As published
= corrects Nagamochi 2005open
Proven
- exact
Citation record n-211
lowerKarakuş 2026, arXiv corrects Nagamochi 2005 (confirmed T-083)
upperOstashev & Couzo, GitHub (confirmed T-188)
Open
- optimality
Bounds
14.99354962…
14.9935496262994211- Found by
- Ostashev 2026
- Improved by
- Couzo
- Construction
- —
- Source
- [Couzo verified bounds 2026-10-14]
- Evidence
E-couzo-487b058-certificate-report
14.99354962…
14.9935496262994211The reported value, verified here.
14.60509269…
14.605092697086- Proved by
- Hosono 2026
- Kind
- counting
- Scope
- Unrestricted unit-square packing with independent rotations and disjoint interiors.
- Note
- Hosono's closed form (wand125, 13 October 2026, T-180): >= a(N) for every non-square N >= 49, from a measure of line segments on 34 intervals of the fractional part. At , k = 14 and interval 28 give a(211) = 14.605092697086963293841481275918..., here rounded down at 12 and 30 places. The source replayed its certificate with its own checker; no replay has run here.
- Source
- [wand125 closed form 2026-10-14]
- Evidence
E-wand125-closed-form-report
14.54457190…
14.5445719051- Corrects
- Nagamochi 2005 (T-007)
- Evidence
E-karakus-strip-lower,E-karakus-strip-measure-interval
0.44897772…
Verified upper minus verified lower.
Results in the register
T-007 V0 C1 Nagamochi · 2026-08-31 · 321 cases
for
T-057 V3 C3 de Winter · 2026-09-29 · n = 211
, the first packing of 211 squares below the grid on record
Claim and records
- Claim
- < 15, by de Winter's packing of 16 September 2026: 211 unit squares in a square of that side. It is the first packing of 211 squares below the grid on record, so s(k^2 - k + 1) < k, shown in the Kingbird catalogue for k = 16, 17 and 18 (, 273 and 307), holds for k = 15 as well.
The source gives 21-digit poses and the author's report of an outward interval check at 80 digits; it publishes no interval boxes or checker.
The bound is certified here twice, by methods that share no geometry code. The first is an exact rational packing, the source's pose rounded to rationals at centre dilation 1, of side 74989803524838470007/5000000000000000000, 2.1e-14 below the printed side, decided pair by pair and wall by wall over Q by two checkers that share no code. The second is outward-rounded interval arithmetic on the source's own pose as printed, which lies in the printed square as placed with least wall clearance 1.000005e-14 and least pair gap 2.10001e-14, the values the source reports.
de Winter, JoostdeWinter/square-packing-211. The source says nothing about AI assistance. - Significance
- A count whose best known packing was the trivial grid now has one below it. On the Kingbird catalogue and this record, which show s(k^2 - k + 1) < k at , 273 and 307 (k = 16 to 18) and hold the grid at to 183 (k = 6 to 14), the smallest k shown to satisfy it drops from 16 to 15. S3 by the anchor "a substantive case result"; the margin, about 0.002, changes nothing beyond this count. Confirmed on 11 October beside T-135 (S3), the packing of 308 squares below the grid: one new packing below an integer side.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
T-083 V3 C3 Karakuş · 2026-10-02 · 301 cases
for every nonsquare
T-085 V3 C3 Karakuş; Vlasenko · 2026-10-02 · 315 cases
Nagamochi 2005, Lemma 1 is false for every container with and
T-098 V3 C3 Daniel after Couzo, de Winter, Ellsworth, Levy · 2026-10-05 · 48 cases
Exact optima of 48 known-best packings:
s(n) ≤ S',3.5e-13to5.0e-11below each printed sideT-149 V3 C3 Ostashev after Nakajima, Levy, Xu · 2026-10-11 · n = 155, 156, 211
New packings of 155, 156 and 211 squares, each with an exact rational certificate
Claim and records
- Claim
- Three complete rational source certificates by Ostashev, reported on jlevy/squares#501, prove finite upper bounds at the exact sides they state: , and .
