62 pages. Eighth and last in a series beginning with math.MG/9811071. Includes an index of terminology and notation for the entire series. The source package of the first version includes the source code of the software used in the proof. The second version has been completely rewritten
This is the eighth and final paper in a series giving a proof of the Kepler conjecture, which asserts that the density of a packing of congruent spheres in three dimensions is never greater than $π/\sqrt{18}\approx 0.74048...$. This is the oldest problem in discrete geometry and is an important part of Hilbert's 18th problem. An example of a packing achieving this density is the face-centered cubic packing.
This paper completes the fourth step of the program outlined in math.MG/9811073: A proof that if some standard region has more than four sides, then the star scores less than $8 \pt$.
The Kepler conjecture asserts that the density of a packing of congruent balls in three dimensions is never greater than $π/\sqrt{18}$. A computer assisted verification confirmed this conjecture in 1998. This article gives a historical introduction to the problem. It describes the procedure that converts this problem into an optimization problem in a finite number of variables and the strategies used to solve this optimization problem.
This paper describes the local density inequality approach to getting upper bounds for sphere packing densities in R^n. This approach was first suggested by L. Fejes-Toth in 1956 to prove the Kepler conjecture that the densest sphere packing in R^3 is the "cannonball packing". The approaches of L. Fejes-Toth, W.-Y. Hsiang, and T. Hales to the Kepler conjecture are each based on (different) local density inequalities. Recently T. Hales and S. P. Ferguson have presented extensive details carrying out a modified version of the otrignal Hales approach to prove the Kepler conjecture. We describe th…
This is the second in a series of papers giving a proof of the Kepler conjecture, which asserts that the density of a packing of congruent spheres in three dimensions is never greater than $π/\sqrt{18}\approx 0.74048...$. This is the oldest problem in discrete geometry and is an important part of Hilbert's 18th problem. An example of a packing achieving this density is the face-centered cubic packing. This paper defines a local formulation of the conjecture which is used in the proof.
The Kepler conjecture asserts that no packing of congruent balls in three-dimensional Euclidean space has density greater than that of the face-centered cubic packing. The original proof, announced in 1998 and published in 2006, is long and complex. The process of revision and review did not end with the publication of the proof. This article summarizes the current status of a long-term initiative to reorganize the original proof into a more transparent form and to provide a greater level of certification of the correctness of the computer code and other details of the proof. A final part of t…
This is the first in a series of papers giving a proof of the Kepler conjecture, which asserts that the density of a packing of congruent spheres in three dimensions is never greater than $π/\sqrt{18}\approx 0.74048...$. This is the oldest problem in discrete geometry and is an important part of Hilbert's 18th problem. An example of a packing achieving this density is the face-centered cubic packing. This paper has a historical overview and a synopsis of the rest of the series. The other papers in the series are math.MG/9811072, math.MG/9811073, math.MG/9811074, math.MG/9811075, math.MG/981107…
A new locally averaged density for sphere packing in R^3 is defined by a proper combination of the local cell (Voronoi cell) and Delaunay decompositions (§1.2.2), using only a single layer of surrounding spheres. Local packings attaining the optimal estimate of such a local invariant must be either the f.c.c. or h.c.p. local packings (Theorem I). The main purpose of this paper is to provide a clean-cut proof of this strong uniqueness result via geometric invariant theory. This result also leads to simple proofs of Kepler's conjecture on sphere packing, least action principle of crystal formati…
The regular dodecahedron has a 2% smaller volume than the rhombic dodecahedron which is the Voronoi cell of a fcc packing. From this point of view it seems possible that the dodecahedral aspect which is the core of the so-called dodecahedral conjecture, will play a major part for an elementary proof of the Kepler conjecture. In this paper we will show that the icosahedral configuration caused by dodecahedron leads to tetrahedra with significantly larger volume than the fcc fundamental parallelotope tessellation tetrahedra. Therefore on the basis of a tetrahedral based point of view for sphere …
This article describes a formal proof of the Kepler conjecture on dense sphere packings in a combination of the HOL Light and Isabelle proof assistants. This paper constitutes the official published account of the now completed Flyspeck project.
By any account, the 1998 proof of the Kepler conjecture is complex. The thesis underlying this article is that the proof is complex because it is highly under-automated. Throughout that proof, manual procedures are used where automated ones would have been better suited. This article gives a series of nonlinear optimization algorithms and shows how a systematic application of these algorithms would bring substantial simplifications to the original proof. This article includes a discussion of quantifier elimination, linear assembly problems, automated inequality proving, and plane graph generat…
We raise and investigate the following problem that one can regard as a very close relative of the densest sphere packing problem. If the Euclidean 3-space is partitioned into convex cells each containing a unit ball, how should the shapes of the cells be designed to minimize the average surface area of the cells? In particular, we prove that the average surface area in question is always at least 13.8564... .
