These bones of curvature are arranged into a shape that a physical chemist would call a connected phase if n > 2. In an n-dimensional manifold, a closed loop (1D) will encircle some of these n–2 dimensional bones (simplexes). In general, in an n dimensional space an i dimensional submanifold may be knotted or linked with a j dimensional submanifold just in case i+j+1 = n.