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Math Forum » Discussions » Math Topics » geometry.pre-college.independent

Topic: Kissing Numbers
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Ed Dickey

Posts: 11
Registered: 12/6/04
Kissing Numbers
Posted: Apr 19, 1995 5:53 PM
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I posted a question related to sphere packing and kissing numbers a few
weeks ago. My excursion has led to a bit of humor from my son. I thought
some of you might enjoy this.


With typical 8 year old bravado, my son occasionally asks me to pose "hard"
questions for him to answer. As a more-or-less typical father, I decided
to pose an unresolved mathematical problem. We had talked about circle and
sphere
packing a few weeks earlier so I asked "What's the kissing number for
spheres in the 4th dimension." With the timing of Jack Benny, he
responded: "1-800-KISSING."

Much better than the right answer. You can also imagine my relief that he
didn't say "1-900."

Ed Dickey

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