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The Vanishing Space
Difficulty
Objective
Empty the box. Now, put everything back in. Sounds easy? We'll see about that.
History & Trivia
Spherical ball packing problems have been around for quite a while now. Martin Gardner, an American mathematician, published a challenge in the Scientific American in 1960. The challenge was to mathematically calculate how many 1-inch balls (attached together to form unique pieces) can be fit into a box of dimension 10x10x5 inches. It ain't that easy. This is NOT your typical “calculate the volume of the box and divide by the volume of the ball” problem. What makes it challenging is the fact that the balls can be attached together in 500 different ways!
Solution
Link to YouTube
Extension
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