Draw unit -spheres in an -D space centered at all coordinates. Then place an additional Hypersphere at
the origin tangent to the other Hyperspheres. Then the central Hypersphere is contained inside
the Hypercube with Vertices at the centers of the other spheres for between 2 and 8.
However, for , the central Hypersphere just touches the Hypercube of centers, and for , the
Hypersphere is partially outside the hypercube. This can be seen by finding the distance from the origin to the center
of one of the Hyperspheres
The analog of face-centered cubic packing is the densest lattice in 4- and 5-D. In 8-D, the densest lattice packing is made up of two copies of face-centered cubic. In 6- and 7-D, the densest lattice packings are cross-sections of the 8-D case. In 24-D, the densest packing appears to be the Leech Lattice. For high dimensions (-D), the densest known packings are nonlattice. The densest lattice packings in -D have been rigorously proved to have Packing Density 1, , , , , , , and (Finch).
The largest number of unit Circles which can touch another is six. For Spheres, the maximum number is 12. Newton considered this question long before a proof was published in 1874. The maximum number of hyperspheres that can touch another in -D is the so-called Kissing Number.
See also Kissing Number, Leech Lattice, Sphere Packing
References
Finch, S. ``Favorite Mathematical Constants.'' http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/constant/hermit/hermit.html
Gardner, M. Martin Gardner's New Mathematical Diversions from Scientific American. New York:
Simon and Schuster, pp. 89-90, 1966.
© 1996-9 Eric W. Weisstein