Each certificate gives a rational side and, for each unit square, a rational centre and the tangent of its half-angle, in the source's sqcert format: the 60-digit optimum of its packing with the load-bearing squares scaled by 1 + 1e-20, then every centre and the side dilated by 1 + 1e-60. These are the certificates of the repository as it stood when read, which replaced, the day the issue was filed, the three whose sides the issue prints; each issue side is above the retained one, so its bound follows.
The author reports that each packing passes its own C++ checker in GMP rational arithmetic, on the shipped certificates with no dilation and no tolerance and on certificates rebuilt from the 60-digit decimal packings, and an 80-digit mpmath cross-check written separately; the README also states that each side is the exact optimum of its packing's contact topology, with nonnegative KKT multipliers. Those statements are the author's; no source program ran here.
All nine retained jobs, the three positives with their duplicate-square and outside-container controls, were decided again here on 11 October 2026 by both maintained exact routes and equal their retained rows. A third exact route, half-extent containment and exact intersection area, decided the three with six controls each and held each retained file to its upstream bytes and its side to the README's print. No route here is the source's code, and the source ran none of them, so the replay is independently re-implemented. The 11 October review found no blocking defect.
Each side was below the ceiling its case held, by 7.78e-05 at 155 (SQUISH's update, T-115), 2.91e-03 at 156 and 1.62e-03 at 211 (Daniel's exact optima, T-098), and at 155 is below Couzo's T-128 by 7.35e-05. On 11 October 2026 the case records adopted this entry as the house at all three counts, each case's reported and verified upper bounds moving together and each earlier house kept as history, with T-128 verified and not selected at 155; private-worker custody was closed in the same change (packing/devtools/house-custody-2026-10-11.json).
Credit Ostashev (https://github.com/dostashev/square-packing) with the three packings and their certificates, the name he agreed to on the issue on 11 October 2026. The README says each was constructed from scratch, a V-shaped tilted band at a chosen angle with aligned corner blocks chosen by an integer program, no existing record geometry used, then re-hardened on a GPU with Nakajima's soft-to-rigid method, polished by the fixed-angle linear program it credits to this project, and solved to the exact optimum of its contact topology; its certificates follow Xu's construction.
Measured pose by pose, none is a refinement of a credited packing: at 155 the squares pair one to one with SQUISH's (T-115) and Couzo's (T-128) only through the aligned corner blocks every packing of that family shares, and the band between them is at another angle, 50 squares turned by up to 27 degrees; at 156 and 211 no symmetry pairs the squares with the case's packing one to one.
The source and the issue make no statement about AI assistance, and the issue omits the template's section on it. On 12 October 2026 the author stated on jlevy/squares#528 that AI agents wrote and ran his search, composition and verification code; the verification code it names is the one retained here, the same byte for byte in both releases, and whether the statement covers these three packings' search is asked (think-e59i). - Significance
- Three new packings built from scratch, smaller finite construction sides at , 156 and 211, 7.78e-05 to 2.91e-03 below the case ceilings and 7.35e-05 below the pending T-128 at 155, measured as no placement of the packings their cases hold or have pending; no lower bound or optimum.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
T-163 V2 C1 Fang after Arslanov, Mustafin, Shangitbayev, Ellsworth, Stead, de Winter, Daniel, Couzo · 2026-10-14 · n = 211, 241, 273, 307
s(n² − n + 1) < n for every n ≥ 15, and n² − n + F(n) squares below side n, from Fang
Claim and records
- Claim
- Fang states two theorems of a note, draft v0.6 of 13 October 2026, which is not in his repository: Theorem 1, s(n^2 - n + 1) < n for every integer n >= 15; and Theorem 2, s(n^2 - n + F(n)) < n with F(n) = 1 + max{p + 2q : 16p + 21q <= n - 15}. The proof glues a squeezable 17 x 16 rectangle of 257 squares, or a 22 x 21 rectangle of 443 that adds two, onto a square packing (Lemma 3, tools/glue.py) and inducts on n from finitely many certificates; the construction gives side n - 1/20000 at every n >= 15.
Inside the case corpus the theorem's inventory certifies , , and , the counts n^2 - n + F(n) for to 18. Each is above its case's bound (T-149, T-098, T-098, T-136), so these four finite bounds are superseded; nothing supersedes the theorem itself, which no other result implies at any n.
