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Packings in hyperbolic geometry

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2004-12-01
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Copyright (c) 2004 H. Zeitler

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Zeitler, H. (2004). Packings in hyperbolic geometry. Teaching Mathematics and Computer Science, 2(2), 209-229. https://doi.org/10.5485/TMCS.2004.0040
Abstract
I am becoming older. That's why I am returning to my youth sins. "On revient toujours á ses premiers amoures". This sin was the noneuclidean hyperbolic geometry – especially the Poincaré model. I was teaching this kind of geometry over many years as well in highschool (Gymnasium) as for beginners at the university too.
A lot of results concerning packings in hyperbolic geometry are proved by the Hungarian school around László Fejes Tóth. In this paper we construct very special packings and investigate the corresponding densities. For better understanding we are working in the Poincaré model. At first we give a packing of the hyperbolic plane with horodisks and calculate the density. In an analogous way then the hyperbolic space is packed by horoballs. In the last case the calculation of the density is a little bit difficult. Finally it turns out that in both cases the maximal density is reached.