一天，都柏林大学圣三一学院的物理学家陈和奎正拿着一些铁珠玩耍，试图将他们以最有效的方法装进一个小的圆柱型管子里。
One day, physicist Ho-Kei Chan of Trinity College Dublin was playing with steel ball bearings, trying to pack them into a little cylindrical tube in the most efficient way possible.
陈和奎认为他能够解决这个问题，他设想将一层球形物摆到一个碟子上，然后将碟子堆积起来，圆柱体就装满了球形物。
Chan realized he could solve the problem by imagining his cylinder full of ball bearings as a stack of disks, with a single layer of ball bearings on each disk.
尽管陈和奎关于球形物包装的研究基本上是理论上的，他对于实际应用也感到振奋。
Although Chan's insight into sphere packing is primarily theoretical, he is excited about the practical applications.
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