Paul Johnsson wrote in message <37C181CF.D0580FDC@hpts.com>...
>Hello, I have an intresting problem:
>
>Consider this: Take a box with a specified height, with and depth. I
>would like to place a number of spheres with a specific radius in this
>box.
>
>The problem is how to place the spheres in the box to get the maximum
>numbers of spheres that can fit in the box. I think that this is not a
>trivial problem, but is there a complete analytic solution at all (using
>with, height, depth and radius as parameters)?
>
>I had the idea of creating a macro with "height, with, depth, radius" as
>input and get the locations of the spheres as output...


This is also known as the "sphere-stacking" problem in mathmatics.  For a
box, there is a single optimum solution, known (I think) as the "cubic
close-packed" positioning.  A macro implementing this method would be
relatively easy to write.

Mark

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