¶ Vector Equilibrium: Great Circles Of
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Index Entry
Vector Equilibrium: Great Circles Of:
"would be tangent to one another, giving us 12 balls tangent around one. In the closest packing of spheres, which the physicist finds is employed by nature in the basic gridding of all agglomerations of atoms-- and we find time and again nature using this closest packing for basic coordination-- and you always get 12 around one. The 12-around-one would then be at these various points.
"Therefore in finding all the sets of great circles which can be generated by all the axes of symmetry of a vector equilibrium, and finding that they all go through the 12 vertexes is very interesting, because if this sphere were tangent to other spheres these would be its points of tangency in closest packing. The point of tangency of spheres in closest packing would be a very important point because any energy traveling over the surface of one sphere to get to another sphere would have to go through a point of tangency to the next sphere.
“The great circles represent the shortest distances between points on a sphere; they are the most economical lines on a sphere. These 25 great circles represent all the railroad tracks of energy following the shortest distance between points-- all the possible railroad tracks that go through all the points of”