The 14 October review re-derived both theorems from the retained material and decided every finite piece the chains use, and rebuilt all 76 inventory certificates byte for byte; both maintained exact routes decided the six retained ones, at 211, 241, 273, 307, 308 and 932, with their controls. The note itself has not been read.
Credit the theorem and its certificates to Fang (https://github.com/TheSnakeFang/squarepack-certs). The gluing lemma is Arslanov, Mustafin and Shangitbayev's decomposition (Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 28(4), P4.22, 2021); the base packings are de Winter's 211, Ellsworth's and Stead's 241 and 273, the AMS21 and Ellsworth packings of m^2 - m squares, and the author's own; the rectangles grow from Ellsworth's, Stead's and Couzo's packings; the certificate format and the pieces' certificates are Daniel's. The search, the verifier and the bundle were written and run with Claude (Anthropic), directed and reviewed by the author. - Significance
- A bound family for every n >= 15 with an explicit construction: the deficiency bound c*(k) <= k - 1 - F(k) improves Arslanov, Mustafin and Shangitbayev's k - 1 at every k >= 15 and Ryu's at 15 <= k <= 78 and at k = 86; it settles no case n <= 324, and its four in-corpus finite bounds trail the cases.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
T-174 V3 C3 PingYou Ltd after Friedman, Ellsworth, Daniel, Xu, Barnett, Couzo, Ostashev, Chaoweeraprasit, Gupta, Fang, Polkovskyi, Levy · 2026-10-14 · 68 cases
Tighter certificates at 68 counts from PingYou Ltd, of others' packings and its own
T-175 V3 C3 Ostashev after Nakajima, Daniel, de Winter, Couzo, Levy, Xu · 2026-10-14 · n = 211, 241, 304
New packings of 211, 241 and 304 squares, two with merged tilted bands, each certified exactly
Claim and records
- Claim
- Three complete rational source certificates report finite upper-bound improvements at the exact sides they state: , and .
All 12 retained jobs, four certificates with their duplicate-square and outside-container controls, were decided again here on 14 October 2026 by both maintained exact routes and equal their retained rows. A third exact route, half-extent containment and exact intersection area, decided the three certificates this entry cites with six controls each and held each retained file to its upstream bytes, fetched at the pin. No route here is the source's code, and the source ran none of them, so the replay is independently re-implemented. The 14 October review found no blocking defect.
The author reports that each packing passes its own C++ checker (sqverify --precise --certify, MPFR then GMP rationals) at delta = 1e-60, that sqverify --check-cert certifies the shipped certificates in GMP rationals with no dilation and no tolerance, and that a separately written 80-digit mpmath cross-check finds least separations of 5e-21 at 211 and 241 and 4.995e-21 at 176 and 304; the issue states that all three checkers are the author's, written with AI assistance, the first two sharing the C++ parser and geometry.
It also states that each side is the exact first-order optimum of its contact topology, with nonnegative KKT multipliers at a 60-digit solution reached by two routes that agree, and the load-bearing squares scaled by 1 + 1e-20. Those statements are the author's; no source program ran here.
Credit Ostashev (https://github.com/dostashev/square-packing) with the packings and their certificates, which the issue says are new arrangements.
At 176, 211 and 241 a packing whose tilted squares form two bands was re-hardened on a GPU with every square soft and the box held (soft-to-rigid, after Nakajima's idea), and the two bands merged into one V: at 176 seeded from the author's earlier composition of issue 528's 38-square piece and issue 562's 44-square piece, at 211 from Daniel's exact optimum of de Winter's packing, and at 241 from Daniel's exact optimum of Couzo's packing, the case's house. At 304 the same re-hardening relaxed the author's composition of a 55-square (h + 8) x h piece and a 68-square (h + 7) x h piece without forming a V. Each was solved to the exact optimum of its contact topology.
The 211 is a different packing from the author's T-149, which it replaces in his repository. The author asks that the seeds' authors (Couzo, Daniel, de Winter) and the composition pieces' sources be acknowledged.
The issue states AI assistance: an AI-assisted research loop the author drives with his own ideas, merging the bands at the junction being his; AI agents wrote and ran the search and verification code, and an agent extended the move from his compositions to published two-band packings.
