2min chapter

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast cover image

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and others) [May 13, 2022]

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

CHAPTER

The Densest Packing of Molecules

If you just throw spheres together, they tend not to arrange themselves in that packing. If there are little holes between the spheres and if something else fits into those holes, then you would have a denser packing. That's kind of what when you have with circles, the so-called Apollonian packings. They'll tend to pack them in this particular way. In two dimensions, we have a bunch of coins on a table and you scrunch them together, they'll always arrange themselves unless they're not packing.

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