"A Regal Bearing," by JR Minkel. Scientific American, April 2004,page 34.
This short piece summarizes work by physicist Hans J. Herrmann of theUniversity of Stuttgart on a space-filling arrangement of bearings. InHerrmann's arrangement, larger bearings are placed at the six vertices of aregular octahedron, with smaller spheres arranged in a fractal pattern. Theresearch is published in "Space-Filling Bearings in Three Dimensions" in the 30January issue of Physical ReviewLetters.
--- Mike Breen