Summary: Sphere packings, crystals, and error-correcting codes
Denis Auroux
January 2004
What is the densest packing?
1
Atoms in crystals
The two densest packings:
"face-centered cubic" "hexagonal close packing"
2
Mathematical definition of density
a
= lim
a+
volume of balls
volume of cube
3
Examples:
simple cubic: =

6

Source: Auroux, Denis - Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Collections: Mathematics