Maximum density packing with congruent circular cylinders with pairwise askew axes (Q1364593): Difference between revisions

\textit{K. Kuperberg} [Mathematika 37, No. 2, 324-331 (1990; Zbl 0721.52012)] proved the existence of a packing of congruent circular cylinders of infinite length in both directions with pairwise askew axes and positive density (approx. 0,017). As usual, the density of a packing is defined by a limit process and may be regarded as the proportion of the whole of space covered by the sets of packing. In the paper under review, a packing of cylinders satisfying the same requirements as before is constructed which has the surprisingly high density 5/12. The authors consider a one-parameter family of coaxial hyperboloids of revolution of one sheet. On each hyperboloid a finite set of generating lines is selected. By an appropriate choice of the hyperboloids and the distinguished lines, the authors can prove that any two of the lines are not parallel and have at least unit distance from each other. For some details of the rather involved proof, the reader is referred to the Ph.D. thesis [Tech. Univ. Wien (1994)] of the first author.