A Conversation for Closest Packings of Bowling Balls and Other Spheres
Boxes
Steve K. Started conversation Jun 30, 2004
In my student days, I had a summer job working in a grocery warehouse. The basic job was to drive an electric cart around the warehouse, loaded with a couple of big pallets, pulling out cases of food for a store's order. I had to learn the various "ties" to get the different sized cases to stack correctly. It was sort of like laying bricks, except the bricks were all different sizes, so some needed a "nine-tie" (nine cases in a layer, with the next layer offset for stability), "five ties" for big cases, etc. the goal was not only to get the most cases on a pallet, but to make it stable so it wouldn't collapse when the forklift loaded it on and off the truck.
P.S. Don't set a big pallet of ammonia in gallon glass bottles on top of a pallet of small cases of candy. This leads to evacuation of the warehouse, big fans, etc. 
Boxes
flyingtwinkle Posted Jul 1, 2004
practically things ought to be first
segregated as breakable and non breakable and tying for just tying sake is not enough tetris isan interesting game but otherwise everything can"t be tied up
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