Formula

[Francis Ling]

My math is poor and if someone can help me to solve this question. A ball measuring 65mm. I like to caluculate how many balls can fiil up a container measuring 5 x 4 x 2.5 metre in size. Please help. I would be very appreciate.
Anybody can help me ?

 

[Ishuda]

My math is poor and if someone can help me to solve this question. A ball measuring 65mm. I like to caluculate how many balls can fiil up a container measuring 5 x 4 x 2.5 metre in size. Please help. I would be very appreciate.

It depends on how you pack them. Doing that in real life, and with larger sized balls, you might be better off just using cardboard (or some such) separators and pack them as though they are cubes of material with sides the diameter of the ball. That method would seem to give you a lower bound. You might want to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_equal_spheres

 

[Francis Ling]

It depends on how you pack them. Doing that in real life, and with larger sized balls, you might be better off just using cardboard (or some such) separators and pack them as though they are cubes of material with sides the diameter of the ball. That method would seem to give you a lower bound. You might want to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_equal_spheres

Can you give me formula ?

 

[Steven G]

Can you give me formula ?

Hi, Since it depend on how you pack them, as Ishuda pointed out, there is really no formula. What this means is that if you pack the balls one way you might be able to put in 10 balls, but if you pack them another way you might be able to get 12.