional dimensions
Theories such as string theory and M-theory predict that physical space in general has in fact 10
and 11 dimensions, respectively. The extra dimensions are spatial. We perceive only three spatial
dimensions, and no physical experiments have confirmed the reality of additional dimensions. A
possible explanation that has been suggested is that space acts as if it were "curled up" in the
extra dimensions on a subatomic scale, possibly at the quark/string level of scale or below.

Literature
Perhaps the most basic way in which the word dimension is used in literature is as a hyperbolic
synonym for feature, attribute, aspect, or magnitude. Frequently the hyperbole is quite literal as

in he's so 2-dimensional, meaning that one can see at a glance what he is. This contrasts with 3dimensional objects which have an interior that is hidden from view, and a back that can only be
seen with further examination.
Science fiction texts often mention the concept of dimension, when really referring to parallel
universes, alternate universes, or other planes of existence. This usage is derived from the idea
that to travel to parallel/alternate universes/planes of existence one must travel in a
direction/dimension besides the standard ones. In effect, the other universes/planes are just a
small distance away from our own, but the distance is in a fourth (or higher) spatial (or nonspatial) dimension, not the standard ones.
One of the most heralded science fiction novellas regarding true geometric dimensionality, and
often recommended as a starting point for those just starting to investigate such matters, is the
1884 novel Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. Isaac Asimov, in his foreword to the Signet Classics
1984 edition, described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of
perceiving dimensions."
The idea of other dimensions was incorporated into many early science fiction stories, appearing
prominently, for example, in Miles J. Breuer's The Appendix and the Spectacles (1928) and
Murray Leinster's The Fifth-Dimension Catapult (1931); and appeared irregularly in science
fiction by the 1940s. Some of the classic stories involving other dimensions include Robert A.
Heinlein's 1941 ' And He Built a Crooked House ', in which a California architect designs a
house based on a three-dimensional projection of a tesseract, and Alan E. Nourse's "Tiger by the
Tail" and "The Universe Between," both 1951. Another reference would be Madeleine L'Engle's
novel "A Wrinkle In Time" (1962) which uses the 5th Dimension as a way for "tesseracting the
universe," or in a better sense, "folding" space in half to move across it quickly.
The fourth and fifth dimensions were also a key component of the book The Boy Who Reversed
Himself, by William Sleator.

Philosophy
In 1783, Kant wrote: "That everywhere space (which is not itself the boundary of another space)
has three dimensions and that space in general cannot have more dimensions is based on the
proposition that not more than three lines can intersect at right angles in one point. This
proposition cannot at all be shown from concepts, but rests immediately on intuition and indeed
on pure intuition a priori because it is apodictically (demonstrably) certain."[4]

More dimensions

Dimension of an algebraic variety

Exterior dimension
Hurst exponent
Isoperimetric dimension
KaplanYorke dimension

Lebesgue covering dimension

Lyapunov dimension
Metric dimension
Pointwise dimension
Poset dimension
q-dimension; especially:
o Information dimension (corresponding to q = 1)
o Correlation dimension (corresponding to q = 2)
Vector space dimension / Hamel dimension