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Researchers chip away at Smale's 7th unsolved problem in mathematics
How do you arrange a group of points on the surface of a sphere so that all the points are as far apart from each other as possible? With two points, the answer is easy: place them on opposite sides of the sphere, as if they are endpoints of the diameter. With three points, make them the vertices of an equilateral triangle, and so on. But as the number of points increases, so does the difficulty of the problem.
How do you arrange a group of points on the surface of a sphere so that all the points are as far apart from each other as possible? With two points, the answer is easy: place them on opposite sides of the sphere, as if they are endpoints of the diameter. With three points, make them the vertices of an equilateral triangle, and so on. But as the number of points increases, so does the difficulty of the problem.
