The idea of a fourth dimension has been a factor in the evolution of modern art, but use of concepts relating to higher dimensions has been little discussed by academics in the literary world. From the late 1800s onwards, many writers began to make use of possibilities opened up by the exploration of such concepts as hypercube geometry. While many writers took the fourth dimension to be one of time (as it is commonly considered today), others preferred to think of it in spatial terms, and some associated the new mathematics with wider changes in modern culture.