Frequently Asked Questions

For those who do not like to solve the nonlinear equation if they submit their first solution and want to calculate which container radius, here is a table of Q=Rbest/Rsubmitted as a function of the score. You can also get a more detailed table in PDF by clicking here

Score	Q
0.00	0.000000
0.01	0.014286
0.02	0.028571
0.03	0.042857
0.04	0.057143
0.05	0.071429
0.06	0.085714
0.07	0.100000
0.08	0.114286
0.09	0.128571
0.10	0.142857
0.11	0.157143
0.12	0.171429
0.13	0.185714
0.14	0.200000
0.15	0.214286
0.16	0.228571
0.17	0.242857
0.18	0.257143
0.19	0.271429
0.20	0.285714
0.21	0.300000
0.22	0.314286
0.23	0.328571
0.24	0.342857
0.25	0.357143
0.26	0.371429
0.27	0.385714
0.28	0.400000
0.29	0.414286
0.30	0.428571
0.31	0.442857
0.32	0.457142
0.33	0.471428
0.34	0.485713
0.35	0.499998
0.36	0.514282
0.37	0.528566
0.38	0.542849
0.39	0.557131
0.40	0.571410
0.41	0.585687
0.42	0.599960
0.43	0.614227
0.44	0.628487
0.45	0.642736
0.46	0.656971
0.47	0.671186
0.48	0.685376
0.49	0.699530
0.50	0.713639
0.51	0.727688
0.52	0.741660
0.53	0.755532
0.54	0.769279
0.55	0.782870
0.56	0.796269
0.57	0.809435
0.58	0.822325
0.59	0.834895
0.60	0.847100
0.61	0.858898
0.62	0.870253
0.63	0.881137
0.64	0.891530
0.65	0.901422
0.66	0.910811
0.67	0.919705
0.68	0.928115
0.69	0.936056
0.70	0.943542
0.71	0.950578
0.72	0.957153
0.73	0.963229
0.74	0.968743
0.75	0.973622
0.76	0.977826
0.77	0.981376
0.78	0.984345
0.79	0.986832
0.80	0.988932
0.81	0.990725
0.82	0.992272
0.83	0.993618
0.84	0.994784
0.85	0.995778
0.86	0.996597
0.87	0.997249
0.88	0.997759
0.89	0.998161
0.90	0.998483
0.91	0.998747
0.92	0.998968
0.93	0.999157
0.94	0.999321
0.95	0.999465
0.96	0.999594
0.97	0.999710
0.98	0.999815
0.99	0.999911
1.00	1.000000

Circles or discs ?
Of course, we are speaking about discs, not circles !
What is the submission format ?
Let's take a valid example, for N=4:
-0.09657434582230290 -0.56182472509981420
-0.21190854170729230 0.65952164349456150
-0.57142857142817450 -0.00000070672180066
0.42857142857148220 0.00000000000000000
The first coordinates are radius 1 disc's center, the second are radius 2, etc...
You don't have to mention the radius sizes.
The final circumscribing circle HAS to be in (0,0), since the scorer won't translate the discs horizontally or vertically (computing the enclosing circle of any set of discs is a lot harder to code).

All characters except 0-9, - and . are replaced by spaces in your submission (carriage returns and line-feeds are replaced by spaces).
For example, you can submit:
-0.09657434582230290 -0.56182472509981420
or
[-0.09657434582230290 -0.56182472509981420]
or
-0.09657434582230290,-0.56182472509981420
or any kind of format.

You can also submit 'scaled' results, like:
-96.57434582230290 -561.82472509981420
-211.90854170729230 659.52164349456150
-571.42857142817450 -0.00070672180066
428.57142857148220 0
The coordinates will be automatically divided by 1000.

.1 or 3.5E-02 are not understood by the scorer, please submit 0.1 or 0.035
Do we have to submit 46 solutions ?
Yes, since the scorer can only score one solution at a time.
What does mean Q16, Q128 and Q1024 ?
It's Q¹⁶, Q¹²⁸ and Q¹⁰²⁴, or Q at the power 16, Q at the power 128, Q at the power 1024.
In most programming languages, you can compute this as pow(Q,16).
Are you aware that it is possible to calculate the value of the top score from the information given when you improve one of your results ?
Yes, and this is on purpose ! It's fine as long as you keep this for yourself.
Please, do not publish any result, information or solution.
Note that the best results are improved regularly, so you may only know the best result of a given N at a given moment.

Need an answer ?

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