Re: [math-fun] Kissing number in 4 dimensions claimed to be 24

John, could you elaborate on why

... If it's combinatorial consideration of cases combined with elementary geometrical proofs of various numerical estimates, then I'll have strong doubts as to its correctness.

I mean, surely a proof along these lines exists -- the space of configurations (of 25 balls, possibly intersecting, all kissing a central one) is compact, so it can in principle be completely checked with a finite number of cases of the form "this configuration has at least epsilon overlap, so every configuration within distance epsilon of it is ruled out." --Michael Kleber kleber@brandeis.edu