Measured pose by pose by that review, the 211 and 304 are new arrangements and the 241 rebuilds the seed's design, every square paired and 15 moved beyond a tenth. On 15 October 2026 the case record at 304 adopted this entry as its house, its reported and verified upper bounds moving together and Couzo's certificate (T-152) kept as history; private-worker custody was closed in the same change (packing/devtools/house-custody-2026-10-11.json). At 211 and 241 Couzo's issue 586 (T-182) is smaller and holds the cases. - Significance
- Three new arrangements, 1.38e-04 to 2.64e-03 below the case ceilings, as T-158 is; no lower bound or optimum.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
T-180 V0 C1 Hosono · 2026-10-14 · 264 cases
Closed-form lower bound for every non-square , reported
T-181 V3 C3 Couzo after Daniel, Ostashev, Fang, Ellsworth, Levy; Couzo after Daniel, Ostashev, BuddenPing, Fang, Ellsworth, Levy · 2026-10-14 · n = 211, 241, 302
Exact rational certificates at 211, 241 and 302 from Couzo
Claim and records
- Claim
- Three complete rational source certificates report finite upper-bound improvements at the exact sides they state: , and .
The same release states , , , and , beyond the case corpus; the source register tracks those as beyond-horizon rows.
All 21 retained jobs of the issue-583 packet and all 42 of the issue-586 packet, each certificate with its duplicate-square and outside-container controls, were decided again here on 14 and 15 October 2026 by both maintained exact routes and equal their retained rows. A third exact route, half-extent containment and exact intersection area, decided the three certificates this entry cites with six controls each and held each retained file to its upstream bytes, fetched at the pin. No route here is the source's code; the author's runs of this repository's sqpack verifier are his and decide nothing here, so the replay is independently re-implemented. The 14 October review found no blocking defect.
The certificates at 211, 241, 339, 379, 380 and 382 are those at the revision of franciscouzo/square-packing the issue pins, which issue 586's revision replaced; the couzo-issue583-2026-10-13 packet retains them. The 302 and 381 are unchanged at issue 586's revision, where the couzo-certificates-2026-10-13 packet retains them.
The author reports that every certificate of issue 583 passes this repository's sqpack verify.py and Daniel's verify_cert.py, at the revisions the issue names, in exact rational arithmetic; that 154, 211, 241, 302 and 381 are exact optima from Daniel's exact contact solver; and that 339, 379, 380 and 382 are rational witnesses of their decimal packings. Issue 570's 154 is this revision's n154.cert, byte for byte. Those statements are the author's; no source program ran here.
Credit Couzo (https://github.com/franciscouzo/square-packing), with the packings each started from, as the author asks: Daniel's 154 arrangement of issue 552, continued through the author's browser refinement, native basin hopping and exact finishing; Ostashev's 211 and 241 arrangements of issue 575, continued with native search and refinement.
Beyond the case corpus, 339 and 379 continue the author's L-border constructions of issue 506, and 380 and 382 continue Fang's published arrangements (TheSnakeFang/squarepack-certs). Daniel's optimizer, exact contact solver and verifier, Ellsworth's search and refinement ideas, and this project's sqpack verifier were used.
The author states that OpenAI Codex assisted the search implementation, the verification orchestration and the requests, that earlier search work used Claude Code, and that he directed the work.
Measured pose by pose by that review, the 211 and 241 continue Ostashev's packings of issue 575 (T-175) and the 302 continues PingYou Ltd's arrangement (T-164), each paired square for square. On 15 October 2026 the case record at 302 adopted the 302, as the issue-586 packet retains it, as its house, its reported and verified upper bounds moving together and Daniel's regularization of Chaoweeraprasit's packing (T-146) kept as history, with T-164 verified and not selected; private-worker custody was closed in the same change (packing/devtools/house-custody-2026-10-11.json). At 211 and 241 issue 586's certificates (T-182) are smaller and hold the cases. - Significance
- Continuations of earlier packings at , 241 and 302, 1.02e-03 to 2.78e-03 below the case ceilings, as T-158 is; no lower bound or optimum.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
n = 211n = 241n = 302registerevidence 1evidence 2evidence 3evidence 4
T-182 V3 C3 Couzo after Daniel, Ostashev, BuddenPing, Fang, Ellsworth, Levy · 2026-10-14 · n = 154, 211, 241
Exact rational certificates at 154, 211 and 241 from Couzo
Claim and records
- Claim
- Three complete rational source certificates report finite upper-bound improvements at the exact sides they state: , and .
