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16n2 + 2 revealed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2025

Philip W. Kuchel
Philip W. Kuchel*
Affiliation:
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, New South Wales 2006, Australia e-mail: philip.kuchel@sydney.edu.au

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I show that a neat expression emerges for the number of spheres in each shell of an octahedron composed of close packed spheres, and that from this expression we can compute the value of the packing density for an infinite array of such spheres.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 109 , Issue 576 , November 2025, pp. 471 - 476
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Copyright
© The Authors, 2025 Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Mathematical Association

References

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