n = 107 open ★ corrects Nagamochi 2005=

10.36154146…≤s(107)≤1084666719284349100000000000000

The best packing known for 107 squares, side 10−122+1+2, Károly Hajba 2024
10.36210.847
101112
10.34411.344
nn+1

Proven

10.361541≤s(107)≤10.846668

  • new result
  • exact

Citation record n-107

lowerKarakuş 2026, arXiv corrects Nagamochi 2005 (confirmed T-083)

upperHajba 2024, Squares in Squares (reported; confirmed T-101)

Open

  • optimality

Bounds

Best known packing

10−122+1+2

10.84666719284348
Found by
Károly Hajba 2024
Construction
—
Source
[Kingbird]
Evidence
E-kingbird-upper-register
Verified upper bound

1084666719284349100000000000000

10.84666719284349
Evidence
E-evand-exact-ceilings-2026-10-05-exact-replay, E-evand-exact-ceilings-2026-10-05-source-replay
Reported lower bound

10.38083151…

10.38083151964
Proved by
Hiroshi Nagamochi 2005
Kind
Nagamochi
Note
General closed form: s(N) >= min(ceil(sqrt(N)), sqrt(N - 2*floor(sqrt(N)) + 1) + 1).
Source
[Nagamochi 2005]
Evidence
E-nagamochi-lower
Verified lower bound

10.36154146…

10.3615414616
Corrects
Nagamochi 2005 (T-007)
Evidence
E-karakus-strip-lower, E-karakus-strip-measure-interval
Gap

0.48512573…

Verified upper minus verified lower.

Results in the register

Verification

upper: replayed here; lower: external proof (read here), audited here

formal upper trails report; formal lower differs from report; reported lower: defect recorded

Rigidity

not rigid, numerically checked, numerical multiprecision

Evidence: E-translation-escape-not-rigid

Scope

Square 81 of the retained witness (witness id 82) translates 0.049516 along (-0.707107, -0.707107) with the packing still valid, so the configuration admits a non-trivial feasible motion; 6 of its 107 squares do. Every constraint is exactly affine in the slide parameter, so the arithmetic carries no linearization error, but the coordinates are the witness's own finite-precision transcription: this settles the retained configuration, not the true optimum. Rigidity and optimality are independent, and this bears only on the former.

Open questions
  • Blocker (mathematics): verified_upper_bound is E-evand-exact-ceilings-2026-10-05-exact-replay's certified side rounded up, 10.84666719284349, which trails the report 10.84666719284348 by 1e-14, and the report's exact form 10 - (1/2)sqrt(2) + sqrt(1 + sqrt(2)), an irrational side, which no rational certificate reaches: the certificate's own side lies 1.1e-19 above it. Closing the gap needs an exact algebraic certificate of the packing at its closed-form side. E-kingbird-upper-register

s(107) — open

Exact certificate, 2026-10-06. Evan Daniel’s square-packing published on 5 October 2026 an exact rational certificate of this packing, decided here over ℚ by two exact checkers that share no code with each other or with the source, and by the source’s own two run here: it proves s(107)≤10.84666719284349, the verified upper bound (T-101). Until then the verified upper bound was the trivial grid bound 11.

Open. The best known packing gives s(107)≤10.8466672, and the strongest lower bound independently verified here is 10.361541 from Karakuş’s general theorem, leaving a gap of 0.4851. General bound: s(N) >= 1/2 + sqrt(N - floor(sqrt(N)) + 1/4).

The verified upper bound is a ceiling

verified_upper_bound for this case is 10.84666719284349, proved by Evan Daniel’s exact rational certificate of this packing (E-evand-exact-ceilings-2026-10-05-exact-replay, T-101). It is larger than the best known 10.84666719284348 two fields above it, by 1×10−14.

It is not the value of s(107) and not a different packing: it is the certificate’s own side, 10.8466671928434897831…, rounded up at the fourteen decimals the catalogue prints. The catalogue gives the packing’s side exactly, as 10−(1/2)2+1+2, and the certificate’s side lies 1.1×10−19 above that: its squares are rational and each is kept clear of its neighbours and the walls, so it bounds the exact side from above and does not reach it. That side is irrational, so no rational certificate reaches it. The mathematics blocker in the frontmatter records the difference. Read reported_upper_bound for the best known side length.

The exact certificate

Evan Daniel’s square-packing published on 5 October 2026 exact rational certificates of the packings this register lists as best known, solved from its own witnesses, and offered those that do not lower a printed side as a replay of the existing bounds, asking for nothing to be registered from them. The certificate for this count holds the same 107 squares, each a rational centre and a rational t=tan(θ/2), in a square of side 10.8466671928434897831…, 9.8×10−15 above the side the Kingbird catalogue prints, 10.84666719284348. Rounded to binary64, square for square, its pose is the one the atlas pictures for this count. Evan Daniel’s solver moves the binary64 pose to a nearby exact KKT point of the problem of minimizing the side under non-overlap, computed at 80 digits, and rounds it outward to rationals.

This repository decides the certificate exactly. Converted without rounding, every pair and every wall is decided over ℚ twice, by sqpack’s exact separating-axis test and by an independent checker that shares no code with it, and the source’s own two checkers, run here as retained, accept it as well (receipts). That proves s(107)≤10.84666719284349, the verified upper bound: the certificate’s side rounded up at the fourteen decimals the catalogue prints, as the record writes any certificate of a printed side. It says nothing about optimality. On jlevy/squares#375 its author wrote that the solver, its checkers and the batch “were written with Claude (Anthropic) as a coding and research agent, directed and reviewed by me.”

The packing

Found by Károly Hajba in 2024, via an unrecorded method.

The lower bound

The strongest lower bound independently verified in this record is Karakuş’s general bound, which applies to every nonsquare N≥8:

s(N)≥12+N−⌊N⌋+14

Correction, 2 October 2026. Until that date the verified lower bound here was Nagamochi’s general closed form, s(N)≥min(⌈N⌉,N−2⌊N⌋+1+1), which is stronger at this n and is now recorded as a reported bound. Its published proof rests on Nagamochi’s Lemma 1, which Karakuş showed false; nothing is disproved, and no packing beating it is known (review of 2 October 2026). This register had recorded that proof as verified, its own error, logged as defect D-516.

Source-reported bounds are recorded separately from this independently verified theorem.

Verification Code

The programs behind this case’s verified bounds, by their evidence. The code column says how the code that ran stands to the code its producer used. VERIFIERS.md says what each program is and whose it is.

bound evidence run code programs
verified lower E-karakus-strip-lower a published proof no code no verification code
verified lower E-karakus-strip-measure-interval audited here independent V-check-karakus-strip-measure (first-party)
verified upper E-evand-exact-ceilings-2026-10-05-exact-replay replayed here independent V-sqpack-verify, V-check-rational-witness-independent (first-party); V-evand-exact-certificates (first-party, premises)
verified upper E-evand-exact-ceilings-2026-10-05-source-replay replayed here producer’s code V-evand-verify-cert-py, V-evand-verify-cert2-py (external); V-evand-exact-certificates (first-party, premises)