This is a joint work with Grzegorz Plebanek. The classical Peano curve demonstrates that the unit interval, a metrizable compact line, may be continuously mapped onto its square. This cannot happen for compact lines that are not metrizable: Treybig and Ward proved that if a product of two infinite compact spaces is a continuous image of a compact line then such a product is necessarily metrizable.
In 1970 Mardesic conjectured that if a product of $d$ compact lines can be mapped onto a product of $d+s$ infinite compact spaces $K_1,K_2,...,K_{d+s}$ with $s\geq1$, then there are at least $s+1$ metrizable factors $K_j$. Using a new kind of dimension of compacta, combinatorial in nature, we are able to solve Mardesic's Conjecture.
Moreover, some open problems on Banach Space Theory where this concept of dimension might throw some light will be presented.