Tammes problem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some natural systems such as this coral require approximate solutions to problems similar to the Tammes
problem

In geometry, Tammes problem is a problem in packing a given number of circles on the surface of a
sphere such that the minimum distance between circles is maximized. It is named after a Dutch
botanist who posed the problem in 1930 while studying the distribution of pores on pollen grains. It
can be viewed as a specialization of the generalized Thomson problem.

See also[edit]

Spherical code

Kissing number problem