Dimension

Property of a mathematical space From left to right: a square, a cube and a tesseract. The square is two-dimensional (2D) and bounded by one-dimensional line segments; the cube is three-dimensional (3D) and bounded by two-dimensional squares; the tesseract is four-dimensional (4D) and bounded by three-dimensional cubes. The first four spatial dimensions, represented in a two-dimensional picture. Two points can be connected to create a line segment.Two parallel line segments can be connected to form a square.Two parallel squares can be connected to form a cube.Two parallel cubes can be connected to form a tesseract. In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it – for example, the point at 5 on a number line. A surface, such as the boundary of a cylinder or sphere, has a dimension of two (2D) because two coordinates are needed to specify a point on it – for example, both a latitude and longitude are required to locate a point on the surface of a sphe