The same release states , , and , beyond the case corpus; the source register tracks those as beyond-horizon rows.
All 42 retained jobs of the packet, its fourteen certificates with their duplicate-square and outside-container controls, were decided again here on 14 and 15 October 2026 by both maintained exact routes and equal their retained rows. A third exact route, half-extent containment and exact intersection area, decided the three certificates this entry cites with six controls each and held each retained file to its upstream bytes, fetched at the pin. No route here is the source's code; the author's runs of this repository's sqpack verifier are his and decide nothing here, so the replay is independently re-implemented. The 14 October review found no blocking defect.
The author reports that every certificate of issues 583 and 586 passes this repository's sqpack verify.py and Daniel's verify_cert.py, at the revisions the issue names, in exact rational arithmetic; that 154, 211, 241, 302 and 381 are exact optima from Daniel's exact contact solver; and that 339, 379, 380 and 382 are rational witnesses of their decimal packings with centres dilated by 1 + 1e-11 at 339 and 1 + 1e-12 at the others. Issue 586 updates issue 583 at 154, 339, 379, 380 and 382 and tightens the certificates of the 211 and 241 arrangements, which the record lists as regularizations of issue 583's (T-181). Those statements are the author's; no source program ran here.
Credit Couzo (https://github.com/franciscouzo/square-packing), with the packings each started from, as the author asks: Daniel's 154 arrangement of issue 552, itself descended from the author's earlier 155 with one square removed, continued through the author's browser refinement, native basin hopping and exact finishing; Ostashev's 211 and 241 arrangements of issue 575, continued with native search and refinement.
Beyond the case corpus, 339 and 379 continue the author's L-border constructions of issue 506 (339 last through the browser's fq search, 379 through native SLP refinement), and 380 and 382 continue Fang's published arrangements (TheSnakeFang/squarepack-certs) through browser and native searches. Daniel's optimizer, exact contact solver and verifier, Ellsworth's search and refinement ideas, and this project's sqpack verifier were used.
The author states that OpenAI Codex assisted the search implementation, the verification orchestration and the requests, that earlier search work used Claude Code, and that he directed the work.
Measured pose by pose by that review, the 211 and 241 are issue 583's packings (T-181), no square moved beyond 1e-05, and the 154 moves issue 583's design well beyond a refinement, 19 squares beyond a tenth. On 15 October 2026 the case records adopted this entry as the house at 154, 211 and 241, each case's reported and verified upper bounds moving together and the earlier houses kept as history, Daniel's at 154 (T-160), Ostashev's at 211 (T-149) and Daniel's exact optimum of Couzo's packing at 241 (T-098), with T-172, T-175 and T-181 verified and not selected; private-worker custody was closed in the same change (packing/devtools/house-custody-2026-10-11.json).
Polkovskyi's issue 593 states the same poses at 211 and 241 and asks to be recorded jointly; the owner decides that credit (RQ-1). - Significance
- Continuations at and 241 and a further arrangement at 154, 1.02e-03 to 2.78e-03 below the case ceilings, as T-158 is; no lower bound or optimum.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
T-188 V3 C3 Couzo after Ostashev, Daniel, Levy · 2026-10-15 · n = 211
A tighter exact certificate for 211 squares from Couzo, of Ostashev's arrangement
Claim and records
- Claim
- One complete rational source certificate reports a finite upper-bound improvement at the exact side it states: .
All three retained jobs, the certificate with its duplicate-square and outside-container controls, were decided again here on 16 October 2026 by both maintained exact routes and equal their retained rows, and the frozen comparison rebuilt equal. One maintained route is the verifier the source reports running; the independent rational corner checker is independently re-implemented, and the replay rests on it. The 16 October review found no blocking defect.
