This approach relies on the relationship between the proper time between two points in Minkowski spacetime and the volume of the spacetime interval between them. By computing the maximal chain length (to estimate the proper time) between two points x and y and counting the number of elements z such that x ≺ ≺ z ≺ ≺ y (to estimate the volume of the spacetime interval) the dimension of the spacetime can be calculated.