Geometry's least-packable shapes
Tuesday, March 3, 2015 - 08:00
in Physics & Chemistry
If you've ever struggled to pack a bunch of suitcases into the trunk of your car, you've got some idea of a basic problem in materials science: if you throw a bunch of atoms or molecules together, how do they fit together, and how densely can they be packed? In a new paper, Omidyar Fellow Yoav Kallus takes a small yet significant step toward answering those questions while at the same time addressing an old conjecture about what packs least well.