Improved dense packings of congruent squares in a square (Q2486855)

The authors study the densest packing of a given number \(n\) of unit squares in a larger square. They relate the edge length \(s_{n}\) of this square window to a function, called inflation, which controls the possible contacts of non-overlapping congruent squares. Such a function is used to provide an algorithm which produces optimal configurations, similarly to the billiard algorithm for finding dense packings of congruent disks or spheres in a bounded domain. The best known upper bounds for \(s_{n}\) are then improved for \(n=11,29\) and \(37\).