Vienna Combinatorics Seminar

Perspectives on Sphere Packing

The classical sphere packing problem asks: what is the densest possible arrangement of identical, non-overlapping spheres in Euclidean space? Over the past century, sphere packings have been intensely studied by mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists alike. The interaction between these perspectives has been remarkably fruitful, yielding new insights into the nature of packings and many related problems. In this talk I will survey these viewpoints, discuss recent advances, and highlight connections to combinatorics along the way.