We describe a program to prove the Kepler conjecture on sphere packings. We then carry out the first step of this program. Each packing determines a decomposition of space into Delaunay simplices, which are grouped together into finite configurations called Delaunay stars. A score, which is related to the density of packings, is assigned to each Delaunay star. We conjecture that the score of every Delaunay star is at most the score of the stars in the face-centered cubic and hexagonal close packings. This conjecture implies the Kepler conjecture. To complete the first step of the program, we s…
The dodecahedral conjecture states that the volume of the Voronoi polyhedron of a sphere in a packing of equal spheres is at least the volume of a regular dodecahedron with inradius 1. The authors prove the conjecture following the methodology of the proof the Kepler conjecture. (See math.MG/9811071.)
In "Dense Sphere Packings: A Blueprint for Formal Proofs" Hales proves that for every packing of unit spheres, the density in a ball of radius $r$ is at most $π/\sqrt{18}+c/r$ for some constant $c$. When $r$ tends to infinity, this gives a proof to the famous Kepler conjecture. As formulated by Hales, $c$ depends on the packing. We follow the proofs of Hales to calculate a constant $c'$ independent of the sphere packing that exists as mentioned in "A Formal Proof of the Kepler Conjecture" by Hales et al..
This short note describes the tentative form of a finite-dimensional optimization problem that may be of use in a second-generation proof of the Kepler conjecture. In the original 1998 proof of the Kepler conjecture, the form of the optimization problem was constrained by limits to computer power and by the speed of the algorithms that were available in 1994 to prove inequalities by computer. The computational resources have changed considerably since then, and much has been learned by an analysis of the 1998 proof. This analysis has lead to the proposed new form for an optimization problem.
Particle packing problems have fascinated people since the dawn of civilization, and continue to intrigue mathematicians and scientists. Resurgent interest has been spurred by the recent proof of Kepler's conjecture: the face-centered cubic lattice provides the densest packing of equal spheres with a packing fraction $ϕ\approx0.7405$ \cite{Kepler_Hales}. Here we report on the densest known packings of congruent ellipsoids. The family of new packings are crystal (periodic) arrangements of nearly spherically-shaped ellipsoids, and always surpass the densest lattice packing. A remarkable maximum …
The Hales program to prove the Kepler conjecture on sphere packings consists of five steps, which if completed, will jointly comprise a proof of the conjecture. We carry out step five of the program [outlined in math.MG/9811073], a proof that the local density of a certain combinatorial arrangement, the pentahedral prism, is less than that of the face-centered cubic lattice packing. We prove various relations on the local density using computer-based interval arithmetic methods. Together, these relations imply the local density bound.
An earlier paper describes a program to prove the Kepler conjecture on sphere packings. This paper carries out the second step of that program. A sphere packing leads to a decomposition of $R^3$ into polyhedra. The polyhedra are divided into two classes. The first class of polyhedra, called quasi-regular tetrahedra, have density at most that of a regular tetrahedron. The polyhedra in the remaining class have density at most that of a regular octahedron (about 0.7209).
This is the sixth in a series of papers giving a proof of the Kepler conjecture, which asserts that the density of a packing of congruent spheres in three dimensions is never greater than $π/\sqrt{18}\approx 0.74048...$. This is the oldest problem in discrete geometry and is an important part of Hilbert's 18th problem. An example of a packing achieving this density is the face-centered cubic packing. This paper completes part of the fourth step of the program outlined in math.MG/9811073: A proof that if some standard region has more than four sides, then the star scores less than $8 \pt$.
This is the fifth in a series of papers giving a proof of the Kepler conjecture, which asserts that the density of a packing of congruent spheres in three dimensions is never greater than $π/\sqrt{18}\approx 0.74048...$. This is the oldest problem in discrete geometry and is an important part of Hilbert's 18th problem. An example of a packing achieving this density is the face-centered cubic packing. This paper carries out the third step of the program outlined in math.MG/9811073: A proof that if all of the standard regions are triangles or quadrilaterals, then the total score is less than $8 …
The ball (or sphere) packing problem with equal balls, without any symmetry assumption, in a $3$-dimensional space of constant curvature was settled by Böröczky and Florian for the hyperbolic space $\HYP$ in \cite{BF64} and by proving the famous Kepler conjecture by Hales \cite{H} for the Euclidean space $\EUC$. The goal of this paper is to extend the problem of finding the densest geodesic ball (or sphere) packing for the other $3$-dimensional homogeneous geometries (Thurston geometries) $$ \SXR,~\HXR,~\SLR,~\NIL,~\SOL, $$ where a transitive symmetry group of the ball packing is assumed, one …
The famous Kepler conjecture has a less spectacular, two-dimensional equivalent: The theorem of Thue states that the densest circle packing in the Euclidean plane has a hexagonal structure. A common proof uses Voronoi cells and analyzes their area applying Jensen's inequality on convex functions to receive a local estimate which is globally valid. Based on the concept of Voronoi cells, we will introduce a new tessellation into so-called L-triangles which can be related to fundamental parallelograms of lattice circle packings. Therefore a globally disordered circle packing can be reduced to loc…
