\(12\)-neighbour packings of unit balls in \(\mathbb{E}^3\) (Q343229)

László Fejes Tóth conjectured that any \(12\)-neighbour packing of unit balls in \(E^3\), i.e., each ball is touched by \(12\) others, is composed of hexagonal layers as, e.g., in a densest lattice packing of unit balls. In 2012, \textit{T.C. Hales} published a preprint on the arXiv [``A proof of Fejes Toth's conjecture on sphere packings with kissing number twelve'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1209.6043}] containing a computer-assisted proof of this conjecture. In the paper under review, the authors give a different and more geometric proof of this conjecture. It depends only in one place on a computer-aided result, namely on the recent solution of the Tammes problem for 13 points due to \textit{O.R. Musin} and \textit{A.S. Tarasov} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 48, No. 1, 128--141 (2012; Zbl 1269.52015)]. The general Tammes problem is the task to find an arrangement of \(n\) points on the unit ball such that the minimal distance between all pairs is maximized.