Covering Rectangles by Disks: The Video (Media Exposition).

In this video, we motivate and visualize a fundamental result for covering a rectangle by a set of non-uniform circles: For any λ ≥ 1, the critical covering area A^*(λ) is the minimum value for which any set of disks with total area at least A^*(λ) can cover a rectangle of dimensions λ× 1. We show that there is a threshold value λ₂ = √(√7/2 - 1/4) ≈ 1.035797…, such that for λ < λ₂ the critical covering area A^*(λ) is A^*(λ) = 3π(λ²/16 + 5/32 + 9/256λ²), and for λ ≥ λ₂, the critical area is A^*(λ) = π(λ²+2)/4; these values are tight. For the special case λ=1, i.e., for covering a unit square, the critical covering area is 195π/256 ≈ 2.39301…. We describe the structure of the proof, and show animations of some of the main components.