The author published it in square-packing on 14 October 2026, "Land verified bounds through n=1024", with no issue. Its metadata (certificates/n211.json at the pin) calls the certificate an exact optimum, found by the author's hop search (job 97342) from his own 211 and seeded from Ostashev's certificate, which it links to issue 501 but whose side it states, 14.99369418658324..., is that of Ostashev's issue-575 certificate (T-175).
Its README lists it as best known, "seeded from Ostashev". The author reports that this repository's sqpack verify.py and Daniel's verify_cert.py accept his certificates in exact rational arithmetic. Those statements are the author's; no source program ran here.
Credit Couzo (https://github.com/franciscouzo/square-packing) with this further arrangement at 211 of Ostashev's issue-575 design (T-175), continuing it as the author's own issue-583 and issue-586 certificates did (T-181, T-182); measured pose by pose by the 16 October review, five squares move beyond a tenth against T-182 and five against T-175, so it is another arrangement of that design, not a refinement in the record's sense (RT-1); the author's README and metadata keep Ostashev's construction credit.
Daniel's optimizer, contact solver and verifier and this repository's exact verifier were used. The pinned files state nothing about AI assistance; the author's issues 583 and 586 of 13 October and 607 of 14 October state that he used OpenAI Codex for the search and verification orchestration, that earlier search work used Claude Code, and that he directed the work. - Significance
- A further arrangement of Ostashev's design at , 9.29e-06 below the case ceiling, five squares moved beyond a tenth: more than the exact re-solves of T-168 and T-169, less than T-172's step; no lower bound or optimum.
- Novelty
- previously-published Present in an identified source
- Records
upper: replayed here; lower: external proof (read here), audited here
formal lower differs from report
not rigid, numerically checked, numerical multiprecision
Evidence: E-translation-escape-not-rigid
Scope
Square 0 of the retained witness (witness id 1) translates 0.004184 along (0, 1) with the packing still valid, so the configuration admits a non-trivial feasible motion; 84 of its 211 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.
Regularized by the Squares Project with Daniel's regularizer (evand/square-packing, MIT), with the project's modifications: same-side exact re-solve (devtools.regularize_same_side). A drawing of T-188's packing at the witness's own side: a pure regularization, which proves no new bound, so not a result.
- Priority: Earlier house 14.997960704967361565181004478378 from [evand exact optima 2026-10-05], the case’s ceiling until 11 October 2026; its certificate and replay remain retained. (de Winter, Daniel)
- Priority: Earlier house 14.9963367213363157 from [Ostashev records 2026-10-11], the case’s ceiling from 11 October 2026 until 15 October 2026; its certificate and replay remain retained. (Ostashev)
- Priority: Earlier house 14.9935589139740062 from [Couzo certificates 2026-10-13], the case’s ceiling from 15 October 2026 until 16 October 2026; its certificate and replay remain retained. (Ostashev, Couzo)
25 evidence entries
E-evand-exact-optima-2026-10-05-report, E-evand-exact-optima-2026-10-05-exact-replay, E-evand-exact-optima-2026-10-05-source-replay, E-n211-de-winter-report, E-n211-de-winter-exact-replay, E-n211-de-winter-interval-replay, E-kingbird-grid-completeness, E-nagamochi-lower, E-basic-grid-upper, E-karakus-strip-lower, E-karakus-strip-measure-interval, E-nagamochi-lemma1-counterexample, E-ostashev-501-certificate-report, E-ostashev-501-exact-feasibility, E-wand125-closed-form-report, E-couzo-583-586-certificate-report, E-couzo-586-exact-feasibility, E-couzo-583-certificate-report, E-couzo-583-exact-feasibility, E-ostashev-575-certificate-report, E-ostashev-575-exact-feasibility, E-pingyou-574-certificate-report, E-pingyou-574-exact-feasibility, E-couzo-487b058-certificate-report, E-couzo-487b058-exact-feasibility
- [evand exact optima 2026-10-05] upper bound report
- [de Winter n211 2026-09-16] upper bound report
- [Kingbird] record catalogue
- [Nagamochi 2005] lower bound proof
- [Friedman DS7] survey
- [Karakuş 2026] lower bound proof
- [Ostashev records 2026-10-11] upper bound report
- [wand125 closed form 2026-10-14] lower bound proof
- [Couzo certificates 2026-10-13] upper bound report
- [Couzo verified bounds 2026-10-14] upper bound report
— open
Hosono’s closed form, 14 October 2026. Hosono’s closed form (wand125, 13 October 2026, T-180) states for every non-square , from a measure of line segments on 34 intervals of the fractional part. At , and interval 28 give , so the reported lower bound here is now , rounded down, above Nagamochi’s closed form, . The source replayed its certificate with its own checker; no record of it has been replayed here, so the verified lower bound is unchanged. The source states that its search, certificates, checkers and text were produced with AI assistance (Claude and Codex), under the direction of and reviewed by Hosono.
