From closer still, one is enough—any given position along the length of twine is unique, whether the twine is stretched out or tangled up in a ball. And on toward microscopic perspectives: twine turns to three-dimensional columns, the columns resolve themselves into one-dimensional fibers, the solid material dissolves into zero-dimensional points. Mandelbrot appealed, unmathematically, to relativity: “The notion that a numerical result should depend on the relation of object to observer is in the spirit of physics in this century and is even an exemplary illustration of it.”
