The word 'dimension' comes from the Latin word 'dimensus' and means "measured out".
In mathematics, no definition of dimension adequately captures the concept in all situations where we would like to make use of it. All mathematical definitions on dimension, however, are inspired by the notion of the dimension of Euclidean n-space E n. The point E 0 is 0-dimensional. The line E 1 is 1-dimensional. The plane E 2 is 2-dimensional. And in general E n is n-dimensional. Figure 1 consists of examples of objects in various dimensions presented as 2-dimensional renderings:
Figure 1: 2-dimensional renderings (ie. flat drawings) of a 0-dimensional point, a 1-dimensional line segment, a 2-dimensional square, a 3-dimensional cube, and a 4-dimensional tesseract
More definitions on the Web: Wikipedia, Wolfram MathWorld
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