House adoption, 16 October 2026. Couzo’s further arrangement of Ostashev’s n = 211 design (T-188) is now this case’s house: its exact certificate proves , the reported and the verified upper bound, rounded outward from its exact side. The exact certificate side improves the previous verified exact side by about . The earlier ceiling, displayed outward as from Ostashev’s packing, improved by Couzo (T-182), applied until this adoption and stays retained as history (the certificate).
House adoption, 15 October 2026. Couzo’s continuation of Ostashev’s n = 211 packing (T-182) was this case’s house until 16 October 2026: its exact certificate proves , the reported and the verified upper bound, below the ceiling the case held until then, from Ostashev’s packing (T-149), which stays retained as history (the certificate).
House adoption, 11 October 2026. Ostashev’s packing (T-149) was this case’s house until 15 October 2026: its exact certificate proves , the reported and the verified upper bound, below the ceiling the case held until then, from de Winter’s packing, improved by Daniel (T-098), which stays retained as history (the certificate).
Open. Previously, the best known published packing, de Winter’s at Daniel’s exact optimum (T-098), gives , and the strongest lower bound independently verified here is from Karakuş’s general theorem, leaving a gap of . General bound: s(N) >= 1/2 + sqrt(N - floor(sqrt(N)) + 1/4).
The exact optimum
Daniel’s
square-packing published
on 5 October 2026 an exact rational certificate of this packing at its exact optimum
(T-098): the same 211 squares in a square of side ,
below the side de Winter prints.
Square for square, its pose lies within of the binary64 pose the atlas
pictures for this count.
The known-best witness this record lists is that binary64 pose, posed at its finder’s
larger side; the side above is witnessed by the certificate itself.
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, each square a rational centre and a rational .
This repository decides the certificate exactly.
Converted without rounding, every pair and every wall is decided over
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 , the verified upper bound until 11
October 2026; it says nothing about optimality.
The source reports the exact point as a certified bound only: its numerical checks do
not show it to be a local minimum of the side.
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
de Winter’s
square-packing-211
reports 211 unit squares in a square of side , dated 16
September 2026 (T-057): the first packing on record that beats the grid.
Its record names a previous side of and describes its method
as “Full-packing adaptive search followed by grouped-angle local refinement and
interval-verified decimal export.”
It reports an outward interval check at 80 digits but publishes no boxes or checker, and
it says nothing about AI assistance.
With the catalogue’s packings at , found by Arslanov, Mustafin and
Shangitbayev in 2019, it shows for as well as ,
and . The records at () still hold the
grid, so on the catalogue and this record the smallest shown to satisfy it moves
from 16 to 15.
This repository certifies it exactly. The retained decimal pose rounds to an exact rational packing at centre dilation 1, of side , no larger than the printed side, and every pair and every wall is decided over twice, by the promotion’s exact separating-axis test and by an independent checker that shares no code with it (receipt). That proves , which was the verified upper bound until Daniel’s exact optimum above replaced it; it says nothing about optimality. Interval arithmetic on the printed pose itself, with each angle’s true cosine and sine and no rational rounding, decides every pair and wall again and gives the same bound (interval route).
The previous best known packing
Before this intake the best known packing was the trivial grid: the Kingbird catalogue as retained here does not picture , and its live page of 29 September 2026 still does not.
