Ukrainian mathematician Dr Maryna Viazovska, currently working at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, has solved the densest packing problem (first formulated in 1611 by Kepler) in dimension eight. Subsequently, Maryna with her colleagues – Henry Cohn, Steve Miller, Abhinav Kumar, and another Ukrainian – Danylo Radchenko, currently PhD student at the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics at the University of Bonn, solved the densest packing problem in 24 dimensions. Here are the links to the papers:
- Maryna Viazovska, The sphere packing problem in dimension 8.
- Henry Cohn, Abhinav Kumar, Stephen D. Miller, Danylo Radchenko, Maryna Viazovska, The sphere packing problem in dimension 24.
More about this breakthrough discovery:
Sphere Packing in Dimension 8, by Frank Morgan, The Huffington Post, 21 March 2016
Задача Кеплера отримала український розв’язок, by Larysa Kit, Tech Today Awards, 28 April 2016, the May winner of readers’ choice article
So stapeln Mathematiker Melonen, von Andreas Loos, ZEIT Online, 21 March 2016