Where did the various concepts of dimension arise in mathematics?
Whereas the natural world appears to us "whole" and completely
free of any necessity for any dimension(S), we seem to have first
equated the term with length, height and width, and then further
extended it until it assumes the appearance of a unit-less [scaleless?]
variable in the non-Euclidean geometries.
Dimension appears to be an abstraction in search of an application,
and Einstein seems to equate it with both position and time. Is
there an ancient Greek word for our modern concept of "dimension?"
rlg
[willing to live in a whole but dimensionless universe]