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arXiv · 2402.08032

The Formal Proof of the Kepler Conjecture: a critical retrospective

Thomas Hales
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Abstract

The Kepler conjecture asserts that no packing of congruent balls in three-dimensional Euclidean space has density greater than that of the face-centered cubic packing. In 1998, Sam Ferguson and I announced a computer-assisted proof of this conjecture. Long delays in the refereeing process sparked a project to give a formal proof of the Kepler conjecture, which was completed in a large collaborative effort in 2014. This article gives a critical reappraisal of that project.

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Thomas Hales. 2024-02-12. The Formal Proof of the Kepler Conjecture: a critical retrospective. https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.08032

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