page_title: Tammes problem
hierarchical_section_title: Tammes problem
caption_attribution_description: English: A Porites coral on Flynn Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns, Queensland, Australia, they can inhabit other species such as tiny fan worms. Geographic coordinates are approximate.
context_page_description: In geometry, the Tammes problem is a problem in packing a given number of circles on the surface of a sphere such that the minimum distance between circles is maximized. It is named after a Dutch botanist who posed the problem in 1930 while studying the distribution of pores on pollen grains. It can be viewed as a particular special case of the generalized Thomson problem.
context_section_description: In geometry, the Tammes problem is a problem in packing a given number of circles on the surface of a sphere such that the minimum distance between circles is maximized.  It is named after a Dutch botanist who posed the problem in 1930 while studying the distribution of pores on pollen grains.  It can be viewed as a particular special case of the generalized Thomson problem.
caption: Some natural systems such as this coral require approximate solutions to problems similar to the Tammes problem
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