The lower bound
The strongest lower bound independently verified in this record is Karakuş’s general bound, which applies to every nonsquare :
Correction, 2 October 2026. Until that date the verified lower bound here was Nagamochi’s general closed form, , which is stronger at this 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-couzo-487b058-exact-feasibility |
replayed here | independent | V-sqpack-verify, V-check-rational-witness-independent (first-party); V-evand-arrangement-receipts, V-upper-bound-reports, V-evand-exact-certificates (first-party, premises) |
Daniil Ostashev’s certificate (T-149)
Ostashev’s packing, reported on jlevy/squares#501, at an exact rational side, displayed upward as (T-149). The certificate gives a rational side and, for each of the 211 unit squares, a rational centre and the tangent of its half-angle; the retained packet holds it with the complete native jobs that decided it.
Both maintained exact routes decided it here, sqpack’s exact separating-axis verifier
and the independent rational corner checker, with its duplicate-square and
outside-container controls, and a third exact route, half-extent containment and exact
intersection area, decided it again.
No route here is the source’s code, so the replay is independently re-implemented.
The
review of 11 October 2026
accepted the replay for finite feasibility.
That proves , the verified upper bound until 15 October
2026: confirmed, independently re-implemented.
It says nothing about optimality, rigidity or a local minimum.
The source states nothing about AI assistance.
The house it replaces, from de Winter’s packing, improved by Daniel (T-098), stays retained with its own replay as history.
Francisco Couzo’s certificate (T-182)
Couzo’s continuation of Ostashev’s n = 211 packing, reported on jlevy/squares#586, at exact side , displayed upward as (T-182). The certificate gives a rational side and, for each of the 211 unit squares, a rational centre and the tangent of its half-angle; the retained packet holds it with the complete native jobs that decided it.
Both maintained exact routes decided it here, sqpack’s exact separating-axis verifier
and the independent rational corner checker, with its duplicate-square and
outside-container controls, and a third exact route, half-extent containment and exact
intersection area, decided it again.
One maintained route is the verifier the source ran; the independent rational corner
checker and the third route are independently re-implemented.
The
review of 14 October 2026
accepted the replay for finite feasibility.
That proves , the verified upper bound until 16 October
2026: confirmed, independently re-implemented.
It says nothing about optimality, rigidity or a local minimum.
The certificate is Couzo’s tightening of the packing T-181 records, measured here pose by pose as that packing (T-182’s regularizations), so the packing keeps its finder’s credit and Couzo is credited with the certificate.
The author says OpenAI Codex assisted the search implementation, the verification orchestration and the requests, that earlier search work used Claude Code, and that he directed the work.
The house it replaces, from Ostashev’s packing (T-149), stays retained with its own replay as history. The other certificates confirmed here at this count, T-181 at , T-175 at and T-174 at , stay verified and are not selected.
Francisco Couzo’s certificate (T-188)
Couzo’s further arrangement of Ostashev’s n = 211 design, reported in his repository on 14 October 2026, with no issue, at exact side , displayed upward as (T-188). The certificate gives a rational side and, for each of the 211 unit squares, a rational centre and the tangent of its half-angle; the retained packet holds it with the complete native jobs that decided it.
Both maintained exact routes decided it here, sqpack’s exact separating-axis verifier
and the independent rational corner checker, with its duplicate-square and
outside-container controls, and a third exact route, half-extent containment and exact
intersection area, decided it again.
One maintained route is the verifier the source ran; the independent rational corner
checker and the third route are independently re-implemented.
The
review of 16 October 2026
accepted the replay for finite feasibility.
That proves , the verified upper bound: confirmed,
independently re-implemented.
It says nothing about optimality, rigidity or a local minimum.
The commit makes no statement about AI assistance; the author’s issues of 13 and 14 October say OpenAI Codex assisted the search and verification orchestration, that earlier search work used Claude Code, and that he directed the work.
The certificate’s metadata seeds the author’s search from Ostashev’s certificate, whose digest is that of issue 575’s, though it labels it issue 501. Measured here pose by pose, it continues Ostashev’s issue-575 arrangement as the author’s issue-583 and issue-586 certificates did, five squares moving beyond a tenth against each: another arrangement of that design (T-188).
The house it replaces, from Ostashev’s packing, improved by Couzo (T-182), stays retained with its own replay as history. The other certificates confirmed here at this count, T-181 at , T-175 at , T-174 at and T-149 at , stay verified and are not selected.