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Science 13 February 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5660, pp. 968 - 969
DOI: 10.1126/science.1094581
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Perspectives

PHYSICS:
Packing in the Spheres

David A. Weitz

To study how objects pack together, physicists have long assumed that the objects are spherical. But this simplifying approximation may be leading researchers astray. As Weitz discusses in his Perspective, the work reported by Donev et al. in the same issue shows that how spheres pack may be the exception rather than the rule. Through a combination of experiments with a large collection of ellipsoidal candies and computer simulations, the researchers discover that a much higher volume can be filled with the ellipsoids than with spheres. Not just a theoretical puzzle, the ways in which objects pack are of vital concern to the shipping and manufacturing industries.

The author is in the Department of Physics and Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. E-mail: weitz{at}deas.harvard.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)