Common tangents to four unit balls in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) (Q5939537)

The authors show that any four unit balls in \({\mathbb R}^3\), the centers of which are not collinear, have at most twelve common tangent lines, and that this bound is tight. This settles a problem first posed by D. Larman at a DIMACS workshop on arrangements and their realizations in 1990 on how many common tangents there can be. In particular, the question by \textit{A. Karger} [J. Geom. Graph. 2, No. 1, 7-15 (1998; Zbl 0914.51020)] is answered whether there exist configurations with more than eight common tangent lines.