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The same packing density can also be achieved by alternate stackings of the same close-packed planes of spheres, including structures that are aperiodic in the stacking direction. The Kepler conjecture states that this is the highest density that can be achieved by any arrangement of spheres, either regular or irregular.
Here there is a choice between separating the spheres into regions of close-packed equal spheres, or combining the multiple sizes of spheres into a compound or interstitial packing. When many sizes of spheres (or a distribution) are available, the problem quickly becomes intractable, but some studies of binary hard spheres (two sizes) are ...
An arrangement in which the midpoint of all the spheres lie on a single straight line is called a sausage packing, as the convex hull has a sausage-like shape.An approximate example in real life is the packing of tennis balls in a tube, though the ends must be rounded for the tube to coincide with the actual convex hull.
Random close packing (RCP) of spheres is an empirical parameter used to characterize the maximum volume fraction of solid objects obtained when they are packed randomly. For example, when a solid container is filled with grain, shaking the container will reduce the volume taken up by the objects, thus allowing more grain to be added to the container.
For a given sphere packing (arrangement of spheres) in a given space, a kissing number can also be defined for each individual sphere as the number of spheres it touches. For a lattice packing the kissing number is the same for every sphere, but for an arbitrary sphere packing the kissing number may vary from one sphere to another.
Diagrams of cubic close packing (left) and hexagonal close packing (right). Imagine filling a large container with small equal-sized spheres: Say a porcelain gallon jug with identical marbles. The "density" of the arrangement is equal to the total volume of all the marbles, divided by the volume of the jug.
A packed bunch of spheres will have an average kissing number, which helps mathematically describe the situation. But a basic question about the kissing number stands unanswered.
This yields the greatest possible packing density and the lowest energy state. — — Below is a candidate caption for use in Close-packing article, added 16:33, 26 February 2007 (and revised 20:15, 26 February 2007) — — Shown above is what the science of sphere packing calls a closest-packed arrangement.